Emma Reese

I opened my eyes. My mouth still smarted from the punch I’d never receive. “Emma? Emma Reese? Is that her name?”

Bill’s eyes flashed surprise for only a second before melting into acceptance, and I knew he was thinking of my mother. I really didn’t know what strange things he’d seen my mother do that summer before she confined herself to her bedroom, but it was clear he’d seen something. I was afraid to know what. “Yes, it is.”

Finally, peace. That lasted about one-tenth of a second. Somehow, knowing her name made the burden heavier.

He put his hands up gently, as if motioning a car to a stop in a tight parking spot. “Listen. This isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have done any more than you did. Jocelyn said you were helping her with a situation on the boardwalk.”

I’d been so busy concentrating on what I needed, the mention of Jocelyn surprised me. “She said that?”

He nodded. “Pedro, well … I’ll deal with him separately.”

I cringed at the mention of Pedro. Maybe he thought his mirrored sunglasses could disguise a little catnap, but in my vision, he’d been out like a light, snoring. I could have done something. I could have told headquarters that he was hungover. I could have stayed at my post instead of getting lunch. I could have ignored everything else and arrived at my post five minutes earlier, like I was supposed to. Bill went on about how “these things happen,” but he didn’t see what I saw. It was my fault.

He closed a thin manila file. On the tab, I saw CROSS, NICK in black block letters. “I’m sure a bunch of us will attend the funeral, and you’re more than welcome to—”

“Let me ask you a question.” I leaned forward, took a breath. “If ‘these things happen,’ like you say, and it’s not my fault, then why am I being fired?”

He sighed. “Aw, kid. Look. It’s politics. And you don’t want to be caught in the middle of an invest—”

“I killed her.” I spit out the words. “It is my fault. You can tell them whatever you want, but I could have saved her.”

I wanted to see what else he had written in the file. Maybe Terminated. Crazy as His Mother. But I didn’t want to get punched in the face again. Just the memory of the punch hurt. I flinched at the thought. My mind revved a bit more, like a computer’s hard drive being tested to its limits. I could almost feel the future memories, memories I hadn’t even sorted through, being plucked from my mind. A crease grew at the center of Bill’s forehead. I wondered if my mother had seen that crease.

Shutting my eyes, I spoke. “I want to—” I held out my hands but dropped them to my sides again when I realized they were trembling. My voice was, too. The pain was intensifying by the minute. I crunched down on the words, biting off each one. “I. Need. To.”

In that memory I’d had prior to entering Bill’s office, the one where he’d given the Good Kid speech, his features were a lot softer and, on the whole, more sympathetic. Now he looked disgusted, worn out. “What you need is to go home.

Get some rest. Take a breather.”

“What I need”—my voice cracked—“is …”

I wiped my eye and looked down at my hand. Wet. Perfect. When had I started crying?

He stood up and walked to the edge of his desk. Sat down on it so that his flip-flop dangled off one tanned foot. “Look … it’s not your—”

I closed my eyes again. Clenched my fists. Sometimes I hated people. They didn’t see things the way I did. “You. Are. Wrong.”

He went back behind the desk and began to scribble something on a notepad, all the while saying that he recommended I settle down before heading off, as he put it, “half-cocked.” My mind cycled a little more, so I squeezed my head between my hands and let the memories fall into place.

“Emma. Emma Reese,” I said aloud.

We know who you are and what you did and because of you she is dead you killed our Emma

The words lingered in my brain; a man spitting and growling them in such a way that I could feel his breath on my ear and smell something sour and dank, like old milk, on him. The vision that accompanied this was of a vaguely familiar brick ranch house, surrounded by pretty white pebbles. And there was the taste of lemonade. Lemonade and blood. Even though some of the images made no sense, it was clear that they blamed me. Whoever they were.

More cycling. You will …

I tried to green-elephant, but all I could see was a picture of the girl lying dead on the sand, surrounded by a circle of onlookers.

When I snapped back to reality, I realized that Bill had come over to my side of the desk. I found a piece of paper, folded, in my palm. I stood and thanked him. A cool ocean breeze greeted me when I opened the screen door and stepped outside.

The pain in my head subsided.

You will pick up your bike, straddle it, then open the sheet of paper in your hand.

I did so, but before I even read the paper, I cringed at what I knew was written on it. Scrawled there were nine words:

Get help before you end up like your mother.

I was eight the first time I was called Crazy Cross. It was by a chubby red-haired girl named Carrie Weldon who lived next door and had only a day earlier come over for Oreos and milk. Nan had beamed, excited because I had found a “nice friend,” as she had called Carrie. But the next day, my new nickname was all over the playground. Carrie had told everyone at school that my family was a bunch of monsters.

Until that moment, I’d thought the kids at school were the weird ones for having mothers who would walk them to the bus stop and come to their holiday concerts. To me, that was a job for Nan. Nan was also responsible for feeding me, clothing me … well, basically for everything. She did the same for my mother.

When Bill said, “Get help before you end up like your mother,” he really knew only a part of what being “like my mother” meant. He knew that my mom was a recluse and never left the stuffy second floor of our cottage. Only Nan really understood what was up with my mother and me. Most people would just cross to the other side of the street whenever they saw us coming. They thought we were harmless, but they didn’t want to take any chances. They figured we had something going on, but they weren’t sure what.

I trudged into our house, stuffing the pink sheet of paper from Bill into the pocket of my SPBP Windbreaker. Three months. Three months I’d managed to keep myself together, keep that nice, comfortable future intact. And it was all gone in the blink of an eye. It had been foolish to think I could keep it. My head still throbbed, and I hadn’t yet been able to fully unclench my fists. I kept them in tight balls at my sides. As the door slammed, three competing thoughts popped into my head: spilled milk, clown hair, and Bruce Willis. A You Will sliced through them, and I braced myself for the sound I dreaded.

Immediately, I heard it. Moaning from upstairs. It was the same low buzz of anguish that Carrie had heard ten years ago. Often, it wasn’t bad, and I could block it out. But on the worst days, it nearly drove me mad, echoing in my nightmares.

Nan was playing Journey in the kitchen, which she usually did to drown out my mom. She had a dish towel in her hands, and something that smelled strongly of fish was sizzling in a fry pan behind her, right under a row of tomatoes and cucumbers ripening on the windowsill. She must have been working in the garden today, judging from the circles of dirt on her bare knees. There were bobby pins holding down three almost-fluorescent orange curls at the base of her forehead, over a big, toothy grin. Though the hair was shockingly different, the smile was a constant. You’d think we’d won the lottery with the way Nan smiled all the time.