“Good morning, my sweet,” I tell her, wiping my eyes. She climbs onto the sofa and slips beneath the quilt, her body pressed into mine, and for a brief moment, I feel like myself. Like this is any other day.
Restlessness soon creeps in, and she sits up. She finds a cartoon streaming on her iPad and leans against me like I’m a part of her. Like we are just one body sneaking in a show before the day begins.
Amy and Mitch stir upstairs, and Fran runs off to get dressed.
“Are you coming?” she asks me because that’s what we would normally do. The two early birds hearing the call and getting on with things.
I pull in a breath. My head spins, but I shake it off.
“Beat you up the stairs,” I say. I move from the sofa and pretend to give chase. Her laughter steals the breath I’ve drawn because I can feel it now. I can feel the new version of myself finding her way around inside my body and my mind and the walls of this house.
Mitch doesn’t go to work. He drives the girls to school to shield them from any kids who might know about the shooting and what I’ve done. We don’t yet know how this will play out. While he’s gone, Rowan comes by. We sit at the small table in the kitchen at the back of the house. He’s brought me coffee and a blueberry scone from the place we always stop when we have a morning interview with a witness. The normalcy of this is unsettling. Nothing feels normal to me today.
“You never told me what happened after I left the dressing room,” I say. “What you found in the last stall.”
The back door opens, and Mitch is here now, returned from thedrop-off. “What’s happened?”
I hear his car keys slide across the kitchen counter. I don’t have it in me to explain. I am laser focused on my partner and getting the answers I need. I take hold of Rowan’s arms, one in each hand.
“Did you find the tall man?” I ask him. I’ve been drowning all morning, and the answer to this question is what might save me.
It was in my statement, how I saw him, how he was in the line of fire, how he tried to make it to the dressing room after he saw me and the shooter turned, and then turned back to him, his weapon still aimed.
“Was he there?”
“Yeah,” Rowan says. “He was there.”
I ask more because I need more. His name, at least. What he saw and did it match what I saw? Was he in the line of fire? Was his life in danger when I pulled the trigger? I can’t see it anymore. The memory is blurred and contorted and I know it will never straighten out.
“Don’t worry about that now,” he tells me. He says the tall man left the dressing room while Rowan tended to a pregnant woman. The one I’d seen wearing the dress. The one whose shape was round. The man left before Rowan had a chance to speak with him.
“What man is this?” Mitch asks, standing over Rowan, looking at me.
Rowan answers. “There was a man in the line of fire when Elise took out the shooter. He was trying to find shelter in the dressing room.”
Mitch is confused but he lets us continue.
“Did he give a statement?” I ask.
Rowan shifts his focus to Mitch, then back to me, and I guess the answer.
“We don’t know,” he says. “But they haven’t finished going through the witness lists, or the surveillance footage from the store.”
He tells Mitch how the man left the dressing room, then the men’s department. How he must have been stopped at the entrance to the store, made to give a statement. How they would have him on the security footage, but they needed time to go over it all.
I rattle off questions which come across as accusations. How is it possible that this has not been done? Why is this man not a priority? He saw me fire my weapon. He saw me kill the shooter. I try to explain but neither of them understands my fixation.
“I need to know if I had to kill that boy.”
Mitch reaches down and takes my face in the palm of his hand.
“What are you talking about? Of course you had to! You saved countless lives in that store. Over a hundred people were shopping at Nichols when it happened. Isn’t that true?” He looks to Rowan, who nods as he puts together the fact that I haven’t told Mitch more. That Clay Lucas may have come there to draw fire. To die at my hand.
I feel the fixation grab hold. This could give me the answer I need. Did I kill this young man to save the life of another? They’ve found bullets in the walls just past where the tall man stood, hands over his head, pleading. Clay Lucas had fired, but when? And where was his aim?
There is nothing to be done now, here in my kitchen. Rowan leaves and heads back to the office where he can help with the investigation. He promises to look for the tall man’s statement himself. He promises to make this his priority. It will be all hands on deck. All hands—except for mine. The union rep negotiated two weeks of paid leave plus four sessions with Dr. Landyn before my return to active duty. We begin tomorrow.
Mitch sits at the table and reaches for my face. I want his touch to heal me, but I can’t feel him.
