A Home Sweet Home mat greeted visitors outside her front door on the second-floor landing; a wreath of dried flowers blocked the peephole. He’d have to talk to her about that. That wasn’t safe. Lat rang the bell again and waited, tapping his palm impatiently against the door.
‘Julia,’ he said in a quiet voice, ‘It’s me, Lat. Come on, I know you’re home.’
Still no answer. Then he started to knock. Hard. A few dried petals fluttered to the cement floor.
‘Listen, I saw your car across the street. I know you’re in. I need to talk to you. Come on, open up.’
Still nothing. He walked back down the stairs a bit to see the window in her apartment that faced the parking lot. He didn’t see any lights on whatsoever. And that’s when John Latarrino started to worry. He’d checked JetBlue and knew she’d come back on her flight this afternoon. Her car was parked across the street in another apartment-complex lot, but she wasn’t answering her phone and she wasn’t answering her door. She’d been acting so strange lately, and after what he’d found out this past week, he knew that anything was possible. Even the worst anything.
‘Julia,’ he said again, louder this time. To hell with her neighbors. He banged on the door now. He hoped his voice sounded steady, devoid of the raw fear that he now felt gripping his belly. Graphic, horrifying images popped into his head and he pushed them aside. ‘I’m going to take the door if you don’t open—’ he started, but the knob suddenly twisted in his hand.
She stood in the front hall of her pitch-black apartment. The moonlight that filtered in through the living-room windows behind her backlit her petite frame in silhouette. He couldn’t make out the features of her face.
‘You scared me,’ Lat said, feeling the relief wash over him.
She said nothing and she didn’t move.
‘Julia,’ Lat said, ignoring her body language and instead moving past her, into the dark apartment. He looked around the living room. He could make out the shadows of clothes and boxes that were strewn everywhere. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked after a moment, reaching out to touch her shoulder.
She pulled away from his touch. ‘You checked up on me.’
He took a deep breath and looked straight at her. God, he wished he could see her eyes. Did she hate him? Maybe he shouldn’t have sent the flowers.
‘Yes. I checked up on you,’ he said finally, because there was nothing else he could say. He looked around the hall for a light switch. ‘Why are you sitting in the dark? Where are the lights in this place? ’Cause we have to talk—’
‘I don’t want the lights on and I don’t want to talk. I want you to go. That’s what I want.’
‘Julia, I’m sorry about your brother. I’m really sorry. I wish you had told me—’
‘Told you what?’
‘Told me about him.’
‘I don’t know exactly what you know, Lat, so I don’t know what it is you’d wished I’d told you. That my brother was a murderer but he couldn’t help himself? That he was just sick and inside he was really a great person and a warm human being who was misunderstood by everyone, including me?’ She turned her head away, crying.
‘I want to see you, Julia. Where the hell are the lights?’ That feeling of panic was grabbing at his throat once again.
She didn’t want him to see her like this. When things were fracturing right in front of her, slipping out of reach. ‘No, just go, please,’ she pleaded.
He grasped her hand in his and moved her further into the apartment with him, closing the door behind him with his foot. He felt along the wall until his fingers finally found a switch. A living-room light snapped on.
She had her head down, her long black hair draped over her face. Her whole body was shaking, and he knew she was trying to control the sobs. He didn’t know exactly what to say, but he knew bullshit wouldn’t work on her.
‘Listen, Julia, I’ve read the newspaper articles. I … I talked to the DA in New York. He read me the file. I know what happened to your mom and dad that night.’ He paused, wondering how far he should go. ‘Dr Mynks told me about Andy. And I’m sorry, Julia. I’m so sorry for your loss – your losses.’ He blew out another breath and looked around the apartment. He wasn’t very good at these things. He sucked at funerals and awkward moments. ‘You were acting really strange. Things weren’t adding up and then, well, you burned Dr Barakat in court and … you just took off in the middle of trial. And you haven’t been back. It all makes sense now … I just … Why didn’t you tell me? Maybe I could’ve done something.’
She turned again toward the wall, wiping her eyes with the palms of her hands. ‘What is it you wanted me to tell you? And when? Maybe over a motorcycle ride on the beach I could whisper in your ear that my brother’s a schizophrenic? Oh, and by the way, he killed my family one night while I was at a sleepover? What do you really think you would have done with that information, Lat? But that’s not all. There’s more to the story,’ she said, her voice rising with anger. ‘See, it wasn’t actually his fault because he was made that way.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘That wasn’t in the court file, Lat? It must have been. ’Cause it turns out my dad was sick, too. And my grandfather, we think. We think, ’cause no one wants to talk about these things. No one should’ve ever thought about having a kid. They knew what it was like. My mother, she knew, too. She watched him struggle with it. They both knew hell, right here on earth. My dad lived it.’ She struggled to find her breath, backing up further against the wall, ‘They knew the odds, that we could get it. Like blond hair or a cleft chin. They knew they could give it to us. But they did it anyway. They still had us, Lat. It was the most selfish thing in the world they could have done – to bring us into it. But they did it anyway …’
He moved toward her. ‘Julia …’
But she held her arms up in front of her, keeping him away. ‘I don’t want your pity, John. I don’t want anyone’s pity. No, no, no, no. No pity.’
‘Is that why you never said anything?’ he said, his voice rising in frustration. ‘You’re so damn strong you think you can handle all this alone? You’re gonna prove yourself to everyone watching? That you can take on bad judges, and you can take on the criminals and you can take on the system? This case – Marquette – it’s so close … I can see that now. It’s unreasonable to think it wouldn’t have gotten to you.’
‘I read the paper this morning on the plane. The New York Post. A little girl watched her momma’s boyfriend kill her and then kill himself. Then this little girl, she sat in the house for two days next to the bodies before someone finally came and rang the bell and found her. And I felt bad, Lat. I felt pity for her – for what her life is now, and for what it will be like for her, growing up, so different from everyone else. But tomorrow there’ll be another tragedy to read about. Maybe it will even be worse. And in a week or two, I’ll forget all about the little girl who was found with the dead bodies. Right? I mean, we all do. We forget about the tragedies that are bad enough to make the paper. There’s too many of them, and they always happen to someone else, don’t they?
‘But the headline makers, you know, they grow up, John. They ride the bus next to you, they work in the next cubicle over. They’re people whose tragedies define who they are to everyone who meets them. You’re not the nice girl in algebra anymore – you’re the girl whose parents were murdered by her crazy brother. You’re not the secretary with the terrific laugh – you’re the chick whose family died in a house fire. And I’m … I’m just so tired of being defined. I’m tired of being different. Of being the girl in the headlines.’
‘Julia …’
‘So I don’t tell anyone, and maybe I do try and prove myself everyday. Maybe I have to. Prove that I can get through life, that I won’t be swallowed up by my tragedy, by memories that never, ever go away, no matter how much I wish them or lie about them.’
He was next to her now, his arms wrapped around her shaking body. She tried to break out, but he just held her until the fight was finally gone and she collapsed crying against his chest. He smoothed her hair back off her face, stroking it, his fingers running against her wet cheek and down her neck.
A long, long while passed until he finally spoke. ‘I still think you’re the hot prosecutor with the great laugh and the nice chest,’ he whispered softly in her ear.
He felt her body shake up against his and he knew she was laughing. He moved his hand gently under her chin, cupping it in his hand. She tried to move away, not wanting him to look at her. ‘Sshh, sshh,’ he said, bringing her face up toward his own.
Her fiery green eyes were red and swollen. She must have been crying for days. Longer, maybe. He wiped her cheeks with his thumbs. Funny, she looked so beautiful. So defiant. So vulnerable. So strong. So scared. He bent down, close to her face.
‘You said no rebounds,’ she whispered. But she didn’t move away.
‘This,’ he said, pulling her even closer to him, ‘this is no rebound.’ Then he did what his body and soul had ached to do for so long, and he kissed her.
I Felt a Cleaving in my Mind
I felt a Cleaving in my Mind –
As if my Brain had split –
I tried to match it – Seam by Seam –
But could not make it fit
The thought behind, I strove to join
Unto the thought before –
But Sequence raveled out of Sound
Like Balls – upon a Floor.
Emily Dickinson