Sydney’s ride home with Butch had been smooth and uneventful. They talked about the upcoming holiday and his plans to surprise his kids with new computers. She touched her necklace several times during that ride, still amazed that Troy loved her enough to spend so much money on their first holiday as a couple. She knew that monetary gifts were superficial. Still, she couldn’t wait to show her mother what her boyfriend had given her. She knew that even Malik, who was usually full of jokes and sarcasm, would marvel at the clarity and brilliance of her gift.
She showed it to Butch while they were at a red light on the West Side Highway. He stared at it wide-eyed.
“Beautiful!” he said. “My wife would love a necklace like that.”
She smiled, her fingers rubbing the stones gently. “How long have you been married?” she asked.
“Twenty-two marvelous years,” Butch said. “Her name is Nancy.”
Sydney noticed how happy he seemed when he said her name. She hoped that someday, when they were married as Destiny had predicted, Troy would say her name with that same sparkle in his smile.
They pulled up to her block and saw sirens the moment they turned the corner. Sydney’s eyes widened. She wondered who had gotten hurt. She craned her neck toward the window as they slowly approached her house. Then she saw the crime-scene tape draped across her own yard. She gasped.
“Please stop!” she yelled at Butch. He did, unaware of the situation his boss had sent him into. Sydney climbed out without bothering to shut the car door behind her. She ran toward her house.
A cop stopped her as she approached.
“I live here!” she explained.
“Sydney?” the officer asked.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“Okay. We’ve been looking for you.” He looked relieved.
She was panting breathlessly. “What happened?”
“This is an active crime scene. Your family is at the hospital. You should come with me.”
Sydney felt tears stinging her eyes. Blindly, she followed the cop toward a squad car parked at the curb. She glanced back over her shoulder, looking for Butch. But he was already gone. She frowned, wondering why he had disappeared so quickly. She turned back and focused on what the cop was telling her.
“There was a robbery. Your mother was at home when the break-in happened. Then your brother walked in on it. He’s fighting for his life. But the doctors are doing everything they can. Your mother is in stable condition.”
She cried, cursing herself again for allowing her phone to die. She needed to call someone, needed some words of comfort from a familiar voice. Instead she was forced to cry on the officer’s shoulder, wondering what had happened to her family, wishing it were all just some terrible bad dream.
The siren blared as they raced through the streets of Staten Island. Sydney wished Troy had come with her. She needed him now. She had never been more afraid or felt more helpless.
Finally they arrived at the hospital. The cops escorted her to the ER where her mother lay stiffly on a gurney. Her body was wrapped in bandages. Her jaw had been wired shut. She looked terrible. Her eyes had turned a ghastly purple and her face was swollen. Her wrist was broken and bandaged. Her hair had bald patches caked with dried blood. Sydney began to cry.
Destiny came to her cousin and embraced her. “It’s gonna be okay,” she consoled her. “Aunt Georgi is tough. She’s gonna be fine.”
Sydney choked back a sob. “Where’s Malik?”
Destiny looked at her mother. Aunt Pat sat near her sister’s bedside. She looked at Sydney, her eyes scanning her for signs of trauma. “Malik is in a coma, Sydney. He’s got swelling and bleeding on the brain. They beat him up pretty bad.”
Sydney’s heart sank. “Where is he?”
The officer that brought her in stood near the doorway. “I can bring you to him.”
“I’ll come with you,” Destiny said.
The officer led the way and Destiny took her cousin by the hand, aware that what she was about to see would be difficult for her. When the cop was out of earshot, she whispered, “Sydney, are you okay? Did they hurt you?”
Sydney frowned. “They who? I was with Troy.”
They arrived at Malik’s room and nothing could have prepared Sydney for what she saw. Malik was lying in a hospital bed bandaged seemingly from head to toe. A doctor was explaining that they had inserted some type of metal plate in his head to help him heal somehow. He had endured blunt force trauma to his head, a brutal beating that left him breathing with the aid of a machine. Sydney wept into her cousin’s shoulder. Malik lay with his mouth wide open, a ventilator inserted there. He looked like he was already gone.
She looked at Destiny. “What happened to him?”
Destiny was aware that the cop was all ears. Her mother had filled her in on what she knew. Still, she chose her words carefully as she replied. “Some strangers came in and they were robbing your mom. Malik walked in on it. Maybe he tried to save her. They beat him, took what they could, and left. Aunt Georgi is hurt pretty bad, too. Good thing my mom stopped by after work. She found them like that and called the police.” It wasn’t all a lie, Destiny reasoned.
The officer closed in on Sydney again. “Where were you this afternoon?”
Sydney looked at him. “I was with my boyfriend on Sixty-first Street.”
“Did your mother or brother call you at all today?”
She shook her head. “My battery died. I didn’t get any calls for most of the day.” She would never make that mistake again.
Destiny led her cousin back to Aunt Georgi’s room. Sydney, still shaken from the sight of her brother, wept at her mother’s feet.
A detective stood in the doorway and greeted everyone. Aunt Pat stood up as he approached her.
“I just wanted to give you my card,” the man said. He spoke softly to Aunt Pat, aware that she had been traumatized upon finding her loved ones this way. “If you remember anything else, you give me a call.”
Aunt Pat took the card and thanked him. He left and she tucked it into her purse. Destiny rose and shut the door behind the detective. As an awkward silence descended, Sydney felt like she might self-destruct.
“Why isn’t anybody saying anything?” she asked. She became aware, for the first time, that her mother, aunt, and cousin were all looking at her oddly.
Georgi mumbled something and Aunt Pat scrambled for a notepad at the bedside. She gave it to her sister. Georgi began to write. Finally done, she handed it to her sister.
Pat passed the pad from Georgi to Sydney.
She read her mother’s handwriting. Where you been all day?
Sydney was filled with guilt. She had been wrapped in Troy’s arms all day, making love with reckless abandon while her family was terrorized. “I was with Troy.”
“Where?” Aunt Pat repeated. “And how did you meet this Troy?”
Sydney felt anxious suddenly. What kind of questions were these?
“We were at his uncle’s apartment.” Her voice shook. She wondered why she felt so ashamed. All of them stared at her, their eyes accusing. “And I met him at school like I said.” She looked at Destiny for clues. “What’s going on?”
Aunt Pat sighed. “Troy’s uncle, Don…” She didn’t know where to begin. Destiny had filled her in on the party Troy brought them to the night before. Now the pieces were starting to come together. Though the women had told the police nothing, they were aware of how a crazy twist of fate brought Troy and Sydney together and led Don right back to Georgi’s doorstep.
Sydney’s heart raced. She wondered what the hell Troy’s uncle had to do with any of this.
“Troy might have been in on this from the start.” Destiny hated to think the worst. But the irony of it all was too hard to ignore.
Sydney frowned. “In on what?” She stared at them all in disbelief. “This?”
“Uncle Don knew your father,” Destiny explained.
“Years ago,” Aunt Pat added. “They parted ways on bad terms.” She lowered her voice, paranoid that someone might be listening. “Don’s the one who did this.”
Sydney gasped. Tears flooded her eyes. She shook her head, refusing to believe this was even possible. She thought about Troy, about the uncle she met at his holiday party. She thought about the family emergency Troy had been called away on just as she was leaving. She tried to recall his demeanor all day. Had he been in on it all along? She couldn’t believe it. She wouldn’t.
“No,” she cried. She shook her head as if doing so might make it all go away.
Aunt Pat looked at her sympathetically. “I was there, baby. I saw the man.” She felt anxious just at the thought of him. Destiny had described the man she and Sydney met at the party last night. Destiny had described Don to a tee. “I will never forget the look in his eyes.” Aunt Pat shook her head.
Destiny’s heart broke watching her cousin standing there processing the information she was hearing. She knew that Sydney was in love with Troy. She had believed that he felt the same way. Now she wasn’t so sure. “Sydney, I think Wes was there, too.” Her voice was low as she spoke. She took no enjoyment out of telling her this. “Aunt Georgi knows Uncle Don and recognized him from before. But she didn’t know the other two guys he was with. The way she described the big one … the one who beat Malik … it sounds like it was Wes.”
Sydney closed her eyes, the world feeling like it was crashing down around her.
“Who is Wes?” Aunt Pat asked.
Sydney opened her eyes again and her gaze locked with her mother’s. Behind the clear signs of battery evident on her face and the contraption keeping her jaw in line, Georgi’s expression was angry. There was no doubt about it, she was pissed. Sydney realized that her mother thought this was all her fault.
“He’s Troy’s brother,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Aunt Pat hung her head, dismayed that apparently they had all walked right into a trap.
Georgi signaled for the notepad back. With her left hand, she wrote on it as legibly as she could. She raised the pad back in Sydney’s direction.
Where did you get that necklace?
Sydney touched it. She had forgotten it was there.
“Troy,” she whispered. The tears poured forth again.
Her mother stared at her for a while. Then she reached forward and snatched it roughly from Sydney’s neck. She clasped the broken necklace tightly in her fist and looked away while her daughter cried.
The sobs wracked Sydney’s body as the reality of it all sunk in at last. She knew that she would never see Troy again. Worse, she wasn’t sure whether her brother would survive. And if he did, whether he’d ever be the same again. No matter how hard she tried, even though no one voiced the sentiment out loud, she believed that it was all her fault. It would take years before she learned the whole truth. In the meantime, all she had were a million unanswered questions and the burden of a broken heart.