Falling Further

by Hearts Collective

  The law has been my salvation and damnation, depending on the day. I say a silent prayer to any god who might be listening that they prove to be my allies this time around.

  “Are you Garrick Moore?” asks one of the cops, a lean guy in his early thirties with cold gray eyes.

  “That’s me,” Garrick says. “I’m the one who called.”

  “I’m Detective Sullivan,” the man says, “Are all you kids OK?”

  “We’re fine,” Conway chimes in, “Just a little freaked.”

  “The body, where is it?” asks another cop, an older guy with a salt and pepper mustache and badge that reads DeVito.

  “The kitchen,” Nadia says softly.

  “We’ll be right back,” Sullivan says.

  He and DeVito head into the house, leaving us kids under the watch of the two other cops. They’re barely older than us, in their mid-twenties or so. One of the guys is African American and absolutely jacked, the other is white and wiry.

  I wonder if they’re locals, if they grew up here in Chicago with the rest of us. Have they ever been on the wrong side of the law, or have they always been on the straight and narrow? I wonder how I seem to them; whether I’m just another thug, or if maybe I have some potential to turn things around for myself. Do I have that kind of potential? Who’s to say.

  After what feels like a day and a half, Sullivan and DeVito reemerge from the house. My heart tightens in my chest as I see their grim expressions.

  “Go check out the rest of the house,” Sullivan tells the younger officers. They nod and make their way inside.

  DeVito and Sullivan survey the four of us, their gazes heavy and searching. I can feel them coming to conclusions about us, guessing at what happened before we can offer up our alibis and excuses. I know that they’re sizing each of us up, determining who’s the most likely to have done his horrible thing. And I know, before they even open their mouths, that they’ve both decided on me as the villain, here.

  “Well,” Sullivan begins with a sigh, “Who wants to tell us what the hell happened in there?”

  Not one of us has anything to say. Where the hell could we even begin?

  “Come on,” DeVito urges, “We need to know what the deal is, or else all of you are coming down to the station with us.”

  “Fine,” Conway says, “I’ll talk. That guy in there, he’s our foster dad. Was. I’ve been here the longest, so I can tell you that he’s been a fucking creep since day one. His wife, Nancy, she hit the road a little while ago and he went off the deep end. They’re drunks. Have been the whole time I’ve known them.”

  “Were they abusive?” DeVito asks.

  “I guess,” Conway says, “There have been fights. Lots of emotional shit, you know.”

  “And why didn’t any of you report their behavior?” Sullivan asks, “If things were so bad, you should have called in and—”

  “What?” Garrick asks, “Risk being put someone even worse? Without each other? We figured it was better to take our chances here.”

  “And see how well that turned out,” DeVito mutters.

  “Tonight, then,” Sullivan said, “What happened tonight, leading up to Mr. Daniels’ death?”

  “We were getting ready for Christmas,” Nadia says softly, “We've never had one, not since we became orphans. I guess that’s not going to change.”

  “We’ve been keeping an eye on Paul,” I offer, “Protecting each other. But tonight...I fucked up. I went out, left the others alone.”

  “What did you go out for?” Sullivan asks.

  I let my eyes flick toward Nadia. “Nothing special,” I reply.

  “While Trace was gone, I...I was in the kitchen alone, Garrick and Conway were downstairs,” Nadia says haltingly. Her voice is tight with held-in tears. “Paul came home and started harassing me.”

  “What do you mean, harassing?” DeVito presses.

  “Just...talking about inappropriate things,” Nadia says, “Commenting about my body. Asking me about my sex life. I tried to just ignore him, to get back to the basement with the others, but he wouldn’t let me leave.”

  My blood starts to simmer with renewed fury as I listen to Nadia’s account. Whatever happens to me next, I know that I would do the same thing again, protecting her. I never meant to kill the man, but I can’t help but feel in retrospect that he deserved what was coming to him.

  “Did he...touch you, at all?” Sullivan asks.

  “Yes,” Nadia says softly, “He...He pinned me against the counter, and started, you know, putting his hands on me.”

  “Can you be more specific?” prompts DeVito.

  Nadia’s cheeks flush, her eyes widening in surprise. “Um...What do you mean?”

  “Can you tell us where he touched you?” Sullivan clarifies.

  “Everywhere, I guess.”

  “Under or over your clothing?”

  “Does that matter?” Conway asks, astonished.

  “Yes,” DeVito says shortly, “Details are important.”

  “Over, I guess,” Nadia says quickly.

  “So there was no penetration?” Sullivan says.

  “Jesus Christ,” Garrick says, “Cool it with these questions, would you?”

  “I know what he was going to do,” Nadia says firmly, “He was just about to undress himself, and he had me where he wanted me.”

  “But he was stopped?” Sullivan asks, turning his gaze on me.

  “Yes,” Nadia says.

  “Tell us what happened, please,” DeVito says.

  “Well—”

  “Not you,” DeVito says to Nadia, “We need to hear this from...Mr. O’Conner, is it?”

  “Yeah,” I say, my hands balls into fists. “Look. I got home, and found Paul in the kitchen with Nadia underneath him.”

  “What do you mean, underneath?”

  “Is there more than one meaning of the word? He had her bent over the fucking counter and was taking off his belt.”

  “So you intervened,” Sullivan says.

  “Of course,” I tell him, “I pulled the guy off.”

  “And that’s when you assaulted him?” DeVito asks.

  “What?” I say, “Assaulted him? I was stopping him from raping—”

  “By beating him to death,” Sullivan says.

  “That’s not...I never meant...” I stammer.

  “Paul pulled a knife on Trace,” Nadia says quickly, “He was just trying to defend himself!”

  “Is that true, Trace?”

  “Yeah,” I tell them.

  “But once you disarmed Mr. Daniels, you kept hitting him?”

  I look back at forth between the officers, cold understanding coursing through my veins. They don’t give a shit that he was about to attack Nadia, they think that I’m in the wrong here. I should have known that I wasn’t going to get out of this without a fight. All they see is a rotten foster kid who took his acting out too far.

  Whatever my intentions were don’t matter at all. The one time I try and do the right thing for the person I love, I’m going to go down the hardest. Where the hell is the justice in that?

  “Listen,” I tell them, “He was going to hurt Nadia. And probably the rest of us. I did what I had to do.”

  “That doesn’t make it OK,” DeVito says.

  We all look up as the two young officers step out onto the porch. I hear a low groan escape Garrick’s throat as we see that they haven’t returned empty handed.

  “Toilet was overflowing,” says the smaller cop, holding up a damp baggie of weed. “Found this and a couple others like it.”

  “Christ,” Sullivan sighs. “You guys aren’t going to make this easy, are you?”

  “Anyone want to own up to the drugs?” DeVito asks.

  “They’re mine,” Garrick says quickly.

  “What?” Conway yelps, “Garrick, what—”

  I lock eyes with my friend, and realize that he’s going to take the fall just to keep me from sinking deeper in the shit.

  �
�You don’t—” I start.

  “They’re mine,” he repeats, glaring at me to shut up.

  “Fine,” DeVito says, losing his handcuffs. “Come on, boys. Don’t make this difficult.”

  And we don’t. Garrick stands stock still as DeVito cuffs him, rattling off his rights. Sullivan advances on me, cuffs in hand. Before he can reach me, Nadia steps into his path. The man’s mouth twists in displeasure.

  “Come on now,” he says, “Don’t make me bring you along for the ride, too.”

  “Nadia, it’s OK,” I whisper, taking her hands in mine.

  “How can you say that?” she asks.

  “Just trust me,” I tell her, kissing her on the forehead, “You haven’t seen the last of me. Everything’s going to be alright.”

  I’m lying through my teeth, of course, but I’d say anything to put her at ease. I avert my eyes as Sullivan snaps the cuffs around my wrists and leads me off the porch. DeVito has to pry Conway off Garrick before tugging him along after me.

  They march us across the frozen lawn and push us down into the backseat of their car. Garrick and I are silent as we pull away from the Daniels’ house. I let my eyes flick up toward the porch, where Nadia and Conway stand together. Their arms are wrapped protectively around each other, their shoulders shake with restrained emotion. I rest my hand against the tinted window, reaching hopelessly for the girl I love.

  It’s the best way I have of telling her goodbye.

  Sixteen

  Nadia: Another End Of The World

  I don’t know how long Conway and I stand huddled on that porch in silence. Holding each other, we stare off after the cop cars as if we could summon them back just by hoping. Surely, this has just been one elaborate misunderstanding. Surely, Trace and Garrick can’t really be gone for good.

  We shrink away as the stretcher bearing Paul’s dead body is brought of the house. I don’t feel any sort of satisfaction, as I take in the sight of the black body bag. I don’t feel vindicated or relieved or justified...I don’t feel anything at all.

  The events of this brutal December night defy comprehension. To think—just a few hours ago I was happier than I’ve been since my parents died. Of course the universe couldn’t let that stand. Of course things had to go to shit the minute that I felt the slightest flutter of hope about the rest of my life.

  I don’t know why I imagined that I’d be allowed to have a little happiness, after everything that’s already happened to me. Hubris, I suppose. Or downright stupidity.

  “Do you girls have someone you can call?” asks one of the EMTs as they load Paul’s body into the ambulance. Conway and I look at each other and shrug.

  “We can take care of ourselves,” Conway tells the woman.

  “Are you sure?” she asks.

  “We have each other,” I say, realizing in the moment that tonight might be the last time I can say that and have it be true. I pull Conway a little tighter against me.

  The ambulance drives away, its siren silent. I’ve lost track of how late its gotten, but it must be well past midnight. Christmas Eve.

  “Come on,” I say to Conway. My voice is rough with lack of sleep.

  We walk back into the house, hand in hand. For once, the TV doesn’t blare, no music creeps up from the basement, no arguments filter through the walls. It’s simply quiet. Eerily quiet. Conway and I stand in the foyer, unsure of ourselves.

  “I thought this would be the place,” she says sadly, “I thought I might get to just stay in one place until I turned eighteen. That would be the next best thing to having a home, you know?”

  “Maybe we can ask to be put in the same house?” I suggest.

  “I don’t want to think about it,” Conway tells me, “Let’s just go to sleep, OK?”

  I watch as she disappears up the stairs, dragging her feet with every step. All her life, Conway’s just wanted to stay in one place. To have something that comes close to a real home. And now I’ve gone and ruined it for her again. I know that Trace insisted that this whole thing isn’t my fault, but I can’t believe that. If I hadn’t come here, none of this would have happened.

  Though my body is tired, my mind is nowhere near ready to sleep. I walk through the abandoned rooms of the Daniels house, trying to scrape some contented memories together to take with me.

  I remember the late nights in the basement, talking about everything and nothing with my three closest friends. I remember early mornings in the kitchen, enjoying a cup of coffee with Trace at my side. I remember Conway’s beauty lessons, and Garrick’s sometimes revelatory taste in music, and every single smile that Trace ever shot my way.

  How can he just be gone?

  I save the kitchen for last on my grand tour of this place I’ve been calling home. The fluorescents buzz overhead, bathing the room in the most mundane sort of light. How can these four plain walls have contained so momentous and terrible an event? How can I be expected to hold the reality of tonight inside of me with crumbling to pieces?

  I’ve never understood how people can be expected to bounce back from tragedy, simply shake it off and become the people they once were. There’s no such thing as “getting back to your old self”. When something truly terrible happens, you’re forced to become someone else altogether.

  I wonder who I’ll be when the smoke of this imploded life begins to clear?

  As I turn to leave the kitchen behind, something catches my eye. A little square object lays discarded on the floor, kicked into the corner of the room. At first, I guess that it’s probably one of the EMTs’ wallets, or perhaps something the cops left behind. Stooping down, I pick up the tiny parcel and turn it over in my hands. My breath catches in my throat as I see the scrawled writing there one side.

  “To Nadia,” it reads, “Merry Christmas. Love, Trace”

  “Are you trying to kill me, O’Conner?” I moan, holding the little box in my trembling hands. This is just too much to bear. Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I start to tear at the messy scotch tape scraps that holding the plain brown paper together. As the wrapping falls away from the gift, a small red gift box is revealed. My curiosity gets the best of me, and I pry open the package with reverent care. Almost at once, hot tears obscure the view of Trace’s gift to me.

  There, nestled on a cloud of white tissue paper, is a little golden charm in the shape of a map. My hand flies to my compass necklace as salty tears spill down my cheeks. He remembered my fleeting story of wanting to explore the world when I was a kid. I’ve had my compass, my guide to true north...and Trace has given me the means of building something from my journey.

  I trudge upstairs and sink into Conway’s twin bed. We curl up together among the pink sheets, and finally, at long last, cry ourselves to sleep.

  ~~~

  The inevitable knock on the door comes earlier than we might have expected. The sun has barely begun to light the world when Conway and I are roused from our long-awaited sleep. For a moment, we try and ignore the persistent knocking, wrapping our arms around each other and waiting for the world to leave us alone. But there’s nothing we can do to stave off the inevitable, not really. I brush Conway’s blonde hair out of her eyes and smile weakly.

  “Yours or mine, do you think?” I ask.

  “Probably yours,” she says, “Mine’s kind of a deadbeat. Shocker.”

  We roll out of the narrow twin bed and slowly descent the staircase. I pull open the front door, letting in a gust of freezing air. A very familiar face waits for me across the threshold.

  “Merry Christmas, Miss MacCoy,” I say flatly.

  “Nadia...” she says, taking a step toward me.

  “I’m fine,” I tell her, but my voice breaks, betraying me. I dissolve into bitter tears once more and feel my social worker’s arms circle me.

  “It’s going to be OK,” she whispers, smoothing down my thick hair, “You’re a trooper, Nadia. You always land on your feet.”

  “Oh, sure,” I laugh hollowly, “That’s me. The s
tar foster kid, every time.”

  “I didn’t mean...I’m sorry,” Miss MacCoy says, leaving the front door open, “I can’t imagine what you’re feeling right now.”

  “That makes two of us,” I say. “So, are you here to whisk me away?”

  “I am,” she says sadly, “Do you have your things packed up?”

  “I’m not bringing anything,” I tell her, “I don’t want anything that’s ever been inside of this house. I mean it—clean slate. I want to start over from scratch.”

  “That’s fair,” Miss MacCoy tells me, “I’ll just wait outside for you, OK? Take your time.”

  She excuses herself out onto the porch, leaving me alone with Conway. We take each other in across the space of the foyer, searching in vain for the right words.

  “Take care of yourself, I guess,” I tell her.

  “I always do,” she says, “You do the same.”

  “Conway,” I say, “Do you think Trace and Garrick...?”

  “They’re not going to let them go, Nadia,” she tells me softly, “That’s just not how it goes for kids like us. But hey...at least they’re not eighteen, right?”

  “Is that what you call a silver lining?” I ask.

  “Sterling silver, maybe,” she shrugs, “That’s kind of the best we can hope for.”

  “I’m going to miss you,” I tell her.

  “Of course you will,” she says, “I’m the best housemate you’ll ever have.”

  “It’s more than that,” I say, stepping toward her, “I’ve had a lot of foster sisters, Con. But you’re the only real sister I’ve ever had.”

  “What the hell is the matter with you?” she asks, her eyes welling up with tears, “Are you trying to turn me into a stick of goddamn jerky? I don’t have any more tears to spare.”

  “I just wanted you to know,” I smile, taking her hand in mine. “I’ll see you around, OK?”

  “You probably won’t,” she tells me, “But I appreciate it, all the same.”

  I turn from her and leave without looking back. Walking into this house felt like being condemned to prison, but leaving doesn’t feel like being released. I don’t know if I’ll ever be free of all the pain and guilt that I gathered up, here. Part of me suspects that I’ll drag the baggage of this place behind me for the rest of my life.