She juts out her chin, like I’ve seen her do when she thinks someone is about to dismiss her as weak or ineffective. Then she unfolds herself from the truck. She is wearing flat shoes, the way Odette Lawton told her to, but her coat is short and only reaches to the hip, and I can tell the wind whips through the fabric of her dress fast. I try to stand between her and the gusts, as if I could change up the weather for her.
When we get there, the sun is just hitting the headstone in a way that makes it sparkle. It’s white. Blinding white. Brit bends down and traces the letters of Davis’s name. The day of his birth, the hopscotch leap to his death. And just one word under that:LOVE.
Brit had wanted it to sayLOVED. Those were the directions she gave me for the granite carver. But at the last minute I changed it. I was never going to stop, so why make it past tense?
I told Brit the carver had been the one to screw up. I didn’t admit it had been my idea all along.
I like the idea that the word on my son’s grave matches the tattoo on the knuckles of my left hand. It’s like I carry him with me.
We stand at the grave until Brit gets too cold. There is a peach fuzz of lawn, seeded after the funeral, already brown. A second death.
—
THE FIRST THINGSI see at the courthouse are the niggers.
It’s like the whole park in the middle of New Haven is covered with them. They’re waving flags and singing hymns.
It’s that asshole from television, Wallace Something. The one who thinks he’s a reverend and probably got ordained online for five bucks. He’s giving some kind of nigger history lesson, talking about Bacon’s Rebellion. “In response, my brothers and sisters,” he says, “Whites and blacks were separated. If they united, it was believed they could do too much damage together. And by 1705, indentured servants who were Christian—and White—were given land, guns, food, money. Those who were not were enslaved. Our land and livestock was taken. Our arms were taken. If we lifted a hand to a White man, our very lives could be taken.” He raises his arms. “History is told by Americans of Anglo descent.”
Damn straight.I look at the size of the crowd listening to him. I think of the Alamo, where a handful of Texans held off an army of spics for twelve days.
I mean, they lost, but still.
Suddenly, out of the sea of black, I see a White fist raised. A symbol.
The crowd shifts as the man walks toward me. A big dude, with a bald head and a long red beard. He stops in front of me and Brit and holds out his hand. “Carl Thorheldson,” he says, introducing himself. “But you know me as Odin45.”
It is the handle of a frequent poster on Lonewolf.org.
His companion shakes my hand, too. “Erich Duval. WhiteDevil.”
They are joined by a woman with twins, little silver-haired toddlers each balanced on a hip. Then a dude in camo. Three girls with heavy black eyeliner. A tall man in combat boots with a toothpick clenched between his teeth. A young guy with thick-framed hipster glasses and a laptop in his arms.
A steady stream closes ranks around me—people I know by a shared interest in Lonewolf.org. They are tailors and accountants and teachers, they are Minutemen patrolling the borders in Arizona and militia in the hills of New Hampshire. They are neo-Nazis who never decredited. They have been anonymous, hiding behind the screens of usernames, until now.
For my son, they’re willing to be outed once again.
ON THE MORNING OF THEtrial, I oversleep. I shoot out of bed like a cannonball, throwing water on my face and yanking my hair into a bun at the nape and stuffing myself into my panty hose and my best navy trial suit. Literally three minutes of grooming, and I’m in the kitchen, where Micah is standing at the stove. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” I demand.
He smiles and gives me a quick kiss. “I love you too, moon of my life,” he says. “Go sit down next to Violet.”
Our daughter is at the table, looking at me. “Mommy? You’re wearing two different shoes.”
“Oh, God,” I mutter, pivoting to go back to the bedroom, but Micah grabs my shoulder and steers me to a seat.
“You’re going to eat this while it’s hot. You need energy to take down a skinhead and his wife. Otherwise, you’re going to run out of steam, and I know from personal experience that the only option for food in that courthouse is something brown they are trying to pass off as coffee and a vending machine of granola bars from the Jurassic period.” He puts down a plate—two fried eggs, toast with jam, even hash browns. I am so hungry that I’ve already finished the eggs before he can set down the last of my breakfast—a steaming latte in his old Harvard Med School mug. “Look,” he jokes, “I even served you your coffee in the White Privilege cup.”
I burst out laughing. “Then I’ll take it with me in the car for luck. Or guilt. Or something.”
I kiss Violet on the crown of her head and grab my matching shoe from the bedroom closet, along with my phone, charger, computer, and briefcase. Micah’s waiting for me at the door with the mug of coffee. “In all seriousness? I’m proud of you.”
I let myself have this one moment. “Thanks.”
“Go forth and be Marcia Clark.”
I wince. “She’s a prosecutor. Can I be Gloria Allred?”
Micah shrugs. “Just knock ’em dead.”
