“What was the name?” Janelle asked.
Colleen kept her eyes on the window. “People called him Butt Munch,” she said.
“Oh, my God,” Janelle said. “That poor boy. Kids can be so mean.” The baby stirred in her arms, and a near-silent moan came from his tiny body, continuing on until it ended in a sigh.
“It’s awful to think about now, but we were kids, and no one really thought about it at the time.”
“Did Rodney—？”
“No,” Colleen said. “That’s what I was going to say. I don’t remember Rodney being mean to him. As a matter of fact, I can remember them shooting baskets before gym class.” She looked from the baby back to the window. “Billy would take these really awkward, dramatic shots from half-court or the three-point line, and Rodney would rebound for him, chase the ball down, toss it back to him.” She looked back at Janelle, who was smiling, her eyes wet. “I remember Rodney doing that.”
“So that’s what he was like in high school?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Colleen. “That’s what he was like.”
“He was still that way,” Janelle said. “He was just a really good person.”
“That’s how I remember him too,” Colleen said.
The music that Colleen had first heard in the bathroom suddenly grew louder, and she was aware that a door had opened in the hallway. She turned to see a young Black boy standing in the doorway to the nursery. He wore black shorts and an Atlanta Hawks jersey. His hair was cut close and sharp, and his eyes were large, his body thin and long in the way that all teenage boys’ bodies seem when they have not yet learned how to carry themselves.
“Jay,” Janelle said, “this is Colleen.”
“Hey,” he said.
“Hello,” Colleen said.
“She was one of Rodney’s friends in high school,” Janelle said.
“I’m so sorry about your brother-in-law,” Colleen said.
Jay just stood there for a moment, his face portraying nothing. “Do we have any Coke?” he finally asked Janelle.
“I don’t know, Jay,” Janelle said. “I’ve got my hands full. You can check the refrigerator easier than I can at the moment.”
With that, the boy was gone. Colleen could hear his heavy footfalls as he moved down the hallway, across the living room, and into the kitchen.
“I’m sorry about that,” Janelle said. “That’s my little brother. He moved up here from Atlanta for school, and he wasn’t yet settled when all this happened.”
“That’s okay,” Colleen said. “I’m sure it’s nice to have him close.”
“Not really,” Janelle whispered, as if confessing a secret. “He was getting into some trouble, and my parents were just hoping—” She stopped as if searching for the right words or phrase, but she didn’t finish. Instead, she looked down at her baby. He had stopped nursing, and he was threatening to close his eyes and drift off to sleep again. Janelle, perhaps sensing Colleen’s awkwardness at the things Janelle had just said to her, looked up and smiled. “Do you want to hold him?” she asked.
“Me?” Colleen asked, as if someone else was in the room. “I mean, if that’s okay. I’d love to.”
“Do you mind burping him?” Janelle asked. She smiled as if knowing that she was offering Colleen the more undesirable half of the feeding process.
“No,” Colleen said. “No, not at all.”
Janelle lifted the baby toward Colleen. He had opened his eyes and was staring intently at her. She raised her hands and held him under his arms. She stared at him for a moment, making eyes at him, trying to get him to smile. He gurgled and smiled. Milk spilled from his mouth and landed on his shirt.
“Whoops,” Colleen said. She turned the baby to face Janelle, and Janelle smiled and leaned forward and wiped the milk from the baby’s mouth and shirt. She draped the towel over Colleen’s shoulder, and Colleen held the baby so that his face rested there. She patted his back gently.
“It’s not any of my business,” Janelle said, “but your dad told me what happened to you and your husband, and, again, it’s not my business, but I just want to say that I’m sorry.”
Colleen stared at Janelle’s face, her hand rhythmically patting the baby’s back until his body heaved in a small burp. Even then she did not stop patting him. She was shocked, both by Janelle’s condolences after her own recent tragedy, and that Winston had managed to mention it in the short time Colleen had been in the bathroom.
Colleen was crying before she realized it. Janelle cocked her head and whispered, “I’m sorry,” and she reached out and touched Colleen’s knee. Colleen nodded her head, but she didn’t know why, and then Janelle reached out her arms for the baby, and Colleen passed him back to his mother. The burp cloth remained resting on Colleen’s shoulder. Janelle passed her a tissue, and Colleen wiped her eyes.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I hope I didn’t say the wrong thing,” Janelle said. “I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry.”
Colleen thought of Scott in Dallas, all those miles and a time zone away. She didn’t want to go back there, but she couldn’t imagine living without him after what they had been through, even if it often felt as if they hadn’t been through it together. She knew she had to go home, and she found herself wondering what Janelle would do.
“Do you think you’ll stay here?” Colleen asked.
Janelle looked at the floor and shook her head. “Somebody killed my husband for no reason. And two nights ago we had the Klan or something show up at our door, shoot off guns, crash a log through my little brother’s window. Will I stay?” Janelle said. She shook her head again. “Would you?”
It was late afternoon, and Colleen was sitting on the bed in her bedroom, on the phone with Scott. After leaving Janelle Bellamy’s house, Winston had driven her home before going back to work. As soon as she’d walked in the door, she’d gone upstairs to her bedroom and called Scott’s office in Dallas. He hadn’t answered when the receptionist patched her through to his desk, but Colleen had left a voice message, and she’d spent the day waiting for him to call back.
When he finally called back, Colleen had found herself in tears, recounting the visit with Janelle Bellamy, her memories of Rodney, and now the particular predicament Janelle found herself in with a new baby and a younger brother both living under her roof. Colleen had tried to imagine herself in that situation—the murder, the terror, the loneliness.
“I would leave too,” Colleen said. “I don’t blame her for wanting to.”
“But who’d want to live in Atlanta?” Scott said. “It’s hot and flat and traffic is terrible, and there’s no water. It’s totally landlocked.”
Colleen laughed. “You just described Dallas to a T,” she’d said. “T for Texas.” Her mother’s half-read magazines—Southern Living, Ladies’ Home Journal—were open on the bed and scattered all around her.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Scott said. He was quiet for a moment, but Colleen could feel him thinking on the other end of the line. “Is that why you left and went home? Are you thinking that she should go back to Atlanta because you went back to Oak Island?”