Our house is empty now except for the air mattresses we sleep on and the miscellaneous items Mom has deemed too valuable to entrust even to bonded and insured movers. We stand in the kitchen with boxes of pizza and a bottle of wine. Mom and Dad flip a coin to see which one of them has to drive up. The other will fly to Boston to receive the truck. Mom loses. Dad says he has no problem driving, that Mom should take the flight to Boston and he will bring the car. No, I want to do it, Mom says. Their little protests are too cute and echo through rooms with bright lights that have nothing to illuminate. Meredith and I can take a little road trip. Right, sweetie? Her voice drifts from the kitchen through the house to find me. I don’t respond because five hours in a car with Mom sounds like four hours too many. When we get to New York, she will want to see where I live. They don’t know that I live with my boyfriend. They’ve known precious little about how I conduct myself since I left their house. I won’t live with him for much longer. I’m moving to Portland, Oregon, or Austin, Texas, or maybe even Mexico City—at least one of those places is the first stop. I just haven’t told anyone yet, especially not Mom and Dad who think I will take the bus or train to visit them every so often. Their laughter echoes through the house as they continue to flip the coin. With nothing of substance to absorb it, it bounces through these hollow rooms from wall to wall around me. There is no place I can’t hear it.
My skin prickles. I am overcome with hate. They are good people for sure and they have always been good to me, which makes my emotions all the more confusing. They would say that everything they do, they do for me. They have paid for my educational pedigree. They will leave me an inheritance. If I want doors to open, they can open them for me. If I want assignments, the emails will come—willingly—because my father and my mother know people and the people they know always help their own. My boyfriend doesn’t understand my reluctance. You’re throwing away practical gold, he says. Just take one meeting, he says, just ask your dad for one introduction, it won’t kill you, that’s how this is done. It won’t kill me, but he will never know the true cost. Mom, Dad, I’m going for a walk, I shout into the house. If they hear me above their laughter they don’t say a word.
The humid night is heavy with an almost thunderstorm that rumbles somewhere far away while streetlights shine upon the stillness. I walk towards the Rose Recreational Center and the baseball diamond at the end of O Street. In the daytime Little Leaguers chase balls and each other and in the early evenings packs of dogs chase balls and each other, but this late, it’s just me. I round the bases before exiting on P Street where I stop, tempted by the playground’s shivering swings, but I’m not a kid anymore even if some days I sit and wish I was a kid again.
Life provides a graceful arc for the fortunate, Ms. McConnell used to say to us in class when our discussions veered off the subject of literature and into the murky slush of real-world problems illuminated in the books we read. My life has certainly been fortunate—with the obvious exception—and even then, I’m still alive. Most of its early stages are documented in leather-bound photo albums now in boxes rumbling northwards for their ultimate destination beneath the glass surface of Mom and Dad’s coffee table. Nobody looks at albums anymore. Now they are a novelty form of memory, a nod to the immutable past at a time when things are so awful that we seek solace in revisionist histories. I can’t forget completely, no matter how hard I have tried. Sometimes it works for a while. Some days this city doesn’t exist, Niru doesn’t exist and I am just me, separate, functional, independent and free. I feel like it’s a betrayal to want many more of such days and yet I want more.
Ahead of me, Dupont Circle is a pulsing beacon of streetlamps orbited by red car lights. Water flows across the lip of its gigantic limestone chalice fountain set in the middle of a large stone bowl. The after-work crowd sits at its edges talking personal lives and politics as they always have, and always will. The rest bow their heads towards smart-phones and tap furiously as they grumble and navigate towards the intersections and Metro entrances. It all seems so very normal, like nothing ever happened here and yet this place was center stage for one of the largest impromptu protests this city has ever seen—courtesy of me—only I wasn’t there. I have seen the pictures though. Even years later it’s difficult to look at images of teenagers carrying placards with slogans like white lies cost black lives scrawled in Sharpie, or at pictures of the performance artists naked, with iron collars and thick chains running from neck to neck, knowing that you played a major, if not definitive, role in this half-remembered drama. Now people have other things to worry about, like health care and jobs. We have always had other things to worry about.
But, do you really want to live in a world so closed, Ms. McConnell asked us in class when we read Invisible Man and nobody paid attention. I remember her red face as she held her place with the book closed around one finger. No seriously, you all want to sit here, laugh and not pay attention because you think none of this applies to you. Wake up, you live in America, she said. It’s not the sixties anymore, Rowan said. Ms. McConnell stood in the middle of the room red-faced, holding her book with one hand and her mouth with the other, holding her breath to regain some composure. Then she walked out of the classroom and the door slammed behind her. I looked at Niru for a long time but he didn’t return my gaze. I looked around the room at my classmates for some sign of fear or shame but they were all blanks. After a few moments, I walked across the room to the door, and looked out into an empty hallway awash in silence. The women’s bathroom was just around the corner a few steps away, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the room. I turned around to the thirteen other faces that looked at me asking what now. I looked at Niru who was texting someone. Don’t look at me, he mumbled, I’m invisible.
I keep walking. I haven’t been this close to where it happened, since it happened, even if I have searched for that alleyway again and again on Google Maps and street-viewed my way past the furniture shops and luxury apartment ground-level windows plastered with signs advertising thousands of square feet of prime retail space. In the daylight images, the stretch looks empty, manufactured and bored. The brick joints of the modern apartment buildings are too perfect for the restaurant with old western lettering advertising its “family owned” presence to the block and the boutique stores sandwiched between larger new retail outlets feel staged. But now, in the evening, when there are so many people, Fourteenth Street is alive. The thunderstorms still threaten but the cool air feels nice so people linger on the streets and on the outdoor patios. There are women in short shorts and tight, short skirts, revealing tops and made-up faces. There are groups of men who all look the same, awkward with shirts tucked into jeans or khakis that fall over boxy black or brown shoes. Some wear Converses or loafers and boat shoes with no socks. There are more police cars now parked and patrolling, but there are more police cars everywhere now for law and order, for national security. I make it to the intersection of Swann Street before I start to feel light-headed. There is nothing to stop me from continuing a few steps away from Fourteenth Street to the alley entrance but what am I supposed to do there? I have no wreaths, no flowers, no candles to light in his memory. I can’t even remember his face, his real face, not the yearbook snapshot they used on television and in newspapers, Niru perfectly posed, his body angled one way with a manufactured smile plastered on his face as he looks at the camera. No one remembers him now no matter how many bodies packed the street to call out against his unjust execution. His death stains have long been washed away. I stop where I stand. My feet refuse to carry me farther. I am so tired.
When I get home, I find Mom seated against the wall at the far end of the living room bouncing a tennis ball off the opposite wall. She looks up when I enter but doesn’t stop. There’s a half-full glass of wine on the floor beside her which glows deep red. Oh hi, Mom says and throws the ball against the wall. It bounces back toward her raised hand and she catches it perfectly. Long walk, was it good, she asks. I nod. She bounces the ball against the wall again. She says, you don’t have to drive up with me tomorrow, but I thought that maybe we could talk. About? Nothing, just talk, I mean it’s been so long.
But how?
The last time we talked in this house, it didn’t go so well. I had just come back from a long late-night run. Mom opened the door, still in her work clothes so her silver bangles rattled against each other when she moved her arms. Where were you, she said as soon as I stepped inside. Dad leaned against the wall by the stairs, grinding his jaw. I just went for a run, I said and started towards the stairs. Meredith, help me understand, seriously, why would you, at this point in time, go out without saying anything to either of us? You couldn’t leave a note, send a text? Would it have killed you? Do you know what’s going on out there, what would happen if those people—Those people, I said, cutting Mom off and raising my voice. That’s not what I mean, Mom said. That’s not what she means, Dad repeated. Well, what do you mean? Meredith, please, just help us here, we don’t know what we’d do if anything happened to you, Mom said. I’m pretty sure you’d be okay, I mumbled. Dad pushed off the wall and turned towards me. Mom braced herself against the threshold separating the living room from the entry, biting her bottom lip. You’ve put us all at risk, Mom said softly, do I need to spell out what happens if—You mean what happens to your social standing if the world finds out that he didn’t actually assault me. Watch yourself with me Meredith, Mom said, nobody told you to sneak into a club and get drunk. But you weren’t here to stop me, I said. My voice trembled. Mom quickly wiped her eyes. And now you’re making it worse, you’re making it so much worse. Meredith, we’re trying to help you, but you need to let us help you. Let you help me, this is all your fucking fault. Our fault? Peter, I’m not doing this anymore. No, Meredith, you are completely out of line. I won’t have this in my house. You never wanted it anyway, I shouted as I moved to the front door. Mom grabbed my arm and held me as I tried to push past. You’re not going anywhere, she said, every time you leave this house you do something else stupid. Let go of me, I said as I dug into Mom’s hand with my nails. She grimaced. I shook her arm furiously and pulled until she let go. Dad stepped forward. Don’t! touch me, I yelled as I backed towards the front door.
Niru’s father stood just outside, his face rough, unshaved and covered with small bumps. His lips were chapped even with this humidity. He wore rumpled slacks and a wrinkled white shirt. His shoes were covered in dust. He looked like he was permanently holding his breath.
My father doesn’t bend, Niru said one afternoon when our homework could wait and the warm weather made him affectionate. He’s always saying, “Straighten your back, square your shoulders, don’t slouch, don’t slouch or you’ll end up an old man who looks at everybody’s feet.” But here before me was his old man bent and unable to support a heavy head, his pain now fully revealed, blasted out from deep within, mined, cut and polished to perfection. Meredith, he finally said. My name spoken from his mouth vibrated through my body right to the center of my chest.
Excuse me please, Dad said, can we help you? As a matter of fact, Niru’s father said staring at me, I think she can. Dad tried to pull me back away from the doorway. Come on Meredith, he said. I let him pull me, but I couldn’t move. You need to say something, Niru’s father said. He stepped forward. You need to leave, Dad said, as he squared up and tried to move around me to the front door but I wouldn’t move. Tell them my son is not a rapist, my son wasn’t trying to rape you, that’s not my son, you need to make that clear. Isn’t that why you came to my house? You went to his house, Meredith, Dad said. She came to my house, Niru’s father shouted. Your son slammed my daughter up against a wall—in an alley—Mom said from behind me. We need you to leave please, Dad said. And go where, Niru’s father said. Where can I go? Do you know what people say to me, how they look at me? I am not the father of a rapist, my son is not a rapist. This is a difficult situation for everybody, Dad said. For everybody, Niru’s father shouted, his accent sharpening his words. They echoed down the block. For everybody? Are you mad, sir? Are you mad? Is that not your child standing in front of you—alive? And you want to say for everybody? I’m going to call the police, Mom said. Please, go ahead, call them, let them come. If they kill me too, it will even solve all my problems. You people are something else entirely, you send your daughter to my house to what, to provoke me? Is that what you want, to provoke me so that you can call police and have them kill me too? His whole body shook as he struggled to contain his anger. His fists dropped to his side. All you people do, wherever you are in this world, is just bring death and destruction, you bring nothing good, nothing good but I came here because I know your daughter is not a bad person. You people have taken him and I can’t do anything about that, but just give me something. Tell them what happened, he said to me, tell them who my son really is. Mr. Ikemadu, I said. It took a moment for me to recognize my own voice.
I wanted to say, your son liked to run his hands along rough stone surfaces and then feel the soft fuzz of frayed skin on his fingertips, your son reeked of Old Spice after track practice because he was too afraid of his own desire to shower before heading home, your son liked to put Nerds in his Coke and hated ketchup squeezed directly onto his French fries, your son admired you greatly and thought that the measure of a man was success and community standing, your son hated you because your love appeared conditional, your son wanted to punish you for your ignorance, your son was the most important person in my life and like you, I didn’t know it until I knew. But I didn’t say that.
I said, then we should tell them everything.
His father just stood there, blinking slowly.
Meredith, don’t say anything, Mom said, just come back inside. Dad yanked me back with real force. I stumbled against him and his head hit the door frame. He groaned as he shut the door. I felt Dad’s arms around me, squeezing me like he was afraid that I too could just vanish. Mom remained with one hand against the threshold and the other over her mouth, shaking her head. I can’t breathe, I said to Dad. I felt nauseous. I can’t breathe, I said, I can’t breathe.
The ball hits the wall again. Lizzy, for God’s sake, cut it out, Dad shouts from upstairs. We both find this extremely funny but we laugh quietly. I slide down to the floor against the opposite wall and Mom doesn’t say anything. Normally she’s anal about her walls, cringing when hands touch them, immediately rubbing out smudge marks and stains. Instead she rolls the ball across the floor to me. Maybe there doesn’t have to be a reason, Mom says. Maybe not, I say and send the ball back to her. She pushes it back to me and I breathe in as it approaches. Do you want to move to Cambridge, I ask. It doesn’t really matter anymore, she says. I really just want your dad to be happy, this will make him happy, I hope. What about you though? I’ll be fine, she says, the firm has an office in Boston, so it’s perfect. I thought you hated Boston? I do. Then how is it perfect? I don’t know sweetie, but it will be fine. How do you know? These things always work out. Sometimes they don’t, I say. Mom stares at me without blinking, then she shimmies herself up the wall, crosses the room and places her palm on my head. Her palms are as rough as they’ve always been but they smell of lavender dish soap. She says, tomorrow? I bounce the ball against the wall. Yeah, I say. Then I say, Mom, and she stops at the doorway to the sitting room, I have a boyfriend. That’s nice, she says. She half turns back toward me and stares down at my face for as long as our eyes can hold each other’s gaze. Good night sweetie, she finally says.
The air mattress is uncomfortable. Any movement causes squeaks or groans which echo in my empty bedroom so I’m forced to lie extremely still and listen to myself breathe. I stare up at the glow in the dark stars that sweep across my ceiling. They are faint now, almost nonexistent hints of fluorescence scattered across the darkness. Niru and I placed them up there together standing on stepladders arguing and laughing the whole time about the positions of celestial bodies. He wanted to use the Internet to map the desired constellations. I kept interrupting his placements with random planets and the odd rocketship. It was one of those things that seemed like a good idea at the time but in reality, made no sense. Mom was furious when she saw the stars. They were bright enough to make it harder to sleep, but she wouldn’t let me paint over them.
I sit up and the air mattress squeaks. The streetlamps shine an orange light across the room that makes me restless and uncomfortable, but there are no blinds to pull. My backpack sits in the corner by the door. Niru’s windbreaker sits on top of it. It didn’t seem right to leave it in the house, on the steps, on his bed, especially not after I had washed the plates. I want to banish the ghosts, not resurrect them. I pull on my running shoes and shorts, grab his windbreaker and slip down the stairs and out the front door. Outside I slip my arms into the sleeves and let the fabric envelop me. The streets are empty except for the occasional car. I walk down the steps and when I reach the sidewalk, I run.
The ambulances at the George Washington Hospital rest quietly in their Emergency Room berths, siren lights dull and unimpressive beneath a blazing tribute to Ronald Reagan. Farther down, the Lincoln Memorial glows at the end of Twenty-Third Street, where the occasional white headlights and red taillights coming off the Memorial Bridge trace an arc around its base. We called it Riverrun because at midnight on the last day of track season right after the championships the seniors were supposed to meet at the track and run together through Rock Creek Park to the steps behind the Lincoln Memorial. The brave were supposed to jump into the water with their full tracksuits, shoes on to protect against broken bottles and rusty old shopping carts. Everyone would drink and sit on the steps until the sunrise talking shit about the future, maybe making out and drinking more. Niru and I argued about whether we would actually enter the water. There’s all sorts of bacteria, there’s broken glass and rusted metal, he said. I said, you only live once. That’s some white people shit, he said.
I am out of breath by the time I reach the steps. The Potomac River is still and untroubled as it holds a vibrating reflection of the Memorial Bridge on its shimmering surface. There are small leaves and sticks idling on the water. I unzip Niru’s windbreaker and peel the fabric away from my skin. Then I bundle it into a ball and fling it as far out over the water as I can. The jacket catches air, unfurls and flutters down with open arms onto the water’s surface. It spins around next to the bank but refuses to float away. I stare down at it from the marble ridge. I sit and dangle my feet above the water before I reach forward and fish it out. I lie back, touch my head to the grass behind me and exhale. Arlington Cemetery rises up the hill across the river to where Robert E. Lee’s mansion looks down upon the city. It looms above us in splendor surrounded by all the dead we cherish. I breathe slowly into the night air and watch as bright lights from the bridges and monuments wrestle silently on the river’s surface.
I walk silently with the wet bundle beneath my arm. I have squeezed it dry, but it trickles river water down my side and my leg. I stop periodically to scratch my quads and calves. I am tired and the progress is slow, but I continue forward because there is only so much time.
Washington, D.C. is a different place late at night. This city sleeps. Its abandoned streets are silent as a world that is no more, where everything is an artifact. The houses cast shadows over the streets, the trees cast shadows over the houses, and the monuments cast shadows over it all to ensure that everything remains in its correct place. I’m happy my parents are leaving. Perhaps somewhere else I can help them build better memories.
The sky above has ripped open by the time I reach Niru’s house and the colors spill across the clouds. His father’s Range Rover sits in front and there are lights in the upstairs windows. The automatic sprinklers spray a fine mist on either side of the paved black asphalt as the cicadas chirp and morning birds sing. I cross the lawn without hesitation. He has removed the packages and the newspapers from the front entrance. I drape the damp jacket over my forearm and press the bell. There is a brief moment where I want to fold the windbreaker, place it on the floor between my feet and run away, but I don’t. We have all been running for too long. I stand fast and listen for some sign that someone moves around within the house’s darkness. Nothing. I turn around. Mom wants to hit the road by nine, once rush hour has ended. It’s a long walk back and my legs are tired. Then the door behind me opens and I spin around to face Niru’s father with his unkempt hair, wrinkled gray slacks and wrinkled blue dress shirt rolled up at the sleeves. He smells sweet like whiskey and sour like he hasn’t bathed. He sways a little as he squints through the half-light at my face. I want to say good morning, but my tongue refuses to move and my mouth is dry. I want to say I’m sorry. Instead, I stretch my arm forward so Niru’s windbreaker hangs from my fingertips. He looks at me and then at the jacket. For a moment, he is completely confused. He says, you’ve been here before, haven’t you? He takes the jacket from me and holds it up. He says, we’ve been here before, haven’t we? He stares at me for a long while and says nothing. Then he says, well, go on now, speak.