Aisha and Mrs. Spencer had both gone home, so it was Ben who was left to do what he could to soothe Jade’s nerves.
“It’s going to be all right,” he assured her. “We’ve got someone in Palmer on their way to speak with Richardson right now. They’re going to contact us as soon as they find anything out.”
Ben sat patting her hand. It was a silly, fruitless gesture, but she couldn’t find the words to ask him to stop.
“I’m so sorry you’re going through this.”
She’d lost track of how many times he’d said this or something similar. If he was so sorry, why wasn’t he doing more to get her daughter back? She gritted her teeth, hating how out of control she felt.
“I went through something a little similar. I know it’s not the same thing as missing a child.” Whatever Ben was going to say next, Jade was certain it wouldn’t be helpful, but he went on, and she stared at the wall blankly, too numb to speak.
“My dad was a cop down in LA during the race riots. He wasn’t on duty that night, but he got called in anyway. My mom had taken me and my sister to my grandma’s house in Redondo Beach to get away from the heat, and she kept us up late to pray for dad’s safety. He didn’t come home that morning, and by the next night we still hadn’t heard anything. It wasn’t until the following day his partner found out where my mom was to tell her that my dad had been killed.”
Jade didn’t speak.
“I know it’s different when it’s your parent and not your child, but I remember that day of waiting, how hard it was. If you were to look at my mom, you might have thought she aged a decade in twenty-four hours. I’m sorry for what you’re going through.”
Jade tried to swallow, but the lump in her throat made it impossible.
“I guess that’s something we do have in common though,” Ben said quietly. “Both of us losing our dads.”
She didn’t want to agree. Didn’t want to acknowledge that what this trooper went through was anything like what she’d endured the night her dad died. Her father had known the police were coming for him. He had no regrets about what he did to Pastor Mitch. When it seemed clear that his daughter’s abuser would go free, he’d taken justice into his own hands, and he was prepared for his arrest. He was ready. He’d even called some of his family members, people outside Morning Glory who were still speaking to him, and made some arrangements to make it easier for Jade and her mom while he was in jail.
What he wasn’t prepared for was six white men barging into his home in the middle of dinner and making the entire family lie face down on the floor. Jade was eight months pregnant at the time, and when one of the officers shoved her roughly, her dad intervened.
The cop shot.
Her father was dead before he even hit the ground.
And now Jade was sitting here across from this white trooper whose white father had also been a cop. A white cop. The kind Jade had learned to fear. Had learned to hate.
And yet he’d been a victim of senseless violence as well. A victim of the racist disease that had plagued their country for centuries.
She felt sorry for Ben and what he and his family must have gone through. But she still wasn’t sure she wanted his sympathy. Still wasn’t sure he’d earned the right to presume that he could understand her situation.
She hung her head, listening to the drone of the church fridge and the muttered voices of those around her, trying to imagine what it would be like to live in a world where fathers always came home when they promised they would, where police — all police — could be trusted to protect the vulnerable.
Where five-year-old girls didn’t disappear without a trace, leaving nothing behind but nameless fears and unbearable uncertainty.