Chương 5
“Okay,” she said.
Another silence.
“Are you mad at me?” Lily asked.
“No.”
“You sound mad.”
“I’m trying not to sound scared.”
Ryan made a small movement near the phone.
Lily said, “Everyone saw him fall.”
“Yes.”
“Warren said you could’ve killed him.”
“Warren was wrong.”
“Could you?”
Dana looked at her hands.
“Yes,” she said. “People can be badly hurt in a fight. That is why I stopped as soon as he stopped.”
Lily did not answer.
“I’m sorry you saw it,” Dana said.
“You told him to stay flat.”
“Yes.”
“You sounded like Afghanistan.”
Dana felt the room narrow.
She had not known Lily remembered that voice. She had used it once during a storm when a transformer exploded behind their old apartment and Ryan panicked. Once when Lily ran into a parking lot at four. Once in a nightmare, perhaps, before waking fully.
“What does Afghanistan sound like?” Dana asked.
“You.”
The call ended a minute later.
Dana remained at the table until the refrigerator motor shut off and the kitchen became quiet.
At nine fifteen, her supervisor called.
Marilyn Cho ran transportation and warehouse operations for the county school district. She spoke quickly, disliked euphemisms, and once replaced a broken copier herself after procurement delayed the request for three months.
“I saw the video,” Marilyn said.
“Which version?”
“That is not a reassuring question.”
“There are several.”
“Did you assault a man?”
“He threatened to break my arm in front of Lily and lunged at me.”
“Is that on video?”
“Partly.”
“Were police involved?”
“Yes.”
“Were you arrested?”
“No.”
“Could you be?”
“Yes.”
Marilyn went silent.
Dana had worked for her six years. They had disagreed about staffing, overtime, snow routes, and whether employees should be allowed to wear earbuds in the warehouse. Marilyn’s silences were never empty. She used them to arrange consequences.
“The superintendent’s office received calls,” she said. “A parent claims you’re responsible for emergency logistics planning and have violent tendencies.”
“I’m responsible for warehouse continuity and disaster supply distribution.”
“I know your job, Dana.”
“Then you know a backyard incident doesn’t affect my ability to do it.”
“I know that a video can affect the district’s ability to defend keeping you in a visible safety role.”
“I’m not visible.”
“You are now.”
Dana pressed her thumb against the edge of the table.
Marilyn continued. “Do not come in Monday. Paid administrative leave until legal reviews it.”
“That will look like guilt.”
“It will look like procedure.”
“It never looks like procedure.”
“I’m not debating social perception at nine twenty on a Saturday night.”
“I have a delivery backlog.”
“Ken will handle it.”
“Ken can’t find the emergency pallet inventory without asking three people.”
“Then maybe this will force him to learn.”
It was the kind of dry remark Marilyn made when everything was ordinary. Hearing it now almost broke Dana.
“Send me the notice in writing,” Dana said.
“I already did.”
“Of course you did.”
“Get a lawyer.”
“I’m not charged.”
“Get one before someone decides you should be.”
After the call, Dana opened her laptop and searched for attorneys. Criminal defense. Civil litigation. Employment law. Family law. Every category seemed to point toward another life she could lose.
At ten, Ryan texted.
Lily is sleeping. I’m keeping her tomorrow night too.
Dana wrote, That is not our schedule.
He replied, Then take me to court.
She turned off the phone.
Sleep came in fragments.
At two seventeen in the morning, Dana woke on the couch with her jaw aching from clenching it. The television displayed a frozen image of Marcus’s face against the grass. Someone had created a split-screen comparison with a movie scene. Beneath it, a commentator laughed.
Dana shut off the television.
In the dark, her home made familiar sounds. Pipes shifted. The air conditioner clicked. A neighbor’s dog barked twice and stopped. She went upstairs and entered Lily’s room.
Glow-in-the-dark stars covered one wall. Half had begun peeling. A science project about pollinator decline occupied the desk beneath the window. Lily had arranged dead batteries beside a handwritten note asking whether they could be used to power a tiny fan.
Dana sat on the edge of the bed.
When Lily was five, she had asked whether soldiers were allowed to be afraid. Dana had answered too quickly.
Of course.
Lily had considered this and asked, Then why do they keep going?
Because other people need them, Dana had said.
It had sounded noble. It had also been incomplete.
Sometimes soldiers kept going because stopping meant feeling everything at once.
On Sunday morning, someone spray-painted KILLER across Dana’s garage door.
The letters were red and uneven. The final R trailed downward because the can had run out or the person had lost courage.
Dana stood in the driveway wearing pajama pants and an old Army T-shirt. She smelled aerosol paint and wet grass.
Across the street, Mr. and Mrs. Pritchard pretended not to watch through their front window.
Dana photographed the damage and called the police nonemergency line.
The dispatcher said an officer would come when available.
She found paint thinner in the garage, then decided not to touch anything until police arrived. She sat on the front step with coffee and watched the word dry.
At nine, Linda from the barbecue walked up the sidewalk carrying two paper cups.
“I didn’t know how you take it,” she said, offering one. “So I brought black and a ridiculous number of packets.”
Dana accepted the cup. “Thank you.”
Linda sat beside her without asking. She wore running clothes but did not appear to have run.
“That’s ugly,” she said, looking at the garage.
“Accurate observation.”
“I’m excellent in a crisis.”
They drank coffee.
A delivery truck slowed as it passed. The driver looked at the garage, then at Dana.
Linda said, “Warren posted a statement.”
May you like
Dana did not ask.
Linda opened her phone anyway. “He says the neighborhood association is deeply troubled by the violence witnessed at a family event and is cooperating with authorities.”
