Chapter 16
I told myself I wasn’t feeling anxious on the way to the police station, but once I saw all the cop cars lined up in the lot, something changed. I steered carefully into a guest parking spot, set the brake, and turned to Benjamin.
I said, “This shouldn’t take long.”
He shrugged, hand on the door handle, like he was eager to get it over with.
“Don’t be nervous,” I said.
“I’m not.”
I thought of all the texts between us, Saturday and Sunday, an indicator of our schedules, proof we’d been in close contact on the days the cops might want to know about.
“Got your phone?”
“Of course.” He patted his jeans pocket. “Shit. I left it on the counter. It was when you handed me the travel mug.”
“Okay,” I said, thinking, He never forgets his phone.
Under my breath, I said, “I wish you’d been at that Scarlatti party, Saturday night.”
He let go of the door handle and turned to me, his focus so undivided I thought we were going to have a tender moment. Mother and son, together in adversity.
“Thanks a lot,” he spat.
“No, I just meant—”
“I know what you meant.”
“Benjamin,” I tried.
“You think I don’t wish I’d been invited to that party?” His voice cracked.
“You’re still new here. There are cliques—”
“And another thing: You don’t have to hide shit,” he said, opening his door and stepping out. I hadn’t even cut the engine yet.
I didn’t know if he meant the underwear or the pool signin sheet. Maybe both. I followed thirty feet behind, heart hammering, trying to catch up before he reached the station’s front door.
Over his shoulder he said, “I saw how you handle things.
Maybe you can let me handle it from here.”
“We’ll handle it together.”
But he wasn’t listening, and now we were arguing within feet of the police station’s front door.
“Fucking sucks my own mother doesn’t trust me.”
“It’s the world I don’t trust, Benjamin. Wait up!”
My own voice sounded wrong to me, like I was shouting into a tunnel. I pushed ahead, replaying Hernández’s relaxed tone during our call, half an hour ago. Stop by. It sounded so casual. Bring your son. Completely casual.
My father and stepmother drove Ewan to the police station. They left me at home. Told me to stay near the phone in case it rang, but it didn’t. Everything was casual, then, too. At first.
“Benjamin, wait.”
No one even asked me to fill out a statement.
Everyone knew I’d been blacked out for most of the night in question, as well as young and traumatized.
Ewan was arrested and brought before a judge.
Then he was out on bail. A week later, after Martha’s death, he was brought in for questioning again, and I was alone with my father, preparing for Martha’s funeral.
“Hold the door,” I called louder. “We should walk in together.”
But the smoky-glassed door had already closed behind him.
When I pulled on the handle, the door was surprisingly heavy. I had to lean back to get some leverage before the door opened with a suctiony pop and whoosh, the air-conditioning hitting like an arctic blast.
Benjamin was at the reception desk, trying to get the attention of a woman handling the phones.
I caught up, turning as I heard Hernández coming toward us from a long hallway, raising a hand in greeting.
The row of recessed lighting in the hallway ceiling caught my eye.
Glowing spikes of light radiated from each hockey-puck-sized fixture, and then the spikes began to change color, from white to shimmery pink. The corners of my vision darkened.
When I opened my eyes, Hernández’s face was directly over mine. An unfamiliar female officer crouched next to him. Cool, gentle fingers encircled my wrist.
“Mrs. Rosso?” the woman cop asked. “Can you hear me now?”
The back of my head hurt. I tried to straighten one kinked leg but it weighed too much to move.
“How about now?”
Hernández said loudly, “Did you take anything?”
In the background, I heard another male voice softly questioning Benjamin, who kept saying, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Hernández repeated, “What did you take?”
“Nothing,” I said.
A dull pain radiated down my legs. I couldn’t tell which parts hurt from falling and which parts hurt from whatever was happening to change the proper pace of blood flowing through my arteries and veins.
I levered my way into a sitting position, head straining to catch sight of Benjamin. “Where’s my son?”
The woman placed her hand on my forehead, then moved it to the back of my skull, cradling it as I leaned back again. Too dizzy to sit up yet. “The ambulance will be here soon.”
“It wasn’t something I took. It’s something I didn’t take. It was a stress reaction, or, or . . . my mother. She had . . .”
High blood pressure, and later, a lethal stroke. My blood pressure was high, too. I was careful about it, usually.
Someone said, “Get her a juice, maybe?”
My eyelids got heavy again. Doors opened and the entryway filled with too many bodies in high-vis vests. Strangers kept asking me the same questions. What’s my name. Did I know where I was. What did I take. Did I have any health problems they should know about it. Was I on any prescriptions.
“Hypertension. I take clonidine.”
“How many hours ago was your last dose?” a paramedic asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“Why did you go off it?”
“I ran out of pills in my purse, and I have my regular bottle somewhere, but I couldn’t find it. We just moved to a new apartment.”
“What you’re experiencing is withdrawal. Your heart rate and blood pressure got elevated, that’s all. Next time, talk with your physician before you decide to go off your prescription.”
“I wasn’t trying to go off it. Life just happened.”
The paramedic smiled. He looked so young. I bet his mother was proud of him. “Let’s transport you just to be sure.”
“No, I need to be with my son. They can’t question him without me, can they? He’s a minor. Where’s the detective?”
The hallway lights no longer shimmered. I enunciated more clearly, “We came in voluntarily. Where did the detective take my son?”