Daddy stormed downstairs. “That’s it!”
He yanked the TV so hard it left holes in the walls, slamming it down on a pair of old speakers.
“I’ve had enough!”
A few weeks later, I found Ma in the kitchen, frying some pork chops, boiling collard greens, with a fresh tray of mac and cheese just out of the oven, and a pineapple upside-down cake in the travel case.
“We’re visiting April today,” Ma announced with a guilty smile. “Her aunt called this morning. April asked about you.”
News vans surrounded Aunt Doris’s house like a pack of sleeping wolves. Their interest was piqued as we pulled into the driveway. I carried the cake while Ma balanced the trays. Aunt Doris greeted us on the porch steps, and we hurried inside just as a swarm of cameras descended.
“Sorry about all that,” she said, shaking her head. “Someone tipped them off. Everyone’s trying to suck some words out knowing damn well they shouldn’t be bothering these babies.”
Inside felt like a dark cave, the blinds shut tight, except for a screen door leading to the sunny fenced-in backyard. And there was April, her back to the house, sitting in a green plastic chair in the middle of the lawn. We stared at her in silence, a breeze playing with her ponytail.
“April’s been . . . having a hard time. Poor girl has been through it.”
Aunt Doris had bags under her eyes bigger than my cheeks, black hair with graying roots. I could see some of Monday in the way she smiled.
Ma inhaled through her lips, holding back tears. “Does she have any friends we can bring by here for her?” she asked.
“Naw. Guess she just kept to herself. Not that I blame her.” She sighed, leading us over to the kitchen. “I went and saw Tuesday yesterday at the hospital. She’s asking about her mother and what time Monday is coming over to play.”
“Poor thing,” Ma said. “Bless her heart.”
I slid on a stool at the breakfast bar, watching April—a girl frozen in a picture.
“And what about you?” Ma asked, putting the trays on the kitchen counter and heating up the stove. It took nothing for her to get comfortable in someone else’s kitchen. “How are you holding up with all this?”
Aunt Doris winced, rubbing her hands down the tops of her thighs as if to warm them.
“I’m managing. Just trying to take it one day at a time.” She smoothed back her hair. “Patti called here yesterday, wanting to speak with April.”
“She shouldn’t be doing that! She knows she’s not supposed to have contact with the kids,” Ma said, her voice clipped.
“There’s gonna be a custody trial. They’re trying to terminate her and Tip’s parental rights.”
“Tip’s too? Wow, I guess that makes sense. Not like he was around much.”
“Yes, but he’s fighting it,” she said, pulling out a few clear plastic glasses from the cabinet. “I think he really wanted to be around but was scared of Patti and what she’d do. Courts never been too kind to black fathers.”
Ma nodded. “You get a lawyer yet?”
“I got a few suggestions,” she said. “Everybody is coming from every direction. I’m worried I don’t know which way is up. But I know the Lord will provide.”
Aunt Doris hid behind a small blanket of confidence. She looked warm, but then you realized her cold feet were poking out at the bottom.
“Well, the church asked us to give this to you,” Ma said, passing her a thick manila envelope of cash donations. “Something to help with the transition of having a few new mouths to feed. Our thoughts and prayers are with your family.”
“That’s very kind of you. And thanks again for coming. I think seeing a familiar face would help,” she said to me.
Ma smiled and rubbed my shoulder. “I think it would help us too.”
“Claudia,” Aunt Doris said, brightening. “Why don’t you go ahead and bring April some lemonade so me and your mom can talk.”
I nodded and carried the tray out on to the deck, down the steps, and through a thick cluster of gnats. April sat almost a yard away, unfazed by my approaching footsteps. Even as I placed the tray on the table next to her, she didn’t stir, just stared off at nothing. She should have a better view, like one of the river, facing the cherry blossom trees, museums, and monuments. Back at the house, Ma gave me a look, pleading for me to talk.
I sighed. “Hey.”
April acknowledged me with a small head turn, almost relived to see me, but then gazed off again.
“Hey,” she muttered.
I pulled out the chair next to her and stared into the same abyss. I don’t know how much time passed before I asked her the most basic question.
“You okay?”
She gave me a practiced nod but stopped herself, the corner of her mouth creeping into a smirk.
“That funeral was fucking bogus, wasn’t it?”
I chuckled. “Yeah.”
She grabbed a cup, glancing over her shoulder at the adults watching us like zoo animals from the screen door, waiting for us to play or fight.
“Did they tell you that I helped her?” she asked.
“Helped who?”
She rolled her eyes. “My mom. Did they tell you I helped stuff them in the freezer?”
The image popped in my head faster than I expected it to. I pulled my knees up to my chest, shaking my head.
BUZZZZZ . . .
April regarded me with a huff and shook her head. “Stupid freezer was already half full with August. Wouldn’t close right since Monday was so tall.”
I shook my head and covered my ears, the buzzing deafening.
“April, please . . . stop.”
“They should arrest me too. For what I did.”
“But . . . you didn’t kill her.”
“I helped her, though. What’s that called, assisting murder or something?”
“I don’t know. But you . . . were just doing what your mom told you. That ain’t your fault.”
“She didn’t tell me to do anything. I did it on my own.” Her knees bounced, holding her cup right above it. “Not sure if she was dead or alive but . . . I needed to buy myself more time.”
The buzzing cut off, like someone tripped over the freezer plug.
“More time? More time for what?”
“To make a plan.” April slumped in her seat. “Monday never told you anything about that month we were away?”
“No,” I snapped. “And so what?”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “They split us up. Monday and August at one house, me in some teen home. Tuesday was still little, so they gave her to this white couple, and if they had their way . . . they would’ve adopted her. Had to beg Mom to get us out of there, beg her to take those parenting classes.” She let out a breath. “I already lost August. I couldn’t lose Tuesday too.”
I shook my head. “You hated Monday that much?”
April, enraged, snatched up my collar, pulling me so close I could see the drops of gold mixed in her brown eyes.
“Bitch, do you even know what I’ve had to do to take care of her? I’ve given up everything for my family!” Her voice cracked and she swallowed. “But you ain’t listening. Monday would have talked! They would’ve split us up, and who knows where we’d be? We would’ve never seen Tuesday again! And those eviction notices were coming around. . . . I needed a plan to get us out first.”
I shook out of her grip. “You think Tuesday’s better off now?” I barked. “She one step away from being one of them crazies on the Metro!”
April winced, her knee bouncing hard. “They probably gonna send me to jail, once they figure it out,” she grumbled, wiping a tear out of her eye. “Not saying it was right. All I know is I got one more year before I turn eighteen. Then it’ll just be me and Tuesday.”
I noticed her mention nothing about Aunt Doris or her dad. “Did Monday ever tell you that I was the one who signed her up for the school lotto?”
Heat rose to my face. Another secret. “No.”
<
br /> April smirked, sipping her drink again. “She was so smart. Reading books, like real books, when she was four. It would’ve been stupid for her to go to some regular school and not learn anything. Got on the computer at the library and signed her up. Even filled out the paperwork.”
She rubbed her hands together, glaring at me. “And then she met you. And it was like, she learned about this whole other world. What stuff was supposed to be like. Good home, good parents, dance school . . . Sometimes I don’t know whether to hate you or I don’t know what. But I never had a . . . you growing up. Know what I mean?”
For a change, I finally understood how our mutual resentment grew from the same seed of jealousy. I resented that April knew a whole other Monday. That they were real sisters, something I could never compete with. April resented the kind of sisters Monday and I were—soul sisters.
“Why didn’t she tell me anything?”
“She didn’t want you feeling sorry for her,” she said.
“I would’ve tried to help her.”
April shook her head. “How? And she wouldn’t have wanted you to anyways.”
“Didn’t matter what she wanted! What was she gonna do, hate me? At least she’d be alive!”
April closed her eyes, wiping away a few betraying tears. “Are you gonna tell on me now?” she whispered.
April always looked so much older than us. Not just what she wore, but in her face—eyes sunken with dark circles, a jaw tight, wrinkles around her mouth. Knowing what I know now, what she had to deal with, it all made sense. So no use arguing about what could have been or what should have happened. Monday was gone—nothing was going to bring her back. And as insane as it sounds, I understood April. I understood trying to keep a secret to protect a small fraction of the life you once loved. I eased back in my chair.
“No,” I mumbled.
A breeze cut through the humid air as she sighed. “First time I saw my dad in two years was on TV. They interviewed him on NBC, crying and carrying on. You see it?”
I nodded. “He seems real sorry now.”
“Monday’s dead. August’s dead. Tuesday’s in the crazy hospital. . . . Of course he sorry now!”
BUZZZZZ.
“April,” I mumbled, glancing over my shoulder. “Do you . . . hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“That . . . buzzing.”
The After
“Claudia, Sweet Pea? Wake up.”
Daddy sat on the edge of my bed, nudging me awake. I glanced outside at the streetlights, searching for the library to hold on to something real.
“Heyyyy, there’s my girl.”
I threw my arms around him, tears coming hard and fast. Every time I wake up from this nightmare I cry.
“It’s alright,” he whispered, rubbing my back. “Hey! I got a little surprise for you.”
“Another coloring book?”
“Nah, not this time,” he chuckled. “See for yourself.”
Daddy slid the box from behind him. I sighed, using my last drop of energy to unwrap it. I opened a shiny new iPhone in a glittery purple case, and I winced a smile.
“We’ve been holding off giving this to you for a while . . . trying to shield you from what happened. But I think it’s done more harm than good. Maybe this will help you remember and keep remembering.”
Three fifteen a.m.
I sat cross-legged in the middle of my bed, watching the minutes pass on the screen of my new phone. All it took was one swipe and punching in a few letters in the search box for articles to swarm my screen, all dated two years ago. I clicked on an NBC video link and lowered the volume. . . .
“The mayor announced today that at least eight District of Columbia’s Child and Family Services Agency workers will be fired for failing to properly address the welfare of Monday and August Charles, who were found dead in their home two weeks ago. The grisly discovery has even the most seasoned detectives speechless.”
“In my twenty-two years on the force . . . I’ve never seen anything like this. The home was filthy and unlivable. Aside from the deplorable conditions, any sound-minded building manager would have gone in the home and recognized that it would have failed several safety codes.”
“During today’s news conference, the mayor played tapes of two 911 calls made by Michelle Valente, a former teacher of Monday Charles, after her whereabouts were undetermined.”
“Hello? Yes, my name is Michelle Valente. I’m a teacher at Warren Kent Charter School. One of my students, Monday Charles, has been missing, and I think there is something seriously wrong with her mother. She won’t answer any of my questions or let me in the house! Please, you have to send someone now! Please!”
“Valente’s call was not the first time someone had tried to intervene. A retired nurse from Warren Kent Charter School has also come forward claiming that she made a report. City officials are currently outlining several policy changes to prevent a similar tragedy from occurring again.”
I spotted a few familiar neighbors in the next video. . . .
“Residents of Ed Borough are shocked by the tragedy that has hit their community after the discovery of the bodies of thirteen-year-old Monday Charles and nine-year-old August Charles.”
“I used to see them, all the time on the courts or just playing outside but then I hadn’t seen them in a long while.”
“Patti never stopped talking about her kids! She loved those babies, bragged about them all the time. She said they were at their father’s house and I ain’t have no reason to question that.”
“Nope, never seen her lay a hand on those kids. She loved them. That’s why this just don’t make no sense.”
“I heard crying some days, but my kids cry too when they about to get a whupping. I can’t walk up in her home and cast stones.”
“Residents are hoping this will bring light to the current property conditions and stop the city’s recently approved redevelopment plan, which includes demolishing five hundred homes and rebuilding both sale and rental properties, along with retail spaces. It is not certain that the displaced residents will be approved or will receive government assistance to move back in their community, forcing most into homeless shelters.
“Multiple claims suggested Mrs. Charles feared eviction, driving her to a mental break.”
“You got these buses of white folks driving around here with cameras around their necks like they’re on a safari, hunting for their new home. Of course she went crazy!”
I looked outside at the library, imagining Monday’s ghost sitting there, reading every book she could get her hands on, in the place she loved most. There were only four numbers programmed in the phone. I had always imagined the first call on my own cell phone would be to Monday.
“Hello? Claudia?” Michael said groggily. “Hello? You there?”
I cleared my throat, licking my lips as I clutched the phone to my ear.
“Hey? You okay? You still there? What’s wrong?”
So much was wrong I didn’t know where to begin.
“Claudia, you want to talk?”
I wanted to scream and cry but instead I felt numb. I took a deep breath, the thoughts pinching at my temples as I pushed out a few words. “Why didn’t any reporters talk to me?”
“You mean . . . like the news?”
“Yes, they talked to her neighbors, why not me? You think they didn’t think I knew things? That I wasn’t smart enough? ’Cause I was in TLC?”
“How could you even think that? Don’t you get it? You’re the one that knew something was wrong all along. You saw what folks didn’t see, which means you’re smarter than everybody else—including all those folk working for the city who got fired. Just ’cause you got a little trouble reading don’t mean you ain’t smarter than everybody else.”
“Oh,” I muttered, glancing out the window at the library, wishing to hold a piece of it with both hands to keep me grounded.
“Man, you should’ve seen your face,” Michael sa
id with a small laugh. “After you put everything together, you were about to roll in that house guns blazing. I don’t know anyone who’s as smart and brave as you.”
“But I didn’t save her,” I said, bursting into tears. “I couldn’t save her.”
“You did save her, Claudia! You saved her from that house for years and you didn’t even know it.”
The Before
Ma spent the entire morning beating the house into submission: dusting, sweeping, vacuuming, scrubbing, and ironing. Company’s coming, I thought. Important company. An hour later, the doorbell rang. I headed downstairs in my teal church dress but stopped short mid-step, nearly tumbling the rest of the way. Detective Carson, the officer who’d refused to look for Monday, the one that made me feel stupid for even asking, stood in our doorway. His mouth dropped at the sight of me. Next to him, a woman dressed in a business suit smiled at Ma.
“Mrs. Coleman? Hi, I am Detective Woods. We spoke on the phone,” the white woman said, offering a hand, her curly brown hair tied back in a ponytail. “Pleasure to meet you. This is my partner, Detective Carson.”
Carson looked on the verge of a heart attack.
“Hi, nice to meet you,” Ma said, dressed in a blush shift dress. Daddy stood behind her in his freshly pressed khakis. “This is my husband, Mr. Coleman. And that’s my daughter, Claudia.”
Detective Carson gulped. “It’s . . . nice to meet you Claudia.”
I dug my nails into my side. Is he really going to pretend we never met? That I never went to him looking for help?
“Please, have a seat,” Daddy said, leading them to the living room.
“Claudia, come on down,” Ma urged. “The detectives would like to talk to us. About Monday.”
Clenching back angry tears, I stomped down the stairs, silently sitting next to Ma.
On the love seat, Detective Woods pulled out several files from her bag while Detective Carson set up a recorder, fidgeting, unable to meet my glare.
“Several witnesses told us you were the right folks to talk to when it came to Monday,” Detective Woods said. “We’re hoping you can answer some questions and fill in the gaps. As you know, Mrs. Charles is denying . . . well, everything.”
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