Reconstructing Amelia

by Kimberly McCreight

  Despite Kate’s best intentions, she was getting aggravated. It was hard not to see it as intentional that Amelia was insisting on having this conversation when she knew Kate was already running late. Kate wondered sometimes if Amelia wasn’t more strategic than she gave her credit for. She said yes to a lot of things—late nights out, sleepovers, parties—because Amelia asked when Kate was stressed or in a rush. But a semester in Europe was a different story. Kate wasn’t going to cave to that simply because it would be easier. But it would have been. Much, much easier.

  “What does it even matter?” Amelia made an annoyed, guttural noise. “You’re never here anyway.”

  Kate’s long work hours weren’t something Amelia usually complained about. Kate had always assumed—hoped maybe was a better word—that it was because having a single mother with a demanding career was the only life her daughter had ever known. But Kate was always bracing herself to discover that her daughter still felt the holes, despite her frantic efforts to cram them full of love.

  “Amelia, come on, that’s not fair. And a semester abroad is for college, not high school.”

  “It’ll be educational.”

  Kate looked over at her daughter, hoping she’d see some hint of humor around her eyes. There was none. She was completely serious.

  “Amelia, I wish I could just blow off my meeting and stay to talk this out,” Kate had said, and she’d meant it. “But I honestly can’t. Can we please talk more about it tonight, when I get home?”

  “Just say yes, Mom!” Amelia had yelled then, startling Kate. Her daughter wasn’t a yeller, certainly not at Kate. “It’s really easy, listen: yes. Just like that.”

  This is it, Kate had thought. She’s officially a teenager. It’ll be her against me from now on, not us against the world.

  The worst part about their argument was that Kate had then ended up getting home the night before too late—late again, late always—to talk about the semester abroad. But she’d been ready when she’d gotten up the next morning—that morning. She’d even woken up early—despite the fact that the meeting with Victor was bound to be one of the most stressful of her career—so she’d have plenty of time to talk to Amelia about Paris. She’d planned to stay firm on her no, but had decided to offer up a trip there together at Christmas. Kate had planned to apologize for not being home more, too, especially lately. She’d still been managing to keep her and Amelia’s Friday dinner dates and their Sunday movie nights. But their weekend adventures had been in much shorter supply.

  Ever since Amelia was little, Kate had always tried to be sure they took at least one field trip together every weekend—a Broadway show, an exhibit at the Met, the cherry blossom festival at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, or the Mermaid Parade in Coney Island. But it had been harder with the metastasizing Associated Mutual Bank case, not to mention Amelia’s own commitments—field hockey and French club and volunteering and friends. These days, it seemed she was always headed off somewhere, too.

  Kate was still standing up near the subway doors, studying her tired reflection in the long window, when the subway’s automated conductor came over the PA system.

  “We are being held momentarily because of train traffic ahead,” the computerized voice said. “Please be patient.”

  In the end, Kate hadn’t had any conversation with Amelia that morning about her job or Paris or anything else. After all that preparation and worry, Amelia had simply sauntered down the stairs all sunshine and light, saying she didn’t want to go to Paris after all. Now, of course, that sudden change of heart seemed suspect. Kate still didn’t believe that Amelia would have ever done something bad enough to warrant a suspension. But with the erratic way she’d been acting the past couple of days, maybe she could have done something a tiny bit bad.

  Kate checked her watch again. One hour and ten minutes late. Shit. She was a terrible, terrible mother. It was too much, juggling her job and parenting by herself. She had no margin for error. There were other law jobs that would have allowed her more flexibility—less money, too, though she and Amelia could have made do with much less. Money wasn’t the real reason Kate stayed at her job anyway. She liked her job, and she was good at it, and that made her feel capable and secure. Success—first academic, later professional—had always made her feel that way: safe. And that was no small matter given that there was no knight in shining armor on the horizon.

  Not that Kate was in the market for a rescue. She wasn’t in the market, period. She’d gone on a few dates over the years, mostly because she’d felt like she should. Friends had often insisted on setting her up, too. But Kate had never had good luck with relationships, not in high school, not in college, and not in law school. In fact, her healthiest relationship had been with Seth, whose biggest takeaway from Kate was that he was actually gay. Before Seth, Kate had had other boyfriends, usually the emotionally distant type. At least she was old enough now to recognize that her poor taste in partners had everything to do with her upbringing, though that did not mean it was something she could change.

  These days, it was hard to say whether the men she went out with were wrong or if between Amelia and her job Kate couldn’t make space for them. Regardless, nothing—no one—had ever stuck. And life had almost seemed easier that way. Except that now, at thirty-eight, Kate’s accidental baby—her mother’s charming term, one that she used glibly even when Amelia was old enough to understand—might be her only baby. The notion of Kate being the mother of an only child didn’t exactly feel wrong, but it was recklessly economical.

  By the time the train was finally pulling into Grand Army Plaza, Kate was one hour and fifteen minutes late. She sprang off when the train doors finally hissed open, her heart picking up speed as she jogged for the station steps.

  Up on the sidewalk, she blinked back the brightness. Shielding her eyes with a hand, she walked briskly, turning onto Prospect Park West. The two-lane, one-way street was quiet at that hour, and Kate’s very high client-meeting heels clicked loudly against the concrete. The park, with its brightly hued, late October maples, was across the street on her left. The leaves had begun to fall, gathering in a thick ridge along the wall lining the park, a park Kate hadn’t been inside in years.

  After fifteen years in Park Slope, Kate still felt more at home in her office than on her own Brooklyn block. She had wanted a cozy, neighborly, open-minded place to raise Amelia, and Park Slope was certainly all of those things. But the Food Coop walkers, the piles of recycled goods left out for the taking, and the tight cliques of shabby-chic families gathered on playgrounds adjacent to their multimillion-dollar brownstones still felt like charming details from someone else’s life.

  Up ahead, Kate watched two quintessential Park Slope moms, attractive and urban without being overtly hip, chatting as they came out of the park. Each pushed a sleek jogging stroller, a small child gripped in their one free hand, an eco-friendly water bottle in their cup holders. They were laughing as they walked on, unbothered by the little ones tugging at their hands. Watching them, Kate felt as if she’d never had a child of her own.

  Kate had always planned on having a family. At least two children, maybe even three. She’d originally hoped to avoid having an only child, given her own less-than-happy solitary girlhood. She had come to realize, though, that having an “only” did not actually require that you treat them from birth like a mini adult. Kate had also assumed that—however many children she did one day have—they would come later. Much, much later. Kate was going to focus on her career first, make some headway as her mother, Gretchen—professor emeritus of neurology at the University of Chicago School of Medicine—had drilled into her. Career first, kids only if there was time.

  But her life had taken a different turn. And in the end, she hadn’t wanted to take advantage of any of the “options” Gretchen had pressed on her to “handle” her “unfortunate situation.” Because Kate may have admired her mother’s professional success, but she had no wish to emulate her in any o
ther way. Instead, Kate took her pregnancy as a sign, one that she would ignore at her peril. And also as a chance for something more.

  Motherhood, of course, had been hard, especially single motherhood at the age of twenty-four while still attending law school. But she—they—had survived. Kate and Amelia’s true salvation had been Leelah, the nanny who’d cared for Amelia for fifteen straight years. It was Leelah’s warmth and compassion and excellent cooking that had truly kept their heads above water. It was with great regret that Kate had scaled back Leelah’s hours to only cooking and cleaning while Amelia was at school. Amelia had been insisting since last fall that she was too old for a nanny, and Kate had finally lacked the fortitude to fight her anymore. They both missed Leelah, though: Amelia more than she would admit; Kate more than she could sometimes bear.

  Kate paused as the two women with their strollers crossed the street in front of her, then followed them as they headed across Garfield. She watched their narrow hips in their yoga pants, their high, matching ponytails swishing right, then left.

  “Look at all those fire trucks,” gasped one of the women, stopping so abruptly on the opposite corner that Kate almost crashed into her perfectly sculpted rear end. “Are they at the school?”

  “Oh God, I hope not,” the other one said, pushing up onto her toes to get a better look. “They’re not rushing anywhere at least. It must be a false alarm.”

  Kate looked toward the fire trucks blocking half of Garfield Street. They were parked in front of a side entrance to Grace Hall’s Upper School, an ornate old mansion that looked like a grand public library. Several police cars were in front of the adjacent Grace Hall Lower School, two brownstones that had been overtaken long ago and refurbished in a similar style. The firemen were loitering around the sidewalk, chatting in groups, leaning against their trucks.

  There was also an ambulance sitting there with its lights off, doors closed. If there had been an actual fire or some other emergency, it was over now. Or maybe it had been a false alarm.

  Amelia couldn’t have pulled the fire alarm, could she have? No, only juvenile delinquents did things like pull fire alarms. Whatever Amelia’s mood lately, whatever that junior-year-abroad nonsense had been about and however deep her sudden existential crises about her absent dad, Amelia was not, and would never be, a juvenile delinquent.

  Kate took a deep breath and exhaled loudly, which caused the taller mother standing in front of her to startle and spin around. She tugged her cherub-faced little girl in the puffy pink vest closer. Kate smiled awkwardly as she stepped around them. She tried to see past the ambulance. There, on the side, was a uniformed officer talking to an older, gray-haired woman in a long brown sweater. She was walking a tiny, shivering dog and was hugging herself, hard.

  People weren’t interviewed for fire alarms. Kate looked up at the classroom windows. And where were all the kids? The ones whose faces should have been pressed up against the glass, investigating the commotion? Kate found herself moving closer.

  “So you heard the scream first?” the police officer asked the gray-haired woman. “Or the sound?”

  Scream. Sound. Kate watched two police officers come out of the school’s front door, head down the steps, then turn into the school’s side yard. When she peered after them, she could finally see that that was where the real action was. At least a dozen police officers were gathered in a large pack. And still, there was no rushing. It no longer seemed like a good sign. In fact, it was beginning to seem like a terrible one.

  “Ma’am,” came a loud voice then, right in Kate’s ear. “I’m going to need you to head back over to the other side of the street there. We need to keep this area clear.”

  There was a hand on her arm, too, hard and unfriendly. Kate turned to see a huge police officer towering over her. He had a doughy, boyish face.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said again, a tiny bit less forcefully. “But this side of the street is closed to pedestrians.”

  “But my daughter’s inside the school.” Kate turned back to look at the building. A bomb threat, an anthrax scare, a school shooting—where were all the children? Kate’s heart was picking up speed. “I need to get my daughter. I’m supposed to. They called me. I’m already late.”

  The officer squinted at her for a long time, as though he was willing her to disappear.

  “Okay, I guess I can go check it out,” he said finally, looking skeptical. “But you still got to go wait over there.” He pointed to the other side of Garfield. “What’s your daughter’s name?”

  “Amelia. Amelia Baron. They called from the headmaster’s office to say she’d been suspended. They said I had to come get her.” Immediately, Kate wished she’d left that part out. The officer might be less inclined to help if he thought Amelia was a troublemaker. Maybe even the troublemaker. “Wait, before you go,” Kate called after him, “can you at least tell me what happened?”

  “We’re still trying to figure that out.” His voice drifted as he turned to stare at the building for a minute. Then he turned back to Kate and pointed again. “Now, go there. I’ll be right back.”

  Kate didn’t go where he’d pointed. Instead, she stood on her toes to see if she could make out what was in the backyard. She could see there were actually more than a dozen officers back there—some in uniforms, some in dark suits—clustered up near the side of the building, their backs forming a curved wall. It was as if they were hiding something. Something awful.

  Someone had been hurt, or worse. Kate felt sure of it now. Had there been a fight? A stray bullet? This was brownstone Brooklyn, but it was still Brooklyn. Things happened.

  As soon as the police officer who’d stopped Kate was through the school’s front doors, she darted up to the fence at the side yard. Officers were shielding their eyes as they stared up the side of the building toward the roof. Kate stared up there, too. She could see nothing except the immaculately maintained facade of the old stone building.

  When she looked back down, the officers had shifted. And there, in the center of their protective circle, was a boot. Black, flat-heeled, rugged, it lay there on its side like a felled animal. But there was something else there, too, something much larger. Something covered with a sheet.

  Kate’s heart was pounding as she wrapped her fingers around the bars of the wrought iron fence and squeezed. She looked at the boot again. It was the kind that lots of girls wore with skinny jeans or leggings. But Amelia’s were brown, weren’t they? Kate should know. She should know the color of her own daughter’s shoes.

  “Mrs. Baron?” came a man’s voice then.

  Kate whipped around, bracing to be told by the same baby-faced policeman that she wasn’t where he’d told her to be. Instead, behind her was an attractive but tough-looking guy in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt. He was about Kate’s age, with a strong, square face, a tightly shaved head, and the bound-up energy of a boxer, or maybe a criminal about to make a break for it. There was a badge hanging from a cord around his neck.

  “You’re Kate Baron?” he asked, taking a step closer.

  He had a tough Brooklyn twang that went with the rest of him. But he was trying to seem soft. Kate didn’t like his trying to be gentle with her. It made her nervous. Behind him, Kate could see the uniformed officer she’d talked to before, standing on the steps with a gray-haired woman in red reading glasses. They were staring at her.

  “Where is Amelia?” Kate heard herself shout. Or had it been someone else? It sounded like her voice, but she hadn’t felt the words coming out of her mouth. “What’s happened?”

  “I’m Detective Molina.” He reached out a hand but stopped short of actually putting it on Kate’s arm. A tattoo on his forearm—a cross—peaked out from under the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “Could you please come with me, ma’am?”

  This wasn’t right. She didn’t want to go somewhere with this detective. She wanted to be sent somewhere out of the way. Where all the other irrelevant spectators were sent.

&nbs
p; “No.” Kate jerked away. Her heart was racing. “Why?”

  “It’s okay, ma’am,” he said, putting a strong hand on her elbow and tugging her toward him. Now his voice was lower, more careful, as if Kate had a horrific head wound she was unaware of. “Why don’t you just come over here with me and have a seat.”

  Kate closed her eyes and tried to picture Amelia’s feet that morning when she’d happily bounded out the door. Mothers were supposed to know what kind of shoes their children were wearing. They were supposed to check. Kate felt light-headed.

  “I don’t want to have a seat,” she said, her panic rising. “Just tell me what’s wrong. Tell me now!”

  “Okay, Mrs. Baron, okay,” Detective Molina said quietly. “There’s been an accident.”

  “But Amelia’s okay, right?” Kate demanded, leaning back against the fence. Why weren’t they rushing? Why was the ambulance just sitting there? Where were all the flashing lights? “She has to be okay. I need to see her. I need her. Where is she?”

  Kate should run. She felt sure of it. She needed to go somewhere far away where no one could tell her anything. But instead, she was sinking, sliding down to the cold, hard sidewalk. There she sat, balled up against her knees, mouth pressed hard against them as if she were bracing herself for a crash landing.

  Run, she told herself, run. But it was too late.

  And for one long, last moment, there was only the sound of her heart beating. The pressure of her tight, shallow pants.

  “Your daughter, Amelia”—the detective was crouched next to her now—“she fell from the roof, Mrs. Baron. She was . . . she unfortunately didn’t survive the fall. I’m sorry, Mrs. Baron. But your daughter, Amelia, is dead.”

  gRaCeFULLY

  SEPTEMBER 12TH