Parker #2
Mr. Drumm spots me. Something shifts in his face. He crosses to me and grasps me by both arms.
“Parker, thank God you’re alright.” His voice drops, but it’s urgent. “You saw us leaving, right? Tell him. Suzannah was right behind me.”
I don’t know. Did I see her? It’s all a blur. I know that every time I looked out the window there were more neighbors loading their cars. Was Suzannah one of them?
I think hard, because Henry Drumm is gripping my arms too tightly and I understand how desperate he is for reassurance that she’s on her way.
“I saw you,” I say. I have to pitch my voice louder, even though it hurts. “You were standing in your front doorway, telling her to hurry up.”
“Yes. And after that she got in her car and drove after me. You saw that. You must have.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t remember.”
“Parker, please.”
His grip is starting to hurt. I just want him to leave me alone.
“He said he doesn’t remember,” Lance says from behind me. “Let go of him, sir.” He comes to my side, effectively interposing himself between us by sheer force of will, and stares my neighbor down.
I feel dizzy and sit on the nearest cot.
Mr. Drumm apologizes to me, but Lance watches him like a bodyguard.
As he steps away I cough. I hate how it sounds like I’m drowning.
It cuts through the murmured conversations around me, and briefly, people glance my way.
The murmurs resume. Then Lance sits down next to me and puts his hand on the small of my back.
There is a little girl on the cot opposite me. She’s about eight, her hair is dirty, and she’s clutching a stuffed teddy bear. She looks at me, then down at her teddy. I look away.
Her bear falls onto the parquet floor. Lance leans forward and picks it up, kneeling in front of her. “He’s pretty special,” he says. “What’s his name?”
“Morgie.”
He turns the bear toward him. “Hi Morgie. I have one at home named Jerry.”
“You do?” she asks. “But you’re big.”
“Well, don’t tell Jerry. He doesn’t know yet.” He hands her back the stuffed animal.
Someone sniffles and sobs in the background. A woman stands up from her cot, clutching a cellphone in her hand. “You guys! My sister made it out! She’s coming to get me!”
There is a swell of approval. The girl turns away from Lance and he comes back to sit next to me.
This is clearly the call many of them are waiting for.
People pat her on the back like she’s good luck, and she hugs the woman next to her.
A man kneels in front of her, snapping her picture.
He’s the only clean person in the building—pressed shirt, dry shoes, a canvas vest with pockets all down the front—and he moves between the cots the way you move through a store, taking what he wants and putting nothing back.
A laminated press pass hangs from his neck on a lanyard.
There’s a bag of lenses open at his feet, and the camera in his hands looks like it cost more than my mother’s car.
Lance squeezes me and drops a kiss onto my forehead. “Hang in there,” he whispers. “Won’t be long now.”
My whole body goes still. Nobody has ever done that.
Not my mother. Not anyone. I don’t pull away because his arm is the only thing keeping me from flying apart, but my head is spinning with a different kind of panic now.
Why did he do that? What does he want from me?
I don’t mind his arm there—it stops me feeling so alone—but I don’t know what any of this means.
The camera swings toward us and I hear the shutter go.
I feel Lance tense. He’s scowling at the cameraman, not breaking eye contact. “I think we should go. Tell me where I can take you that’s safe. Are you sure you don’t know where your aunt is? If she’s in town, we can try to reach out to her.”
I shake my head. It’s Sunday, so the University is closed. How could I track her down?
“Somebody else, then?” he presses.
“I don’t have anywhere else. Or anyone to go to.”
He takes a deep breath. “Yes, you do. Me. My family. I can take you to my home. You’ll be safe there, and we can leave a note on the board so they know where to find you.”
I shake my head doggedly. “I need to wait for Mom,” I insist.
The sound of the entrance doors opening echoes in the huge room, and I turn my head to look. Maybe it’s them now.
But it’s not. A policeman is standing there, scanning the room. Conversations peter out into uneasy silence. The mother and daughter across from me shrink against each other. The cop’s shoes echo on the polished wood floor.
The policeman walks into my aisle, and the people on the cots freeze as he passes, only daring to breathe when he’s not picked them.
He passes my cot and stops in front of a woman in her sixties. He kneels down in front of her. “Mrs.—” he starts.
“Not my Frank,” she says. Then, “Frank?” She cranes her neck toward the entrance, as if it’s all wrong, as if he’ll be right behind. “No. No, no, no.” She shakes her head while the policeman says something low that I can’t hear, and then she breaks, sobbing.
Lance lifts my chin. “Parker, please let me take you home now,” he says.
I glance at the woman and nod. I don’t want to stay here with these people, feeling my heart freeze every time a cop walks in. There’s too much grief. Too much guilt.
Nobody stops us when we leave the gym. Lance makes me sit on one of the uncomfortable benches next to the door while he fetches the truck. Then he runs around the truck and opens the door like a gentleman. I want to say that I can do it myself, but I feel so tired.
In the cabin, he’s set the air conditioner on low. My eyes sting so much that I close them, and I just stay silent while he drives.
Lance drives us into a quiet suburb and pulls up outside a split-level with a basketball hoop over the garage. As we get out, a woman barrels through the front door and comes at us like a bull at a matador.
“Lance Stephen Broussard, I was out of my mind!” she shouts. “You get in here. You’re grounded for the rest of your life.” She wrenches his arms up and inspects him. “Are you burnt?” she asks.