“Of course he is. He’s developing well.” Dr. Wu was there for all the miscarriages, so she understands my thirst for reassurance and patiently obliges. I’d maybe even consider her a friend if such a relationship was possible with the medical professional who has such intimate knowledge of the inner workings of your vagina.
The doctor rolls closer on her stool; our knees are almost touching. “How are you feeling, Jen? How are you feeling, really?” Her voice is thick with concern.
“I’m tired.”
“Are you sleeping?”
“Not really.”
“And you’ve been more stressed than usual,” Dr. Wu says. More a statement than a question.
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to be honest, but I don’t want you to panic.”
“We just heard his heartbeat.” My skin feels like it’s being stabbed with a thousand tiny needles. “It’s… he’s strong.” Chase is strong.
Dr. Wu grabs my hand. “Yes, he is. I’m more worried about you, Jenny. Your blood pressure is high. Your feet and fingers are swollen. Have you noticed?”
I nod.
“And you know what that means?”
I do. I’ve googled every possible pregnancy symptom to find out what’s good, bad, or meaningless. I’m aware of all the ailments and disasters. “I have preeclampsia.”
“Now, we don’t know that yet. But I’m worried. I’m worried enough that I want to check a few more things. We might need to put you on bed rest for the remainder of the pregnancy. When moms have this condition, babies can come early. And we don’t want that. We want him to get to at least thirty-six weeks, so let’s keep him snug in there until then. Okay?”
“Is it stress? This is caused by stress?” Even asking the question makes my heart beat faster again. It’s a vicious loop, stressing about stress.
“Not exactly. Sometimes it’s genetic. Sometimes it just happens, but stress can be a factor. It can raise the blood pressure and it can sometimes exacerbate other problems.” Dr. Wu goes over and starts riffling through the sleek cabinets. “I’m going to give you a shot of a steroid that will help the baby’s lungs develop faster. Just in case.”
There’s a brown water stain on the ceiling. I zero in on it, trying to decide if it looks more like a palm tree or a pineapple as Dr. Wu pushes the needle into the fleshy part of my upper arm. I’m still pissed at my mom, but I also wish she’d scoot closer to the table and stroke my forehead the way Gigi used to when I was sick. But Lou’s not a toucher, never has been. At least not with me. Dr. Wu must be able to sense my need for human comfort, because, after administering the shot, she runs her own hand lightly over my hair, smoothing it away from my face.
“We’re going to keep monitoring you closely, okay? I’m going to send you down to radiology for an ultrasound. They should be able to get you in within the hour. Is your mom staying with you?”
We both look at Lou, her already pale skin pastier than usual now that she’s been called into action.
“I can stay.”
Dr. Wu nods in approval. “I’m going to let you get dressed. Rita will be back in with the ultrasound order, and you can head down.”
When the doctor opens the door, I spot the beautiful woman from the waiting room walking out of the bathroom in her flimsy paper gown, runny mascara creating black streaks down her face. When we lock eyes, I get the sense that she sees me as the lucky one today.
Lou hands me my clothes. “It’s not fair. All this stress on you while you’re pregnant.”
“Yeah, well, isn’t that what you always told me, Lou? Life isn’t fair?” Lou doesn’t respond as I slip back into my clothes. But it’s true, nothing about this is fair. I’ve done everything right. I read all the books, did all the stupid breathing exercises, took all the vitamins. I’ve worked so hard for this, wanted it so badly. I’ve come this far, and I can’t let it be taken from me. In my mind a slideshow plays out—butternut squash, pineapple, pumpkin, and… then a baby.
“Look, it’s Riley.”
I almost lose my balance and topple over with one leg in my jeans.
“What are you talking about?”
“Your phone just buzzed. Here.” Lou thrusts it in my face, never mind that looking at my phone is none of her business.
There it is, right on the screen: Riley. The last person I’m expecting to hear from. I finish getting dressed before I swipe at the screen with my damp hands.
Hey—I have on my calendar that your appointment is today. Hope everything is okay.
“What? What’d she say?” Lou asks.
“Nothing, come on, let’s go.”
Riley’s message and the fact that she has all of my appointments in her calendar are a surprise. A nice one. Of course, Riley would have come with me today if—if everything was different. So why am I annoyed? “Hope everything is okay”? Well, it’s not. My stress levels are crazy high, and it could hurt my baby, and you’re taking the side of the people who want to lock his daddy up forever.
“Are you okay?” Lou is racing to keep up as I practically jog to the elevators.
“No, Lou, I’m not okay. Did you hear what the doctor said? I might have preeclampsia. It’s dangerous, okay?” I snap at her, my voice carrying down the hall.
The other woman waiting for the elevator looks at me like I’m a crazy person. I know I should be embarrassed. But I’m not, and I don’t feel bad when Lou takes a cowering step backward like a beaten dog.
“What’s that?” I ask, seeing something in Lou’s hand. My mom holds up an ultrasound photo.
“What the hell? Did you steal that from my file?”
Lou grins. “What? I wanted it. It’s not like you’ve ever given me one. It’s my grandson.” She looks down at the picture with such adoration that I’m seized by a fleeting hope. Is it possible, is there a chance that Lou would be a better grandma than she was a mom? I’m angry at myself that I even allow this hope to creep into my heart.
“Give me that.” I hold out my palm, and Lou lays the photo in it. I trace my finger over the dark shadows. Now that I know to look for it, I can just make out his little wee-wee.
Chase.
Chase.
Chase.
A mantra and a prayer.
Chapter Seven RILEY
There’s a boy in that coffin.
Even with Justin’s picture blown up poster-size on an easel behind the casket, it’s almost impossible to believe there’s a child inside, a small body trapped in a wooden box soon to be buried beneath layers and layers of dirt.
Through speaker after speaker, I’ve tried to make sense of that. I look up to meet Justin’s eyes in his photo. This one is less staged than the official school portrait Tamara gave to the media—the one where he looks like he’s trying to be grown and serious and not let a smile crack his lips. In this photo, his hair is longer, a fade turning into an Afro. He looks unguarded, happy, with an adorable goofy grin wide enough to showcase the straw-size gap between his two front teeth. Like the coffin, I can’t bear to look at the picture for long, or the roomful of sorrowful faces. The only other choice is to stare down at my lap. According to the program, the next speaker, now walking to the podium, is the last one. He’s a boy, a little younger than Justin. I recognize him from Tamara’s living room. He climbs the few steps to the raised platform, approaches the podium that stands in front of the coffin. In a shaky voice, he introduces himself as Malik, one of Justin’s cousins.
“He has a lot of cousins, but I’m his favorite.” He giggles nervously at the obviously planned joke, and there’s a scattered titter throughout the room, hundreds of mourners happy to grab on to a moment of lightness.
“I dunno what to say…. So I’m gonna read a poem Justin wrote for English class.” He smooths a piece of paper on the podium with one hand, then the other. His spine grows at least an inch taller as he draws in a breath. His voice wobbles again when he starts to read.
What do you see when you see me?
You could get to know me if you tried
You could see what I’m like inside
I am made of blood, bones, and muscles too.
So how can you say I am less than you?
I have so many dreams, even at my age.
Let me be free, don’t put me in a cage.
Watch what I can do.
I bite the tip of my tongue when Malik breaks down on the final line, written by a boy proudly staking a claim on his future, and who was then so cruelly robbed of it. Watch what I can do. I do look around now at the grief-stricken faces, and my gaze settles on Tamara. Justin’s mother grips a tissue in her clenched fist. Otherwise she focuses straight ahead, tearless, stoic. I know that look. I’ve seen it on Gigi’s face and those of many of the other church ladies, sometimes even my own Momma’s—the look of women who have weathered so many brutal blows, whose scars have hardened into an armor of steely resolve. Now there ain’t no point in crying about it. How many times has Gigi said that to me, after lost races or unrequited crushes? Hasn’t it been the mantra of Black women for generations? What choice do we have except to get on with it already?
I watch Malik return to his seat, furtively wiping at his face, and I have to swallow hard against the wrenching sight. He walks over and practically falls into Tamara’s lap for a hug, leaving a dark spot of tears on her blouse. Wes reaches over and envelops Tamara’s frail frame. The Dwyers are sitting in a long line in the front row, all touching one another, each holding a hand, leaning on a shoulder, wrapped in an arm. It would be nice to have Wes’s strong arm comforting me, or to have a hand to hold. Shaun was supposed to come with me today, but he had a moving gig he couldn’t miss. Pastor Price is the other person I expected to know, and he deferred to the family’s home church minister, who’s presiding over the service.
I remind myself that I’m here to work anyway, and make a few notes in my notepad. The last line of the poem will be the ideal opening shot for tonight’s package. I jot down a cue for the edit room later and start a mental list of other b-roll images that might work. This is easier, being a “reporter” instead of a “mourner.” Focusing on my job helps me to push aside the complicated sorrow. It’s a privilege to be here. Tamara has allowed me access, and I want to be worthy of it. Initially, she’d said she wanted the service to be small and private, and while I’ll go to great lengths for a story, convincing a grieving mother to allow a camera crew into her child’s funeral would have been too far. Then a few days ago, when I called to see if she needed anything—I swear my motivations were pure—she asked me if I thought it would make a difference if people saw the funeral, if she opened it to the public.
“Will they remember him? Just a little longer?” she wanted to know. “All the hashtags and signs and the T-shirts. T-shirts! I appreciate the support, but it’s getting to be so it’s not even about Justin anymore,” Tamara continued. “And the violence, the looting, the fires. He wouldn’t have wanted that.”
Protesters have gathered every single night on the art museum steps, and there was another spontaneous march down Broad Street this morning in honor of the funeral. It all remained peaceful this time, but the demands for accountability on the part of the police are mounting, along with the tensions. She’s right—it feels so much bigger than Justin now.
“Maybe getting to be a part of his funeral will help people heal. Maybe it will help to refocus on Justin.”
“Yes. It feels to me like the entire city is grieving, and I think people would appreciate the opportunity to mourn with you. Justin’s story has captured the attention of folks here in Philly and beyond, and people want to join you in honoring him. Your son isn’t another victim,” I said to her. “He’s Justin, and it’s important that the public sees that so they’re able to care about him as an individual. The only way change can happen is if people care.”
After all, it’s too easy for people to numb themselves to these headlines until they start to tune them right out. Yeah, yeah, another Black boy is gone, which one was that one again? St. Louis? Baltimore?
I couldn’t help adding the next part. “I’d be honored to cover the service if that’s something you want.”
In the end, Tamara decided to open the memorial to the public. A few days later, she even issued a public statement inviting both Kevin and Travis Cameron, but I couldn’t imagine they’d dare show their faces. I was mystified as to why she’d invited them. To make them squirm? To be forced into some sort of public reckoning? Despite the fact that the spectacle of their presence would make for good TV, I’m relieved they had the good sense to stay away, and imagine she is too.
I was the only reporter allowed inside, along with Bart to film. Scotty actually high-fived me when I told him the news, and Candace Dyson offered a “Good job, girl,” in our meeting with more warmth than she’d mustered since I’d joined KYX. It was pretty unseemly to celebrate entry into a little boy’s funeral, but in this business, professional wins are too often tied up in someone else’s tragedy. The get was the get, and you grow used to the blurry lines. I had an old boss who would joke, “Behind every Peabody, there’s a genocide.”
To accommodate the crowd, the family moved the service from a small funeral home in the neighborhood to the gymnasium at Strawberry Mansion High School, where Justin had started ninth grade in September. It’s a Saturday, and the varsity basketball team will play a home game here tonight, sneakers squeaking on the waxed floor, the bleachers filled with cheering fans, the smell of popcorn and Cherry Coke in the air. It will seem like a different place entirely, no longer the spot where a boy lay in a coffin right over the mascot’s seal at half-court.
The school band, in which Justin had played the trombone, assembles on the stage. They begin an instrumental of Andra Day’s “Rise Up.” Three teenage boys, self-conscious and serious, line up on one side of the coffin, and Malik, Wes, and another man on the other. The coffin lists toward the boys. They aren’t strong enough to hold it level as the procession moves down the red carpet that’s been laid across the shiny gym floor, forming an aisle between rows of folding chairs. The boys are almost as tall as the men, right on the cusp of manhood, like Justin, Black boys about to become Black men, a rite of passage rife with danger. All too soon these sweet boys will be seen as menacing and scary, as trespassers in places that certain people don’t feel they belong, as people who deserve to be questioned or confronted, or even killed because of the color of their skin.
No one asks the crowd to stand; we rise to our feet on our own, watch the coffin move down the makeshift aisle to the hearse waiting outside. When the glossy box passes a few feet from me, I fight the urge to reach out and touch the wood. Wes catches my eye and gives me a solemn nod. I nod back and hope that with just a second of eye contact I communicate everything in my heavy heart.
Tamara follows behind the casket, head bowed low, as if it requires all of her strength to place one foot in front of the other. A small group of close friends and family will go to bury Justin in a private ceremony at Laurel Hill Cemetery—away from the spotlight and media glare, a quiet moment to say their goodbyes.
Bart comes up behind me, thirty-pound camera resting on his beefy shoulder. “Where do you want me next?”
“Let’s get b-roll of the crowds and close-ups of some faces if you can. That should do it.”
The package plays in my mind—opening shot of Malik, then a pan to the audience to show the sizable turnout, the casket being lifted by six pairs of hands. Cut to a close-up of Tamara. As I mentally go through the scenes, ensuring we’ve covered everything, I look up and into the thinning crowd, a sea of backs slowly streaming toward the two sets of double doors at the gym’s exit.
A white woman in big dark sunglasses walks quickly along the back wall. Her hair is slicked back in a wet ponytail.
It can’t be. It can’t be her. I blink a few times to clear my vision. It is her. I know that walk. There�
�s no mistaking, it’s Jen. How long has she been here? Did she see me during the service?
A lifetime of habit makes me start after her. I stop myself. What if Bart saw me talking to Jen and started asking questions? Or worse, what would Tamara think?
I knew neither Kevin nor Travis would have the nerve to come, but Jen? It didn’t even occur to me. Beyond the initial shock, I don’t know what to make of it. On one hand, I suppose it’s reasonable, nice even, that she wants to pay her respects. It’s also brave as hell—if the crowd of mostly, but not all, brown faces had any idea she was here, it could easily “break bad,” as Gigi would put it. On the other hand, I can’t shake this nagging sense that Jen is trespassing. I try to bat the thought away before it takes root, but there it is: You don’t belong here.
I fixate on her back as she makes her way down the aisle. Right as she’s about to reach the doors, she turns around, pushes her sunglasses on top of her head, and meets my eyes, as if she knew exactly where to find me all along. Her eyes are red and sunken, vacant. We stare at each other for a moment that stretches and stretches. Finally, she raises a hand in the air, something like a wave. She’s out the door before I can decide whether to wave back.
* * *
Two days later, the image of Jen at the funeral—her naked anguish—still haunts me. It flickers between images of the coffin and dark hands gripping bronze handles, Tamara’s fingers shredding a tattered tissue. But I’ve got to shake it off, I’ve got to get my head in the game.
When I see the house—the enormous mansion, rather—I remember it. The bright white stone facade and the two iron lions flanking the front door. They scared me as a kid when we came here to trick-or-treat. My parents drove us over here to Rittenhouse after Shaun and I begged them because we’d heard that this neighborhood had the best candy—full-size Snickers. There was even a rumor people over here were giving out actual cash.
We Are Not Like Them Page 15
