Sonja

SEPTEMBER 5

I SHUT MYSELF IN my bedroom all morning. This was not so much out of fear as out of a desire to remove myself from the noises, at least for a while. I took off my clothes and lay in bed, trying to read Colette. I was too nervous to sleep. When I was thirsty, I stepped into the kitchen for water. I sliced a lemon with a knife, then put the wedges into the glass of water. I chopped carrots and broccoli and put them on a plate. Vin must’ve heard my footsteps, because he started yelling again while I was in the kitchen. I took the knife with me back to the bedroom. I checked my phone for any messages.

Outside it started to lightly rain. I turned my phone off. I tried not to think about anything, but I found myself thinking about the bonfire, and whether Edgar would come home. I imagined us sitting around the fire with Edgar. I looked forward to telling him how much I missed his sense of humor, hearing him laugh, even how he would knock on the door at three in the morning, wanting to talk about nothing in particular. In bed, my body felt cool under the sheets. I imagined walking downstairs to see Vin and giving in to the pleasures of cruelty, watching him weep and huddle in the corner. It was merely a thought, nothing more, and I allowed myself to enjoy it.

A heavy silence fell throughout the house. Would he start shouting again? Breaking and throwing things? I looked out my front window at his car. Farther away, I could see the yellow sky and rain clouds, past Indian Hill Road and beyond the bridge, where chimney smoke from houses drifted in the wind like ghosts. I could see the bait and tackle shop in the distance, and how abandoned and empty it looked. The day was very calm, like looking at the face of a sleeping lover.

Vin’s phone was ringing again, but I ignored it. I heard a dragging noise from the basement, as if he were moving a mattress around down there. I powered up my phone and walked throughout the house, turning all the lights on. There was nothing to be afraid of, I told myself. I was defending myself from him. But still I was starting to panic. I felt a slow, creeping fear connected directly to Vin, though it also flowed deeper. Papa had always told me to confront fear, so I did just that. What kind of person was I, to keep him downstairs? He had hit me, but that didn’t give me a reason to keep him hostage, did it? I began to think about what I had done. Questions came to mind about what was legal and what was beyond self-defense, especially after so much time had passed. I started to feel paranoid. Maybe I would go to jail for this. Was it morally wrong to protect myself from harm? Was I still protecting myself? For a while my thoughts raced back and forth between what was moral and immoral, which made me feel pressured about what I should do next. No matter what I thought, nothing made me feel any better about the situation.

Slowly I retreated back to my bedroom and searched for a Valium, a Xanax, an edible, anything. I started reading again, looking up at the hallway every now and then. Someday I wanted to be the type of woman who could read in solitude while my lover worked outside, coming into the house to ask for my help. The type of woman whose lover waited patiently while she raised a finger and finished reading. My ideal lover was a person of patience and fortitude, which Vin was not.

Soon his phone was ringing again. The battery had not run down completely. He must’ve heard it ringing down there, because he started yelling again: “Hey, let me out of here, you crazy bitch!” I took his phone from the kitchen into my bedroom and closed the door. When I answered, I heard Luka’s voice, sweet little Luka, crying on the phone. “Are you coming home, Dad? Where are you? Are you coming to get me?” He was crying really hard, and I couldn’t bear listening to it. His crying absolutely broke my heart.

“Luka,” I said. “Luka, settle down. This is Colette, your dad’s friend.”

“I’m at my aunt’s house,” he said, and I felt overwhelmed with sadness. He kept asking where his dad was, near hysterics, and I had to work to get him to hear me. “Luka,” I was saying over and over. “Luka, your dad will be there soon. Your dad’s coming to get you, Luka, okay?” By then I was near tears myself, very upset. I felt confused, trying to sound like a mother calming her son. A mother, this is what I told myself to sound like. Show empathy, understanding. Comfort him the way a mother would.

When I hung up the phone, I felt my heart racing. I thought of poor Luka, sweet Luka. Why should he suffer for his father’s weaknesses? Overcome with guilt, I told myself I should let Vin go to him. Luka needed a dad right now. Depriving him of that only made me feel worse. So I grabbed a can of Mace, which I kept by my bed in case I ever needed it.

I stood in the hallway for a moment. I thought about my intentions with Vin. I wanted him to see me as a strong woman, not someone he could take advantage of. Not someone he could slap in the face. He needed to understand this, and I would make sure of that. I was an older woman, more experienced, one who held grudges. I was an angry woman who never learned to forgive. I sought revenge when I needed to. I’d learned to take up for myself.

When I knocked on the door, Vin didn’t respond. I called his name. I unlocked the door, opened it slowly, and saw him sitting cross-legged on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. A few empty water bottles were scattered on the floor. The blanket was balled up in the corner. When he realized the door was open, he struggled to sit up. I didn’t enter the room, but stood there waiting for him to speak. He managed to stand up. “Are you a fucking lunatic?” he said. “Why did you lock the door?”

Something flashed in my mind as I glared at him. He was of some other presence. Maybe he could’ve killed me. Maybe I could’ve killed him. But I saw where that anger would lead me: a place in which Luka had no dad, a new pain that would not resolve an old pain.

“Do you remember hitting me last night?” I asked him.

He looked down at his hand, and I wondered if he felt remorseful. He was shaking his head in disbelief. I hadn’t thought he could ever be capable of being so cruel, but now I knew, and I needed to let him know. I felt as though I were staring into the face of a different man, someone I had never seen before. He seemed fatigued, unkempt, pitiful, like someone who had been through hell, through turmoil, and realizing this, if only briefly, gave me a sense of satisfaction.

“I’m bleeding,” he said, compliant and not defensive. “My hand is bleeding.”

“Fuck you.”

He wiggled his fingers, and I saw a little bit of blood on his knuckles.

“Do you remember that your cop dad shot a teenage boy?” I said. “It was fifteen years ago. Do you remember that?”

He looked up at me, trying not to blink. He was like a weak soldier, and I was like a spirit before him, full of rage for what he had done.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“That boy was my brother, Ray-Ray. The boy your dad shot and killed. That was my brother who got shot.”

“My dad shot your brother,” he said, as if he was thinking aloud.

“Your stupid racist dad shot and killed my brother.” I could hear my voice go weak.

“I’m bleeding,” he said again. He kept wiggling his fingers.

“Christ, Vin, you make me sick. You deserve to bleed. You deserve to suffer for the murder your dad committed.”

He looked serious, but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know he did that. There must be some kind of explanation. My dad’s not a killer. He was a police officer, there were some messy cases over the years. Lots of people died.”

“Please.”

“I don’t know everything he did at his job. I was a little kid back then.”

“Fuck you.”

He panicked. “Hey, I really didn’t know. Why are you bringing this up? Have you just been waiting to confront me about this?”

“My God, Vin, he got away with murder!” I told him. “Your dad should’ve been tried. He saw an Indian kid and just shot at him. Ray-Ray never even owned a BB gun, much less a real gun. Some other dude was the shooter, not Ray-Ray. There was no trial. It feels like a cruel joke on my family.”

He ran his hands over his face, then clenched his jaw. His hands were fists. I saw a vein bulging in his neck. “Settle down, Sonja,” he said. “My dad’s got lung cancer. He’s on chemo. He’s weak and dying.”

“It feels like a cruel joke,” I said again. “The pain we went through. Every single person in my family is still fucked up. My dad’s tried his best to keep us together, but he has Alzheimer’s and can’t even recognize us sometimes. My brother is an addict, and my mother has been depressed for years because of this. Where could we find justice? Can you tell me that?”

He shook his head.

I didn’t say anything more, nothing. I set his phone on the floor and left, leaving the door open, then headed outside and began walking down the road toward my parents’ house. A moment later I turned and saw him walking to his car. He started the engine and pulled away.

In the end, whatever I thought didn’t matter. Calvin Hoff was old, and someday soon he would be eaten by cancer and die. That was the only justice I could hope for.

FOR THE REST OF THE AFTERNOON I thought of Luka. If I could’ve snatched him up from Vin, I would have. He would’ve been safer with me anyway. He would love living with me. I would push him on a swing and see the rush of wind in his hair and eyes as he looked at me. I would take him shopping for clothes and to get haircuts at the barbershop downtown. I would take him swimming, like I used to take Ray-Ray.

Thinking of Ray-Ray reminded me that I needed to visit his grave before the bonfire, so late in the day I rode my bicycle to the cemetery. It was a long ride, and my legs were tired from riding uphill. I felt a sense of density when I got there, as though the air had left my body. As I walked my bike toward Ray-Ray’s grave, I saw a young girl reaching down to pick up rocks beside the road. She was alone, talking to herself, I think, though I couldn’t hear exactly what she was saying. She wore a white dress and a long necklace. Her hair was long and dark and hung loose to her waist. I walked toward her to see her better. She was classically lovely, with sharp cheekbones and contemplative lips. When she looked up, she stood and smiled.

“I’m picking up rocks,” she said, and laughed.

“Who are you with?” I asked. “Is your mother around?”

She held the rocks out in her hand, ignoring me. “They’re jewels,” she said. “Look at them, they’re all around us. Do you see how pretty they are?”

“Pretty,” I said, glancing at them. “But are you with your mother or dad?”

“I’m here to see my sister who died on the Trail.”

“Your sister on the Trail?” I said. “Do you mean your ancestor?”

“No, it’s my sister. My name’s Clara.”

“Where’s your mom?”

“She’s over there,” she said, pointing, but when I turned I couldn’t see anyone.

“Look at these,” she said, holding out the rocks again. She ran a finger over them in her palm. They were sparkling in the sunset. I knelt down to get a better look, but she turned and ran away from me. I considered following her, but then I noticed a woman at the end of the road. She was an older woman, wearing a red coat.

“Is she with you?” I called out. “I was worried she was alone.”

“Thank you,” the woman called back.

Clara ran to her, grasped her by the hand, and the two walked away together.

I walked on to Ray-Ray’s grave, and on the path I saw a man up ahead wearing a wolf mask with feather trimmings. Beside him was a woman and child. “We finished the Snake-Mask Dance,” the man called out to me. His wife and daughter were waving. The little girl pointed to the sky and shouted at me to look up. Papa had told me the tale about the seven dancing boys who turned into stars, and when I looked up to the graying sky, I saw them dancing, even in the daylight.

“The seven dancing boys,” I called out, but when I looked back at the people, they were gone. I continued walking down the path, looking around. They had disappeared so quickly. I remembered Papa once saying all cemeteries are connected, and a wave of sadness passed through me as I thought about how many bodies were underground. Death was all around me.

Mosquitoes and insects buzzed in the air, which was humid and warm. The cemetery was colorless and grim, as all cemeteries felt, with the smell of rotting wood and damp grass. When I reached Ray-Ray’s grave, I saw his name engraved on the gray stone. The stone still looked new, after all these years. The engraving was so prominent. I reached down and touched it, ran my fingers over the letters of his name.

As I looked down, underneath the earth I saw him, my brother Ray-Ray, lying on his back. I saw his mangled body, his corpse. His face was disfigured, unrecognizable and without eyes. I was stricken by the horror of the image, my dead brother looking so different. It filled me with anguish, seeing such an unhinged and cryptic apparition. But how different, too, I must’ve appeared to him—or had he watched me grow? Had he in fact been watching all along, with our ancestors, disguised as an animal or bird?

Only then did I begin to see his beauty blossoming. Death opened like a cave into his body, a passage to somewhere; and I entered it, collapsing into him, entering my little brother, and the two of us watched a bird circle in a cloudless pale-blue sky.