Say Her Name

by Stefani Deoul

  Imani, staring at me, snorts, “Oh please. We all know you are the worst liar ever. And with all our years and all our BS I never for a moment thought you would lie. To me.”

  Imani stands up, grabs her tray.

  “Make some decisions, Sid. And then own them.”

  I don’t know how long I stayed in the cafeteria. I do know it is Jean who comes and gets me. My guess is Jimmy sent him. It’s a very Jimmy move. He won’t come because he has to be loyal to Imani, or maybe just because he’s angry too, or disappointed or whatever, but even if he is, he won’t just leave me. I suppose it should make me feel good, but right now, it makes me hurt even more.

  With Jean’s prodding I make it out of school and set about walking aimlessly for a while. I think about going to my refuge on the High Line, but somehow I can’t. I feel like it would, I don’t know, contaminate it or something, I even think about calling Ze, but ze’s still in China, and I’m not sure what I would say. So finally, with nowhere else really to go, I turn for home.

  I’ll never know if Tsarnowsky was concerned about my visit so he called her, or if Jean called and told her about school, or if she just knew because somehow it seems she always does, but I open the door and Mama is right there, just waiting for me.

  As my eyes meet hers, mine fill with tears. I feel them overflowing their pocket and slowly, insistently sliding down my face. The ones I tried to desperately blink back are instead draining through the tear ducts emptying into my nose. My jaw shifts left, my nose runs, and then I’m lost to my grief.

  I race into her arms and sob like I haven’t since I was little. And all of it—Ava, Imani, the body—comes blubbering out of me, a snot-infested, eye-bloating hot mess of a meltdown.

  Afterward, when I can stop crying long enough to breathe, we head upstairs and snuggle on top of my bed, the afternoon light already fading, my head on her shoulder. Her arms wrap around me, and she begins very quietly, soothingly, talking.

  “You know how your father doesn’t really speak French? Yes, he likes to pretend he does, and sometimes, maybe I think he even thinks he does, but he does not. But when I came here to New York City with him, I had to learn English, real English, not just Frenglish.”

  I admit. I do open my swollen eye at that, which Mama catches and answers with a smile and a small laugh.

  “Oui, sometimes I still struggle with a word or an idiom, and we all have a laugh. But your father, you see, he didn’t have to learn French. It was not an imperative, not obligatoire. And these two things are very different.”

  Mama suddenly stops talking and I turn toward her. I know that look. It’s the one that says this is going to hurt, but it must be done. Echoes of her dropping to one knee and looking the four-year-old me in the eyes. We must pull the band-aid now, oui?

  “I am saying this to you, Sidonie, because in one sense I understand why Ava wants from you all she does. And I applaud her for that.”

  I feel the tears escape, seeping from my eyes and rolling down my cheek, but I don’t move to wipe them away. Mama can see them too, but she too doesn’t move to wipe them away. She just continues talking quietly, purposefully.

  “But there is a danger here, too. Sometimes somebody can want from you so much that you forget who you are. And if you forget who you are, then you can no longer possibly be the person they said they loved. No?”

  And she leans down, kissing my forehead. My body still shakes as I quietly sob.

  “Ah Sidonie, si tu te sens si mal dans ta peau, tu dois d’abord te demander à qui elle appartient cette peau. If you feel so uncomfortable in your skin, then you must start by questioning yourself about who this skin belongs to. You must always live in your skin, not someone else’s.”

  After that she holds me, cradling me through the big tears until I finally exhaust myself and drift off to sleep. When I wake up, I’m alone with a blanket draped over me. I feel like I have been run over by a truck. I’m cried out, and everything hurts. Rolling over to look out my window, it’s dark, but I have no idea what time it is.

  I realize I never did tell Ava I couldn’t make it there today. I roll back over, reaching for my phone, and oddly I find I am not surprised there’s nothing. No text. No email. No chat of the snap. Nothing. Nothing that says maybe somehow something could have happened to me and she cares. Nothing.

  I deserve something.

  There’s also no Imani, no Jimmy, no Vik, and no Ari.

  I roll back over and fall back into a restless, disturbed sleep.

  THIRTEEN

  It’s nearly ten o’clock on a school day, and I might have kept on drooling into my pillow were I not woken up by a ping. Nope. Sadly, it’s not from one of the usual suspects, neither old nor new. And I double-check quickly, but not one of them has peeped all night. This ping is Tsarnowsky. He will meet me at the Medical Examiner’s Office at four, and introduce me to the forensic anthropologist who currently has the case.

  A part of me knows he has done this because he feels so bad about my appearance yesterday, which should leave me mortified, but today I don’t care. Today, I am grateful.

  I take a deep breath, compose a quick note, and send the information to everyone. I don’t wait to see if anyone answers as the choice is now each of theirs to make.

  I take a shower, let the water wash the night away, get dressed, and head to find Mom in the kitchen. I give her a kiss and say thanks.

  “I love you, Sidonie. Vous êtes mon coeur. You are my heart.”

  “Je t’aime aussi, Maman. I love you too.”

  And with that I head out to school. I might be late, but I am going. I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do about Ava, but I have decided I am going to do nothing right now. I’m angrier today than hurt. What if I wasn’t there because I had been in some kind of accident and was hurt?

  I get there in time for third period and pass the gang in hallways, and classrooms, but no one is saying anything. Not that I expect them to. I can’t. It was hard enough for me to send the text. I can’t. Well, I just can’t.

  At the last bell Vik comes up, still not saying anything, but begins walking alongside me. I grab the already pushed open front door from the person in front of us, and we exit, nearly to the moment I see Jimmy and Ari come through the other set of double doors, followed by Imani.

  We’re all still not talking, but we are walking. Heading to East Twenty-Sixth, home of the New York City Medical Examiner’s Office, and we’re all together, and that’s something.

  As we round the corner, my heart leaps. Standing outside waiting is Joe. And I look around, but he shakes his head, “no.”

  I don’t actually know I’m standing here frozen and everyone else is several steps ahead until Imani turns, looks at me, and comes back to grab my hand. She isn’t speaking, but I don’t care. Right now, her hand is a lifeline, a promise that if I hold on, I can find my way back.

  And hand in hand we make our way to the front, eschewing the revolving door in favor of the automatic glass doors, leaving behind the grit and grime of New York for the sterile, open, purified-air lobby of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. Goodbye exhaust fumes, hello lab antiseptic.

  The lobby desk is set way back, and as we begin to cross there’s Tsarno and Yvonne, leaning against a far wall, chatting away. I look at her slightly slouched down, using the wall for a backstop, and remember anew how strikingly tall she is.

  As we all get signed in and visitor name tagged they approach, and we follow them around the corner to a standard generic conference room.

  “Okay,” Yvonne waits while we all grab seats, smiles at us.

  I sit on the far side, with Joe one chair closer to Yvonne and Ari behind me, Vik behind Ari. Imani is across from Joe, Jimmy across from me. Tsarno goes to the far end of the long oval table, an island unto himself.

  Yvonne doesn’t pull up a chair, choosing to stand at the head of the table.

  “You obviously have both persistence and,” she glances down to
ward Tsarnowsky, who grunts, “very loyal friends. We don’t normally discuss an investigation with, well, just about anyone. So, it says a lot about the people you are.”

  Just as she’s finishing that thought, the door opens and a short-haired woman, just tall enough not to be stocky, but, as the slightly tight arms of her navy suit show, is rather really built, rushes in. The gold hoop earrings she’s wearing seem at odds with the rest of her, particularly the small, but not matching, piercing in her nose.

  “And right on cue.” Yvonne motions to the newcomer.

  “Sorry if I’m late.” Her apology is aimed at Yvonne. Then, her annoyance is like a bullet straight at Tsarnowsky. “I assumed we were using the conference room right below my office. You know, the one on First and Thirtieth, as opposed to one, oh, blocks away.”

  “So,” Yvonne interrupts this would-be stare-down, “this would be my colleague, Dr. Lena Lolita Renata de la Cortez. And she is the forensic anthropologist working this case.”

  Joe has taken a seat to my left, and because Yvonne is distracted her head turns away from us while she makes the introductions, and he can’t see. I feel the small nudge.

  I attempt to surreptitiously, and quickly, spell Dr. Cortez’ name. I fail. By the time I get through Lena Lolita, I have forgotten the rest. I do at least think to spell her title, because I have zero idea what sign that would be.

  Dr. de la Cortez however, gives a small acknowledgement to us, waving a folder she is carrying, while she steps up to the table. She does not take a seat, but looks around, setting the folder down in front of her, and then patiently waits for me to finish. Which would be very gracious if the quiet pause in action didn’t make my fingers feel even fatter. Finished or not, I nod, and she begins.

  “Thanks, Vonnie. And so we keep it simple; my friends call me Lolo. Now from what I understand you are interested in the bodies from Central Park.”

  As she speaks, I immediately deduce two things. She is from the Bronx, and Latinx. Bronx accents, even mixed with Hispanic underpinnings, are very specific. I’d guess Dominican, but that’s just a guess. I would need to ask to verify. Of course, I really need to ask to verify any of it, duh, particularly given my current state of deductionitis. I could be totally wrong. I don’t think I am, but it could happen.

  And because she had no idea I’m experiencing internal natters, Lolo is forging right ahead.

  And focusing.

  “I think you know there were eight bodies found. Sadly, they were not preserved in any specific manner. So, when human remains or a suspected burial ground are found, I attempt to gather information from, of course, the bones. But I also get information from their recovery and excavation, all so I can try to determine . . .” Lolo raises her left hand and ticks off, thumb first, “. . . who died, how they died, and how long ago they died.”

  Here Lolo stops and looks around as if she is gauging our interest. Suffice it to say it’s high.

  “I come to a scene in an attempt to read it, to look for small pieces of evidence in a skeleton the way you might read a friend’s text. Did they really mean that? Why didn’t they use a happy face? Are they mad?”

  She laughs and watches as we all knowingly shift but make no eye contact with each other.

  “But our biggest asset, as you probably know is, well,” Lolo gestures up and down her body, an accentuation to her thinking, “bones are us. Let me give you an example. Teeth. The stages of growth and development in teeth can let us know if the remains represent a child or adult. Another example is the shape of pelvic bones which can tell us with not perfect, but pretty good, accuracy the sex of the person.”

  A buzzer goes off at the table, interrupting Lolo’s lesson. Tsarno hefts himself up, casting an apologetic glance, and heads for the hallway. I realize Vonnie isn’t in the room anymore either. I was so busy hanging on Lolo’s every word I have no idea when she exited.

  “Now,” as the door closes behind him, Lolo continues. “In some cases, we can tell by the shape, or the size, or the density of bones if there might have been disease or trauma. If we find what’s called a perimortem injury, which would be bone damage that occurred at or near the time of death, without any evidence of healing, such as an unhealed fracture or a bullet hole, it can reveal, or at least suggest, a cause of death.”

  Once again we pause for an unsaid ‘is everybody with me?’ Once again, we all are.

  “So, armed with that understanding, let’s get to our eight bodies.” Lolo grabs a chair and pulls it around so she is now sitting at the head of the table with the chair-back facing us. She glances inside the folder she had brought in earlier and placed on the table. Then, with the contents flat, she toys with the upper flap, obviously thinking. Her decision reached, she lets the flap drop and quietly pushes the folder to her left.

  “These are tricky. I can tell you we have five females and three males. That they have numerous unhealed broken bones, indicating the bodies were badly beaten. Most likely they were then thrown into this pit, and then someone covered them with a burlap-type sack and doused them with lye. We also know from various markings on the bones that at one point they were all shackled together.”

  Whoa. Cue gasp followed by a collective cringe. Shackled. The air is forced out of me as a chill races up my spine. I know because I feel it, that with that one word we all froze, joined together in one large icy, biting, synesthesia event.

  Lolo eyes everyone, but continues, matter-of-factly going through her report to us.

  “Whoever did this most likely didn’t know the soil in that section of the Park is highly acidic. And that kind of acidity in the soil, over time, will render most remains unusable for purposes of DNA testing. So the lye, because it was on top, ironically did less damage here than plain old Mother Nature.”

  And even though we all asked for this, hearing it, listening to it, is still incredibly hard.

  “So,” Lolo takes a deep breath, “our bad news is, even after cleaning the bones that are left, because unfortunately not all of the skeletons are intact, and after Dremeling,” Lolo catches her tech talk and backtracks. “A Dremel is a type of rotary drill we use to get down to any marrow we can find. So first we clean the bones, and then we Dremel. Here, we went after anything that looked even remotely possible, and seven of our bodies aren’t going to give us anything more than maybe some mitochondrial DNA.”

  We must look as crestfallen as I feel, because Lolo smiles maybe just a bit teasingly.

  “However, don’t give up hope. We still have our eighth body.” Lolo’s smile disappears, her tone turning more serious. “Before we go there, I do want to take a minute and give each person their due as best I can. They deserve that and more. They are eight bodies with definite African ancestry. This we know from an analysis of their skulls. For example, a skull from Africa would have eye sockets that are more rectangular in shape than those of a European or an Asian. And that’s just one illustration of the measurements we explore in reaching these conclusions.”

  “Let’s start with our three men. They were all adults. I would estimate all three of their ages to be anywhere between thirty and forty. Our five women, however, varied a lot more. In our first woman, the bones are thick, indicating a lot of ossification. So I am, for this moment, estimating woman one to be at least sixty-five, maybe even significantly older. Woman two I would make slightly younger, about fifty. The next two women I am thinking fall into that thirty to forty range. This takes care of seven of our eight.”

  This time the pause is long. Lolo sits and looks at each of us, her arms propped on the back of her chair, hands clasped at their top, her covered mouth leaning into them. It’s as though she is weighing something heavy. She drops her hands back down, leans away, but doesn’t get up.

  “As I said, if we are going to learn much more than that, it will come from our eighth body. What do we know about her? Not too much yet. We know she is a teenager. She’s probably just about your age. Maybe a year or two younger. And we k
now she had the lead shackle, and . . .” for the first time, emotion plays on Lolo’s face, her voice breaking slightly, “. . . it was around her neck.”

  I hear myself gasp. I hear Imani’s sob. Lolo pauses for a moment, for us, for herself, and for this young girl, and when she resumes her voice is a bit quieter, gentler.

  “We don’t know why the rest were removed and hers was not. I can speculate they wanted the length of chain, that it had value, but I can’t really tell you. But,” Lolo’s voice rises back up, “because of this one neck shackle, we have DNA. Because the metal of that shackle, where the iron laid against her skin, protected her neck bones from the elements, and therefore . . .” Here Lolo pauses and smiles at each one of us. When she continues, her voice is triumphant, “. . . her story is not finished.”

  FOURTEEN

  And that’s pretty much it. We thank Lolo for her time. Yvonne reappears, tells us Detective Tsarnowsky has been called away, and ushers us out of the building.

  We exit to a dark, frigid, almost night, but we all stand shivering in it for another moment. Somber. Reflective. Pained. Yeah, mostly pained. A few weeks ago, we would have just gone to Platitudes, ordered fries, and took comfort from each other. But tonight I am too fragile to bring it up, and no one else does either.

  Instead, we all start walking for the closest subway, Vik peeling off first. Ari and Imani should be next, but Imani stays with Jimmy as Ari ducks down alone.

  I feel a tap on my arm. As I turn, I see Joe, moving his closed hands one over the other, the top one in a circular motion, like an old-fashioned grinder. “Coffee?”

  Every inch of me wants to cup my hands over my ears and shake my head no, but I don’t. Instead I meet his eyes, nod yes, calling out to Imani and Jimmy who are now nearly half a block ahead, “Hey ’Mani, Jimmy, I’m gonna go grab a coffee with Joe.”