Chương 4
The officers waited outside.
Vanessa stood first.
She left without speaking to David.
He watched her go.
Then he finally approached Noah’s coffin.
Megan noticed because the room became quiet again.
David walked slowly.
At the altar he stopped six feet away.
No closer.
His shoulders rose with one deep breath.
Then another.
Megan expected something from herself.
Satisfaction.
Rage.
Vindication.
Instead she saw her brother at fourteen years old teaching her how to ride a bike without training wheels in their parents’ driveway.
She saw him running behind her, one hand gripping the back of the seat.
Don’t look at me, Meg. Look where you’re going.
She had trusted him enough to pedal.
The memory arrived so suddenly she resented Noah’s funeral for containing it.
David took another step.
His face collapsed.
Not theatrically.
His chin trembled once.
He covered his mouth.
Megan looked away.
She did not want his grief.
That was one of the ugliest truths she had discovered in the past week.
She wanted him to suffer, but she did not want him to share Noah.
She wanted every memory revoked.
Every birthday.
Every Christmas.
Every afternoon at the park.
She wanted to go backward through time and remove David from family photographs until he had never been an uncle at all.
The thought embarrassed her.
It also did not leave.
After everyone was gone except family and police, Detective Elena Morales came inside.
She was shorter than Megan remembered from the hospital and wore a navy blazer over a white blouse. Her dark hair was pulled into a low ponytail. She had spoken to Megan three times since Noah died and never once told her to calm down.
That alone had made Megan trust her more than she wanted to.
Morales glanced at David.
“We need to talk.”
David straightened.
“I want an attorney.”
“That’s your right.”
“So I’m being detained?”
“No.”
“Then I’m leaving.”
“You can.”
David hesitated.
He had expected resistance.
Morales did not offer any.
She looked at Vanessa through the open church doors.
“We’ll speak with Ms. Reed separately.”
David’s expression shifted.
“About what?”
Morales did not answer.
David turned toward Vanessa.
Vanessa had stopped beside her suitcase on the church steps.
She was staring at him.
The tropical dress that had seemed offensively bright half an hour earlier now made her look exposed.
David walked outside.
Megan watched through the doorway.
He said something to Vanessa.
She shook her head.
He moved closer.
Vanessa stepped away.
David looked toward the officers and lowered his voice.
Vanessa answered louder.
“I said no.”
Megan could not hear what came next.
Vanessa picked up her handbag and walked toward Detective Morales.
David stood alone.
For the first time in Megan’s life, her brother looked like a man no one was waiting to follow.
The burial happened without him.
He left before the hearse pulled away.
Nobody knew whether he went home or to an attorney’s office.
Megan did not ask.
At the cemetery, the wind kept turning the folded corners of the programs.
A funeral-home employee placed a small weight on Megan’s copy.
She stared at it.
It was shaped like a smooth black stone.
Something about its bland practicality offended her.
She almost threw it into the grass.
Instead she put her thumb on top to hold it down.
Her mother sat beside her.
Rachel stood behind them.
Vanessa did not come.
Pastor James spoke.
Megan heard perhaps one sentence in six.
A riding mower droned somewhere beyond the cemetery fence.
Traffic moved on the road.
A dog barked.
People were buying groceries.
People were arguing over parking spaces.
People were probably forgetting to answer emails.
The world’s refusal to notice Noah’s absence felt obscene.
Then a mosquito landed on Megan’s wrist.
She stared at it.
The tiny body bent.
Its legs rested on her skin.
She slapped it automatically.
The absurd normality of the action made her laugh.
Her mother looked at her.
Megan covered her mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
Her mother started laughing too.
It was quiet and terrible.
Rachel joined them without understanding why.
Three women laughed beside an eight-year-old’s grave until the laughter broke into crying.
No one asked them to stop.
Three days later, Detective Morales called Megan while she was standing in the cereal aisle of a grocery store.
Megan had gone because the refrigerator contained mustard, half a lemon, and a carton of milk that had expired two days before Noah died.
She had not intended to buy cereal.
Then she saw Cocoa Pebbles.
Noah loved them.
Megan hated them because they turned the milk brown and somehow found their way under every cushion in the apartment.
She stood looking at the box until an employee pushing a pallet asked whether she needed help.
“No,” Megan said.
Her phone rang.
Morales asked if she could come to the station.
“Did he confess?”
“No.”
Megan closed her eyes.
“Did Vanessa?”
“There’s something I’d like to show you.”
“That means no.”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Megan looked at the cereal.
“What did you find?”
“I’d rather explain it in person.”
“Is it worse?”
Morales was silent half a second too long.
Megan put the Cocoa Pebbles in her cart.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
At the station, Morales took her to an interview room with a gray table and chairs that were more comfortable than expected.
Megan noticed because she had imagined police stations incorrectly her entire life.
No bare bulb.
No mirrored wall she could identify.
There was a box of tissues, a bottle of water, and a thermostat somebody had set too low.
Morales sat across from her.
Another detective, Alan Price, joined them.
He was older, thick through the middle, with tired eyes and a wedding ring he rotated while listening.
Morales placed a printed timeline on the table.
“We recovered additional video from the garage.”
Megan’s stomach tightened.
“Of Noah?”
“Some.”
“Show me.”
May you like
Morales did not move.
“Megan, before we do, I want to explain what it does and doesn’t establish.”
