“Thanks for sharing that with me.” It might be nice to have an ally through this. She seems kind, and Detective Layne obviously likes her.
“Would it help to talk about what’s going on right now?” She’s got this cute little nose. A dash of freckles splashed across it that you can barely see. Makes her look sweet, innocent.
“You sound like such a psychologist,” I say, giggling. “Is that what they’ve hired you to do? I look like I need a psychologist?”
She smiles. “Or someone that doesn’t look so scary and intimidating who might be able to help Mason give the investigators the information they want so that they can leave him alone, and the two of you can try to get back to some kind of normalcy?”
“Exactly!” I scoot my chair closer to her. “This has completely screwed with all of Mason’s routines and schedules, so he’s a total mess. You know how it is when things get out of whack for them.” She nods in agreement. She knows. Of course she does. “Everyone on Detective Layne’s team is so focused on getting Mason to give a statement about what he saw that they’re forgetting about what we went through. Do you have any idea how awful that was?”
I shudder at the memory of that moment.
Pure, cold fear. At its most primal level. There were no thoughts. No sounds. No words. Nothing came out. Nothing moved. They always say it’s fight or flight when you get scared. They’re wrong. The fear froze me.
But I’d never seen the eyes of an animal unchained. Set loose.
I swallow the terror as it moves from my stomach and into my throat, forcing it down. But it won’t go away. It never does. It’s always there, waiting.
“It must’ve been terrible.” Ms. Walker speaks into my fear.
It wasn’t just his face. It was Annabelle’s too.
I shake my head like it will clear the images crashing into each other, sending waves of nausea through me. “Have you ever seen a dead body?”
She grimaces. Of course she hasn’t. Who has?
“You don’t just get that image out of your mind. It stays there. Night and day. Right there.” I tap my forehead with two fingers so she understands the seriousness of my point. Those moments stay in my head like videos filmed in slow motion, playing nonstop. “You go to sleep with it at night, if you manage to sleep at all, and it’s the first thing you see when you open your eyes in the morning. And speaking of eyes—hers were wide open.” She shifts in her seat uncomfortably, but I don’t stop. Someone has to understand what I’m going through. “They were lifeless, like whatever spirit we have inside us had been sucked out of her. Do you want to know what was the most disturbing?” I don’t wait for her to respond. I don’t care if she doesn’t want to know. I’m telling her. Someone has to know the things I’ve seen. “You can’t close a dead person’s eyes. Did you know that?”
She’s taken aback. Not what she expected me to say. That’s okay. It’s not what I expected to see. “I didn’t know that.”
“You can’t. You know how when somebody dies in the movies and books, you just peacefully close their eyelids? It’s not like that at all. Oh no, not even a little bit like that.” I shake my head. “I tried to close her eyes. To get those big things to stop looking at us, but every time I pressed the lids down, they just popped right back up.” I swallow hard like the memories are bile I’m trying to keep down.
“Things like this tend to be unsettling that way.” She keeps rearranging her face, trying to find the right expression for this. There is none. She might as well give up.
“Unsettling?” I burst into laughter. I can’t help it. These hysterical shrieks come out of me. This isn’t my laugh. And it’s not funny. But I can’t stop. Ms. Walker looks at me like she’s not sure exactly what’s happening and scans the room for a panic button just in case she’s trapped in here with a crazy woman, which only makes me laugh harder. So hard tears fill my eyes. They roll down my cheeks. And then I’m crying. Sobbing. Soul-racking, soul-sucking sobs.
Ms. Walker slides her chair closer to mine, and the aluminum legs scratch the concrete floor like nails on a chalkboard, sending Mason flying out of his chair and into the corner. He clamps his hands over the noise-reducing headphones he wears on his head twenty-four seven.
“Ma. Ma,” he cries out.
I jump up and scurry over to him, swallowing my sobs like hiccups. His hands never stop moving; they scratch up and down along his arms. He rocks. Perpetual motion to a beat thrumming somewhere inside him.
“Ma. Ma. Ma. Ma,” he calls, even though I’m right here.
I stand beside him and put my hand on his shoulder, giving him a hard squeeze. He doesn’t like them soft. “It’s okay, you’re okay,” I say, even though it’s not true. We’re so far from okay.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle him,” Ms. Walker gushes. She pushes her chair back from the table like she’s going to come over to us, and I quickly shake my head to stop her. Getting close to him isn’t a good idea when he’s like this. She should know better than that.
“You see what this is doing to us? We just want our lives back, and that’s not going to happen until they find the man who attacked Annabelle.” I’ve been saying this for six days. Six days since my world cracked open. It will be another dividing point in time. Life before and life after. I should be used to this by now, but I’m not. “The police need to be doing more to find him. They’re not doing enough. Nobody’s listening to me. Nobody’s taking me seriously. They’re wasting valuable time trying to get Mason to talk when they should be out there looking for him.”
“I’m sure they’re doing all they can. Things like this take time,” she says, settling back into her chair and staying put.
“Do you work with the police a lot?” Mason makes soft grunting noises next to me. That’s a good sign. He’s settling. I pat him twice on the arm. His muscles are less tense.
“This is my first time.” Ms. Walker’s cheeks flush with embarrassment, but I appreciate her honesty. It’s refreshing and exactly what I need. Someone I can trust.
“Are you from the South?” She nods. “So you remember Scarlet?”
“Of course I remember Scarlet.” She springs to life. More animated than she’s been since she stepped into the room. “That was the most terrifying summer of my life. I’ve never been so scared.”
“Right? And none of our parents did anything to make us feel better. There was never any Don’t worry, honey, you’ll be okay. It was always You better get your ass home before the lights go out so that creep doesn’t get you too.” I say it in my best daddy voice. I never had to worry about anyone getting me once I was inside the house. My daddy always slept with a gun underneath his pillow.
“You better get your ass home before the lights go out so that creep doesn’t get you too,” Mason echoes, sounding just like me. Perfect intonation.
Ms. Walker bursts out laughing. She’s got a big laugh for such a small body. “My parents weren’t quite that bad, but they were pretty close.”