How does Bryan expect any of us to sleep in this house after someone died in it? When we left the emergency room that night, we weren’t allowed to step foot in our house because it was an active crime scene investigation, but that was totally fine with me because I didn’t want to go anywhere near it. I assumed we’d never go back inside. After all, Caleb’s best friend had died there, and how could we do that to him? It never occurred to me that Bryan and I wouldn’t be on the same page about something so obvious.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said when I brought up selling the house and moving. He talked about cleaning it up like the blood was Kool-Aid one of the kids had accidentally spilled on the floor.
They actually have businesses that specialize in cleaning up crime scenes, and he hired a blood-removal company once the investigation was complete. We walked into a house that was disturbingly clean, as if nothing had ever happened. It sparkled more than the day we’d moved in. There wasn’t a trace of anything except the smell of their antiseptic and heavy-duty cleaners.
It doesn’t matter how pretty or pristine things look, though. Nothing changes the fact that Sawyer died in our house. I feel it every second that I’m here. I see a puddle of his blood spilled on the wooden floor like flashbacks from an event I never experienced. I can’t imagine what it’s like for Caleb. His trauma psychologist, Gillian, is usually so good at keeping a neutral face, but even she couldn’t hide her disapproval when Bryan announced he planned to take Caleb home when he was ready for discharge.
I shut Caleb’s door and head to the master bedroom at the end of the hallway, not bothering to check on Luna. Bryan’s perched on our king-size bed waiting for me. His chiseled face is shaved and as wrinkle-free as it was in college when we met junior year. Back then, his Spanish accent was the most exotic thing I’d ever heard. It has lost its charm over the years now that I know he can turn it on and off whenever he chooses. I avoid eye contact and move into the bathroom, grabbing my pajamas from the hook on the back of the door. His stare pierces me from behind as I undress and slip them on without turning around. I draw out washing my face and brushing my teeth for as long as I can until I’m left with no choice but to turn around.
“So?” He pounces immediately. “Are they getting a lawyer too?”
“She didn’t say.” I take the decorative pillows from my side of the bed and carry them to the window seat, where I stack them in their designated spots. “She asked if we planned on having Ted there when the detectives spoke to Caleb and Luna.”
“And you told her yes?”
I grab the pillows from his side and bring them to join the others, holding my breath as I pass in front of him and letting it out when he doesn’t grab me. He’s tired too. Good. “I told her that we didn’t know.”
“Why would you do that?” He narrows his eyes to slits.
Because I don’t want her to hate me, but I can’t tell him that. Instead I shrug and sheepishly look away. Lindsey pretends our situations are the same, like we’re both waiting for our children to talk, but they’re not. Everybody feels sorry for Jacob, and they feel even sorrier for Lindsey the more she refuses to accept the doctor’s grave prognosis for Jacob’s recovery, but they don’t have the same level of sympathy for Caleb or me. It doesn’t help that his fingerprints are all over the gun. And it’s our gun. Bryan won’t let me forget that. Neither did Detective Locke. That was clear in the way he called out to us as we followed Ted out of his office earlier.
“Did you know that kids over fourteen who commit firearm crimes in the state of California are almost always charged as adults?” he asked. “How old did you say Caleb was again?” He knows exactly how old Caleb is, as well as what he ate in the cafeteria on that awful day. Even though they waited to interview us, they talked to plenty of other people about us.
Bryan started to say something, but Ted hurried us out the door before he had a chance to finish. Ted swore Detective Locke was only trying to scare us, and if that was the case, he’d been successful. Caleb won’t survive jail. I never should’ve let the gun in the house.
I didn’t grow up with guns, but Bryan did, and he was convinced we needed one for self-defense. He was raised on the South Side of Chicago, and despite the cul-de-sac nestling our two-story home in a gated community, he still acted like we lived in the kind of neighborhood where break-ins happen all the time. He kept it in a locked safe in our walk-in closet. I’ve always wondered how much protection it gives us being buried back there. By the time we got to the safe and worked the combination, wouldn’t the intruder already be on us? I mentioned it to Bryan once, and he laughed at me like I was being ridiculous.
He wanted to keep it a secret from the kids, but there was no way I was having it in the house without them knowing about it. What if they stumbled on it when they were playing and thought it was a toy? At least I won that battle and we showed the kids the gun. Bryan stressed how important it was for our protection, while I focused on never touching or playing with it. We showed them the safe in the closet so they’d know where it was at all times. We never gave either of them the combination.
Caleb has always been a genius with numbers and taking things apart. He spent hours dismantling his cars and trucks when he was a toddler. Once he took apart an old microwave Luna found in the garage. He was only eight.
That’s how I know he’s the one who got the gun.
What was he thinking? Why would he do something like that after all the times I’ve harped that guns aren’t toys? It’s those stupid video games he plays with his friends. All they do is shoot people, so he’s become totally desensitized to it. I hate those games.
They’re the reason the boys were over here that night to begin with. Caleb got the latest version of some game they could only play on his Xbox. It was rare to have the three of them sleep over. When they were younger, they worked their way through all our homes in different rotations so we all had our equal share, but in the last couple of years, they’ve spent most of their time at the Mitchells’. They pretend it’s because Sawyer has a better setup in his game room, but it’s because Kendra and Paul are rarely there, which makes their place a teenage paradise.
Bryan interrupts my thoughts. “Ted is going to be here at eight so we can prepare Caleb and Luna for their interviews. I want them to have plenty of time to practice their responses. Let’s wake them at seven to make sure they’re fully cognizant and alert by the time Ted gets here.”
He makes it sound like they’re taking their SATs in the morning. Caleb doesn’t know he’s going in front of Detective Locke tomorrow, even though I can’t imagine how that interview will go, since Caleb falls apart if you push him to talk about whatever’s locked inside him. He’s able to acknowledge questions nonverbally, and sometimes he’ll indicate responses in writing, but he stops all that once anything moves into uncomfortable territory. I planned on warning him about it when we got home this afternoon, but he was sleeping. Mom said he’d cried for three hours after we’d left. His anxiety pill had done nothing to calm him, and he’d finally fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion; I didn’t want to wake him.
I clear my throat and brace myself, preparing for the verbal assault that’s sure to follow what I’m about to say. “I’m not sure we should coach Luna. Maybe we should let her answer the questions by herself. Besides, it’s not like she’s been around much to know what’s happening.”