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And now I am there. I’m actually there. Here.
And I’d rather be anyplace else in the world.
The police have cordoned off the scene. No curious neighbors. No “lookie-loos.” No news cameras or reporters for blocks and blocks. Just cops and detectives and medics and firemen and my dad. My dad with a phone at his ear. My dad crouching down on the lawn.
My dad with so much on the line.
My heart does more than pound. My heart beats in the off rhythm you get when you’re absolutely out of your mind with fear.
“DeeDee,” I hear my father say. “What’s up with you? You’ve got no need of a gun. Let me come inside and we can talk.”
But DeeDee Pearson isn’t in a mood for conversation.
“No more. No more. People have got to understand I don’t deserve this. Teddy deserves better than this,” DeeDee says, talking about their kid. “We’re all going to be better off if we’re not here.”
What the hell is it? What’s going on? The Pearsons? Just a few weeks ago, Nana dropped off one of her sweet lemon pound cakes for them. The Pearsons have always been in and out of our house. Funny. Nice.
“Can I come in, Dee? Then we can talk,” my dad says.
“Don’t make me give you a bullet, too, Alex. Don’t you come near me,” she says.
As he talks to Mrs. Pearson, my dad inches closer toward the front door. I watch as some of the officers in my line of vision shift their own positions. I think I hear voices in the back of the house. One of the women officers crawls real low at the foundation of the house and positions herself under the smashed window.
I have never seen anything like this in my life. It’s as simple as that. It is that step beyond frightened, beyond sick, beyond belief.
It takes a whole minute, but my father makes it to the front door.
He steps inside.
Another minute goes by. Then another.
And we all hear a gunshot.
My insides freeze.
Then a senior officer yells, “Stay where you are! Wait for a signal!”
Wait? What are we waiting for?
I tell myself that the gunshot could not have hit my father. He wasn’t close enough. Unless the woman was in the front hall. But maybe she shot her husband. Or maybe I’m wrong about thinking my dad is safe. I want to run inside and see what happened. But I’m as frozen in place as the officers who are obeying their orders.
An old cliché can still be the truth. And the truth is that now the seconds seem like hours. In those seconds I think I hear a helicopter in the distance. I see the rear doors of the ambulances being opened.
I hear a shout. My dad’s voice. Loud. Calm. From inside the house.
I try to stifle it, try to stay cool and tough, but a sob of relief escapes from my throat.
“Hold fire,” he says.
I need to see him.
And I do. He steps out from the house, out the red front door. His arm is around DeeDee Pearson. The woman walks slowly with my father. She is leaning her head against his chest. She is sobbing.
My father and Mrs. Pearson walk toward the crowd of officers on the street. I watch as my dad says something to Mrs. P. Then he gives her a hug and hands her over to a woman police officer who handcuffs her.
I can’t make out everything my dad tells the officers, but I hear enough to start piecing together what happened: “… lifelong struggle with mental illness… husband said she’d stopped taking her medication… having some paranoid thoughts… I kept her calm, convinced her I was there to help her… got her to put down her gun without even taking out mine…”
I am not frozen in fear, but I just don’t want to move. Also, I’m not even sure where I should go, what I should do.
