Never Come Back

Chapter Nine

When I stepped back inside the house, every eye in the room turned to me. I felt like the anticipated guest of honor at a surprise party, except no one cheered. No one said anything. Paul waited in the living room, sitting in Mom’s chair.

“Can we talk for a minute?” I said to him.

He answered by standing up, his face nervous with anticipation about whatever I had learned, and followed me down the hallway to Mom’s bedroom. I closed the door.

Paul stood in the center of the room, his hands resting on his hips. His lips were parted, ready with questions, but he didn’t say anything yet.

I didn’t sit either. “It’s worse than I could have thought,” I said. Then I realized where we were standing again: the room where Mom died. It had happened right there. Someone had killed her. My mind raced with the most awful thoughts: How badly did she suffer? What was it like to have a monster of some kind standing over her, squeezing the life out of her? And the police thought that monster was my own brother.

Finally, Paul spoke. “What is it, Elizabeth?”

“They say Mom was murdered,” I said. “Strangled.”

Paul raised his fist and placed it over his mouth, as though stifling a cough. Or a cry. But no sound emerged.

“It’s worse,” I said. “They think Ronnie… he’s really a suspect.” My hands fluttered uselessly in the air around my body. I must have looked like Richland. “It looks like they want to take him with them. They want a shrink to talk to him, someone who knows about Down syndrome, I guess, in order to determine if he did it or not.”

Once the words were out—the awful words and the awful truth of what the police had told me—I understood with great clarity what I wanted from Paul. With Mom gone, he became the adult. The rock. He needed to put a stop to all the foolishness and restore order. I needed him to back me up and tell the police to take a walk.

“That’s just so… goddamn terrible,” he said.

“I know.” A bad taste entered my mouth, something bitter, as if I’d eaten poison or rotten fruit. I thought I might vomit. “I don’t know what to do. Should I call a lawyer?”

He took a step back and sat down on the end of the neatly made bed. He hadn’t been sleeping there, I knew; he slept on the couch every night. He looked thoughtful, calm. He said, “I’m not sure what a lawyer could do for us.”

“Stop them,” I said. “They want to take Ronnie away.”

“I told you I was afraid of this,” he said. His voice remained calm, and while he spoke I saw the remnants of his career as a high school English teacher in the wise, instructive way he spoke. “But, look, maybe this isn’t as bad as we think it is. Maybe we’re all in over our heads here. Do you believe Ronnie could do this to your mom?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I mean… no is what I mean. They put doubts in my head, if I’m honest. And that story you told me—”

“Ronnie hasn’t been himself the last few days,” he said. “Understandably so. He suffered a horrible loss just like all of us. But haven’t you been thinking already that we might have to get Ronnie some counseling or something?”

I nodded. I had been thinking that. I just didn’t know where or when to turn to it.

“Maybe this is what he needs,” Paul said. “Let him speak to a professional, let him work through his feelings.” He sighed. “Hell, we all probably need it now. Some help.”

“Fuck,” I said. My eyes burned, the hot tears rising again. “This is so fucking rotten. It’s all just rotten.”

“I know,” Paul said.

“You asked me a question before,” I said. “You asked me if I thought Ronnie could have done what they say he might have done. Let me ask you the same thing. Do you think it’s possible?”

I knew what I wanted his answer to be, no matter what he thought. I wanted him to reassure me.

“I can’t even go there,” he said. “It’s just too far to go.”

Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but I took it. I wiped at my eyes and managed not to lose it.

I stepped out into the hallway and stood in the background while Paul gently started explaining to Ronnie about the police and why they needed to talk to him. After just a few minutes of watching that, I decided I might be more useful dealing with the detectives, who I assumed were still waiting on the front porch.

Except they weren’t. When I came out of the hallway I saw the last few guests leaving the house. As they went out the door, Richland and Post were coming in, apparently having seen the breakup of the reception as an invitation to come back inside.

“Can you give us a minute?” I asked, trying to speak to the police the way I sometimes spoke to my students: firm, in charge. “We’re trying to get Ronnie ready. To explain to him what’s happening. We just buried our mother today, for Christ’s sake.”

But my words failed to intimidate or even sway the police officers. They both looked at me, their faces professionally stoic. They didn’t offer to move, and Richland looked around the room as if he were thinking of buying the house.

But I wouldn’t be deterred. I pushed more.

“Why don’t you two just leave?” I said. “We can bring Ronnie to the hospital or doctor or wherever you want him to go. You don’t have to hover around here. We’re not criminals.”

“Ms. Hampton,” Richland said, focusing his attention on me, “we need to escort your brother. It’s just the standard procedure.”

“Can one of us ride with him?” I asked. “Me or my uncle?”

“You can come along in a little bit,” Post said. “And you can see your brother and visit with him once he’s been processed.”

“Processed?” I asked, nearly spitting the word. “What is he? A cow?”

“Easy now,” Richland said.

“Easy? You show up here telling me my mother was murdered and you want to take my brother away and you say easy?”

Neither of them looked at me. Their eyes drifted over my head and past me to the hallway. I turned. Paul and Ronnie came out of Ronnie’s bedroom. Ronnie carried his sketch pad in his left hand, and Paul walked by his side, holding on to Ronnie’s arm like an escort. Ronnie wore the same impassive look on his face, but his eyes betrayed him. They flickered back and forth, giving Ronnie the look of a skittish child.

“Oh, Ronnie,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“He’s fine,” Paul said. “We talked about it.”

But I knew Ronnie wasn’t fine, and so did Paul. They reached the police, and Paul let go, his hand slipping off Ronnie’s arm and falling back to his own side.

Post stepped forward and smiled. “Ronnie, you know you’re going to take a little ride with us?”

“Don’t talk to him like he’s six,” I said.

Post ignored me, and Richland opened the door. “We’ll be at Dover Community Hospital,” he said.

“Dover Community?” I said.

“Yes,” Post said.

“The loony bin?” I said.

“It’s a mental health facility,” Post said. “It’s an excellent hospital.”

Post guided Ronnie to the door, and I allowed myself to think that Paul was right, that this was for the best and Ronnie needed the extra attention and counseling a professional could give him. And just as the thought crossed my mind, Ronnie’s body froze. Every muscle grew rigid, and if I didn’t know any better, I would have thought he was suffering a seizure of some kind. He locked up, refusing to move past the doorjamb.

“Paul!” he cried. “Elizabeth! No. No no no no no no.”

“Oh, Jesus, Ronnie,” I said.

Paul stepped in. He went to Ronnie and placed his hands on Ronnie’s shoulders. “It’s okay, bud,” he said. “We’ll see you real soon. Remember what we talked about? Remember?”

“Elizabeth,” Ronnie said, his voice lower and weaker.

“Ronnie?” Paul said. “Remember.”

As the words came out of Paul’s mouth, the resistance seemed to drain from Ronnie. His body sagged; his shoulders slumped. He allowed Richland to place a hand on his arm and guide him through the door and onto the porch. Richland towered over my brother, practically casting him in shadow. When they were out of sight, I went to the door myself, with Paul right beside me.

Ronnie shuffled down the walk with the detectives on either side of him. A couple of the mourners, Mrs. Porter included, still lingered on the sidewalk, chatting before they headed in their separate directions. They stopped their talk and watched as the police placed Ronnie in the back of the cruiser, which remained parked beneath the trees on Mom’s street.

If I’d cared more about what other people thought in that moment, I would have been mortified, knowing the way gossip and rumor and misunderstanding spread in a town like Dover. But none of that mattered to me. All I heard in my own head was the sound of my brother’s voice calling my name, saying to me, How could you let this happen? How?