Stand Your Ground: A Novel

by Victoria Christopher Murray

  But I stood my ground. Because what I said was true. I didn’t want our son to be remembered for anything besides the wonderful young man that he was. I didn’t want Marquis to be part of a movement that led to looting and lunacy; I just wanted to hold on to his memory.

  “I’m just praying . . .”

  Tyrone let out a half chuckle, half growl at my words.

  But that didn’t stop me from continuing: “. . . that it will be different for us. I’m praying that this time, the murderer will be arrested and justice . . .”

  Tyrone laughed. He just leaned his head back and laughed out loud. But there was no joy in the sound. After a while, he stopped. “All right.” That was all he said before he stomped out of the room, leaving me alone with my grief, now peppered with fear. Because if Tyrone got his brother and his brother’s friends involved, this would be a mess.

  I stood wondering if I should go after Tyrone because right now I didn’t want to be without him. And surely, he needed me.

  But sixteen years of marriage made me know that this was one of those moments when Tyrone needed to be alone.

  “Janice.”

  I’d forgotten about Delores. When I faced her, she said, “You know Tyrone is going to call Raj, right? He’s probably upstairs calling him right now.”

  I shook my head. “No, he’ll wait.”

  “No, he won’t. First of all, he has to call his brother to tell him that Marquis was killed. And once Raj and the Brown Guardians find out about this, they’re going to make sure justice is done . . . one way or another,” she said as if she were all right with that.

  I sighed. It was the one way or another that I knew to be true.

  “You married into the Johnson family, baby,” Delores said as if I needed that reminder. “And I told you a long time ago, that with the Johnson men, you’ve just got to let the men do what the men have to do.”

  She wasn’t telling me anything that I didn’t already know. And what I already knew scared the hell out of me.

  Chapter 5

  Last night, I had closed my eyes for one reason—I wanted to see Marquis. If I couldn’t see him while I was awake, surely I would see him in my dreams. I was absolutely sure that when I laid my head down, he would come to me. I knew that he needed to see me as much as I needed to see him.

  I almost couldn’t wait to get to bed. That’s why even though we had a house full of people, I’d come to my bedroom and closed the door on what felt like madness in the middle of my mourning.

  I’d lain down, but I didn’t undress. I just closed my eyes and rushed into unconsciousness.

  But my dreams were empty. Filled with only darkness.

  And now it was morning.

  At least, it felt like morning. I hadn’t opened my eyes, not wanting to face this day—this first full day of the rest of my life without him.

  Rolling over, I reached across the bed for Tyrone. His arms were just what I needed; his embrace would get me through.

  But then I opened my eyes slowly. My husband’s side of the bed was empty, just like my dreams. I pushed myself up and leaned against the headboard. Had I slept alone all night?

  Maybe he had come to bed and awakened before me. I didn’t know. We didn’t get to say much to each other last night. Not with our house filled with so many people.

  For hours, all I did was answer the door, and then balance heavy aluminum pans packed with fried chicken and ham, collard greens and string beans, macaroni and cheese and dirty rice. And then, of course, there was cake after cake and pie after pie. How had these people come up with these home-cooked dishes so fast? Did they have food stashed in their refrigerators, saved for a time such as this?

  Our home bulged with more people than the walls had ever seen. Just about everyone was there for my mother-in-law, though Tyrone had called his shop and a few of the mechanics who worked for him came by right away.

  I hadn’t called a soul, not that there were many for me to reach out to beyond my coworkers. I never bonded well with others. Maybe that was because I was already fifteen when I met the first person who ever cared about me—Delores. And I was sixteen when I was loved for the first time in my life—Tyrone.

  Growing up without knowing my mother or my father made me feel like I’d hit the lottery when I had a husband and a son. Add to that mix my best friend, and those three blessings had been enough for me.

  But though I wished Syreeta was here, I hadn’t called her yet. Since she was living in Germany teaching English as a second language to high school students, I wanted to wait until I could say more than “Hi, Syreeta; Marquis, your godson, is dead.”

  So I’d spent the time surrounded by all of those people, and never had I felt so alone.

  That’s why I kept moving. Between the living room and the dining room and the family room, dishing out food, serving up drinks to people I hardly knew.

  More than once, someone said to me, “Janice, you need to sit down. Let us serve you.”

  But I just smiled. And kept moving. And kept breathing.

  And kept wondering, why were all of these people in my home and when were they going to leave?

  Not that I didn’t appreciate their kindness, and not that I knew the proper etiquette for grieving a child, but I had a feeling that it should have been just me and Tyrone. Together. In private.

  What I wanted didn’t matter, though. Our home swelled with folks and the sound of sad chatter, a mournful noise that hovered like lead above us.

  But then the mourning turned militant. In every room, the conversation was the same:

  “He was shot . . . by a white man!”

  “What? Why?”

  “You know why. Because he was black.”

  All kinds of exclamations and expletives followed that. And then more expletives than exclamations came when they were told that the murderer had not been arrested.

  Tyrone moved from room to room, repeating his mantra: “They’ve been hunting our boys and now they’ve killed my son!”

  Men jumped up, women shouted—it felt like a rallying cry to me. There were so many stories that had started out this way—black boys whose murders had turned into movements.

  I didn’t want to be part of anything like that. I didn’t want to be the mother living out her grief in front of the country. I didn’t want my son to be remembered for how he died; I wanted the world to know how he lived. And I didn’t want my son’s death to be used as any kind of excuse for any kind of violence.

  But that talk kept on, becoming more belligerent.

  Someone yelled out, “Where are the Brown Guardians?”

  Someone else said, “They’ll know what to do!”

  Another voice: “You know they were responsible for that six-car pileup on the interstate that killed that cop.”

  “Yeahs” rang out, sounding like cheers and that was when I knew there was no place for me in my own home. Not that I hadn’t heard about that accident four months ago.

  Nicholas Watson, a young cop who’d shot a black boy in an altercation inside a convenience store, but who had never been arrested, had been killed nine months later in what the police eventually called a freak accident.

  But Marquis had told me that word on the street was that the accident had been the work of the Brown Guardians. The Brown Guardians, who considered themselves a neighborhood protection group, but who were nothing more than a vigilante motorcycle gang to me.

  There was no way I wanted to hear the Brown Guardians mentioned in the same sentence as Marquis.

  So I’d exited to our bedroom. And lain on the bed. And waited for Marquis. Who never came to me.

  Now I wondered again if Tyrone had come to bed. Or had he been up all night caught up in the emotions of what happened to our son?

  I rolled out of bed, stretched, then thought about freshening up. At least, I should change out of my dress, brush my teeth, splash water across my face. But I kinda felt that if I did any of that, I’d be moving on.

&n
bsp; So instead, I walked into the hallway, then stopped. Right outside of Marquis’s room.

  The door was closed and I didn’t remember closing it. But I knew I couldn’t open it, so I turned toward the steps.

  Sounds of life rose from below. Downstairs, I stood at the kitchen’s opening, watching Delores at the sink. Just like me, she was dressed in the same clothes she’d worn yesterday and I wondered if she’d even gone home. She piled plates on top of plates, pots on top of pans, all left over from last night, I supposed.

  I opened my mouth to tell her that we had a dishwasher, but then I stopped. Delores knew that.

  My eyes roamed through the room and I could see Marquis in every crevice, in every corner. I paused when my glance settled on the bar stool at the counter where I’d sat . . . When was that? Two days ago?

  “I can’t believe you ruined Mother’s Day for me,” Marquis said.

  I stuffed my mouth with a forkful of blueberry pancakes. “How did I do that?”

  “I was supposed to cook you breakfast, and serve you in bed.”

  “Yeah, but you did that last year, and remember how that turned out?” I laughed, reminding my son of the runny scrambled eggs and the crispy bacon that was way on the other side of burned.

  I was too hungry this morning, so I wasn’t about to leave my nutrition to Marquis, no matter how admirable his intention.

  “It just doesn’t seem right that you had to cook your own breakfast on Mother’s Day.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I’m just happy to have a good meal and to share it with you.”

  He grinned. “Happy Mother’s Day, Mama,” he said, before he kissed my cheek. “And may we share many more.”

  With the tips of my fingers, I caressed the spot where Marquis had kissed me, and I could almost feel his lips. I sobbed, or maybe I just gasped. I did something that took my breath away at the thought that I’d never celebrate another Mother’s Day.

  “Oh!” Delores turned and rushed toward me, wiping her hands on the apron she wore. My apron. World’s Best Mom was embroidered on the black cloth in red.

  Pulling me into her arms, she said, “I was just about to check on you. Are you okay?”

  How was I supposed to answer that? “I’m good,” I said, because words hadn’t yet been created that would describe how I felt.

  Delores shook her head at my lie. She said, “Well, sit down and I’ll fix you breakfast.”

  I glanced once again at the bar stool where I’d sat Sunday morning. “I’m not hungry.”

  She said, “But you have to eat. People will be here soon, and you won’t even think about eating then.”

  More people? This soon? Too soon!

  My eyes moved to the digital numbers on the microwave. It was barely nine.

  I asked, “Have you seen Tyrone?”

  She nodded as she returned to the sink. “He slept in the family room with me.”

  “He slept in there?” I asked, sounding like I didn’t believe her, though I did. It was just hard to believe because once we got back together, Tyrone and I always slept together. Always.

  Delores glanced over her shoulder at me. “Yeah, by the time everyone left, it was so late he didn’t want to disturb you. And he didn’t want me to be by myself. I’m just so upset by this, you know?”

  She said that as if I might not understand how upset she was.

  “I slept on the sofa and he slept on the recliner,” Delores continued. “He was still asleep when I came in here.” She looked up. “What about you? Did you sleep okay?”

  It was another one of those questions that I would never be able to answer. So all I did was turn around, and over my shoulder I said, “I’m going to talk to Tyrone.”

  Tyrone was in the family room, but he wasn’t asleep. He was on the edge of the recliner with his elbows resting on his knees, his head in his hands, and his pain hanging heavy in the air. When his shoulders began to quake, I ran to him.

  Crouching down, I held him, resting his head against mine.

  “They killed Marquis,” he sobbed.

  “I know,” I whispered, and cried with my husband.

  “They killed my boy.”

  “I know.” I held him, never planning to let him go.

  “I wasn’t there to protect him.”

  That was when I leaned back a little. “You have been the best protector, the best provider, the best father.”

  “But I told him that he could go out last night.”

  “He went to the library, Tyrone! A trip to the library shouldn’t be fatal.” When more sobs raked through him, I said, “This is not your fault; this is not your fault.”

  For a long while, he said nothing. Just looked into my eyes, then pulled me onto the recliner with him. There wasn’t enough room in that narrow chair for the two of us, but we made it work. I wanted to be this close, skin close. Really, from this moment forward, I hoped that Tyrone and I would never be more than a few inches apart.

  I whispered, “Did you get any sleep?”

  “No,” he said. “What about you?”

  I wanted to tell him that I’d slept deeply. Probably the deepest sleep I’d had in a while. But then I’d have to explain how in my sleep I’d searched for Marquis. So I just answered with a shrug before I went on to my next question. “How late did people stay?”

  “Probably till about one, two. I don’t know, it was pretty late, but time doesn’t seem to matter right about now.”

  I knew what he meant. I didn’t care about time—except that I wanted time to stop. Completely. Or even better, I wanted time to go back. Back to the moment when Marquis had come into our bedroom early yesterday evening and kissed me good-bye.

  “I’m heading to the library.”

  “I know you’re glad to get out of the house for something besides school.”

  “Yeah.” He grinned. “Dad missed his calling. He shouldn’t be fixing anybody’s car. He needs to open a prison.”

  I laughed, but I was serious when I told him, “Just don’t do anything to get locked up again.”

  “I won’t, Mama,” he said before he kissed me. “You don’t have to worry about that. I won’t smoke another joint for as long as I live.”

  And then he waved good-bye. And then he was gone.

  Forever.

  Tyrone broke into my memory. “I wish . . .” He stopped and pulled me even closer.

  And I wished, too.

  So for minutes, Tyrone and I just lay there together, wishing. Our hearts synchronized, the two feeling as if they were beating as one. And though I longed for Marquis, for the first time since my son died, I had a little piece of peace.

  Then, “You know what I forgot to ask you two?”

  His mother barged into the family room, her voice sounding like a scream as it invaded our silence. She stood over us as if she didn’t notice that her son and I were sharing a private moment.

  She said, “Your pastor. Pastor Brown. Have you called him?”

  I held Tyrone for just a moment longer before I pulled away. Tyrone was going to have to explain this one.

  He let a couple of seconds go by before he said, “No, Mom. We don’t go to his church, any church, anymore. I told you that.”

  And then he sprang up as if he had new energy.

  “But why?” Delores asked.

  Tyrone didn’t respond or turn around. He just stomped out of the room. So Delores turned to me. “What was that about?”

  I pressed my lips together, pissed that she had interrupted us and pissed that she’d taken me and Tyrone to that place.

  But the fact that Tyrone had just run out of the room, the fact that I sat as if my lips were sewn together, didn’t seem to be enough for Delores.

  She pushed her fists into her waist. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

  And then the doorbell rang.

  I rushed to the door, swung it open, then did everything I could not to slam it shut in the face of the only person on earth wh
o I could say that I came close to hating.

  There stood Raj. Tyrone’s brother.

  Chapter 6

  We stood there, Raj and I, just staring at each other. From his expression, I could tell that he was as surprised to see me as I was to see him, though I had no idea where his surprise came from. Did he forget that I still lived here?

  “Jan.” He said my name and then paused.

  I looked him up and down. At least he’d come dressed properly. In just a long-sleeved black T-shirt and jeans. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw him without one of the brown leather jackets favored by the Guardians.

  “Jan,” he said again. “I’m so . . .” I turned around and walked away, thinking that he was lucky that I hadn’t slammed the door in his face.

  “Who was at . . .” Delores paused as she peeked outside, and then answered her own question.

  I was halfway up the stairs when I heard her say, “Come in, son.” I imagined that she pulled him into her arms and hugged him because of her next words. “I’m so glad you came.”

  That was all I heard as I stomped down the hall and into our bedroom. As I stepped inside, Tyrone came out of our walk-in closet, dressed only in his briefs. But I’d just lost my son and I’d just seen Raj, so not even my nearly naked husband caused me to pause. “Your brother’s here,” I said, forgetting all about how just a few minutes before we were lying together. So close.

  I plopped down onto the bed, picked up my cell phone from the nightstand, and scrolled through. I wasn’t looking for anything or anybody; I just needed for my hands to be busy. Or else I might punch the wall or something.

  “Janice, you knew he was coming.”

  “Did you call him?” I asked; my accusation was all in my tone.

  “Yeah, I did.” He gave me attitude back. “Because he’s my brother. He’s Marquis’s uncle. And he has to be here for that reason.”

  I nodded, but when I looked up, my warning was in my eyes. “I don’t want any trouble, Tyrone.”

  He pinched his lips together as if my words made him angry. “What kind of trouble are you talking about?”