Part Two
Jamal Freeman’s body returned to North Carolina six days after the island did.
The ocean kept him longer than anyone could bear and released him only after the public had already begun deciding what kind of dead young man he was allowed to become.
Search divers found him wedged beneath a shelf of black rock nearly two miles from the eastern cliff. The current had carried him through a narrow channel and left him where sunlight barely reached.
Detective Elena Marquez called the Freeman family first.
The news station learned eleven minutes later.
By the time Cleo arrived at their house, satellite trucks had begun lining the street.
She entered through the garage because reporters stood outside asking questions nobody inside could survive answering.
Renee Freeman sat at the kitchen table with both hands pressed flat against the wood.
Isaiah stood by the sink staring through the window.
Jamal’s Jefferson Medal remained on the counter where he had left it.
Nobody had moved it.
Cleo approached Renee slowly.
Jamal’s mother looked up.
“They found my baby.”
The sentence was quiet.
Too quiet.
Cleo knelt beside her.
Renee touched her face.
“He was cold.”
Cleo’s breath caught.
“They didn’t tell you that.”
“A mother knows.”
Isaiah turned away from the window.
His eyes were swollen, his back bent slightly from pain and grief.
“They want identification,” he said.
“You don’t have to go alone,” Cleo answered.
“I’m his father.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
Isaiah looked at her.
For several seconds, neither moved.
Then he nodded.
“You coming?”
“Yes.”
Renee gripped Cleo’s wrist.
“No.”
“Mama Renee—”
“I don’t want that image in your head.”
“It is already there.”
“No. What you imagine still moves. Still breathes. Still looks like him.”
Cleo lowered her eyes.
Renee’s voice broke.
“Let his father carry that part.”
Isaiah closed his eyes.
The room became silent except for the refrigerator motor and muffled voices outside.
Cleo looked toward Jamal’s medal.
The Jefferson name gleamed under the kitchen light.
She stood, picked it up, and placed it facedown.
Isaiah watched her.
“Good,” he said.