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Mom wears a bright yellow sundress. Her long hair hangs low, and her lips, fire-engine red, make her blue eyes stand out against her light skin.
Blue eyes like mine.
Not like the man in the picture.
She doesn’t normally wear dresses like she’s wearing today, or heels, or a fancy purse. She doesn’t often wear lipstick, or style her hair overnight so it curls the next day.
My mom cleans hotel rooms seven days a week; she wears jeans, sneakers, and ponytails. She never wears heels, and she neverevertakes days off, like she’s done for today.
That makes this special.
This place looks empty; there are no cars besides ours in the parking lot. The double front doors are closed, the windows dark. But this is where she brought us, so I guess this is where we’re going.
Turning back to my mom, I nod and reach out to pat her hand. She’s nervous, so it’s my job to make this less scary. “Let’s go.”
We push our doors open and step onto the parking lot of concrete and broken gravel bits. The breeze is chilly, and I forgot my sweater, so I fold my arms and slam the door closed. Moving around to the hood of the car, I wait for Mom to loop her arm in mine, then we move toward the front entrance.
She’s more nervous than I’ve ever seen her. It’s weird, because she’s normally our strong one. She’s our leader. She’s a single mom and she works herself to the bone.
The fact that she’s feeling weak means I need to be strong.
As though by magic, the doors at the front of the club open, and a man in a police uniform steps forward to wait. He’s not one of the men from the picture I’ve spent my life looking at. He’slikethem, I guess. In the way that his face is hard, his jaw square and strong. This guy has shaved his head bald and wears a shiny diamond in his left ear.
He’s in full uniform, with a black gun on his hip and a shiny badge on his chest. His presence in this dark place brings me comfort in a way. Cops make some people nervous, they make the guilty worry that their crimes have been carved into their foreheads, but my mom and I have committed no crimes. We’re the good people, and he’s the police.
He watches us approach with heavy brows and narrowed eyes, and still, he makes me comfortable. But my mom doesn’t relax like I do.
Lifting his left hand as though to scratch his jaw, the policeman stops and speaks into his wrist like this is a spy movie. “They’re here.” He pauses, and while he waits, his eyes don’t leave mine. “Yeah, Sarge. On our way.” He drops his arm and finally meets Mom’s eyes. “Ms. Ellis, come on in.”
“Thank you.” Mom nervously pats her dress down and lets me lead her into the dark building and along a long hall. “Is… uh…” Mom looks around. She was nervous and a little scared, but the further we walk into this unknown place, the stronger she becomes. She becomes my protector, my leader, and helps my heart slow. “I’m here to see—”
“I know.” The handcuffs on the back of the man’s belt glint in the light that peeks through windows and doorways. Keys hang near the cuffs, and a flashlight sits on his left hip. He’s like the cops I see in the movies, which is super cool. I’ve wanted to be the law ever sinceWalker, Texas Rangercame out on tape. A tape I’ve watched so many times that it’s basically ruined.
Maybe if this guy is friends with the man from the photo, while mom talks to the man, I can talk to the cop. We can hang out and talk criminals, I can ask him about the cool cases he’s solved. I might even ask him if he’s ever shot someone before.
That would be really cool.
We’re led through the hall and into a large space that’s basically empty now except for tables and chairs, but I bet at night, people sit and drink while others dance. Colorful lights hang from the ceiling, though they’re all switched off right now. This is like a dance club, I think. People probably get drunk here, so maybe that’s why the policeman is here…
“Up here, Ms. Ellis.”
We follow the bald policeman when he turns left, then climb up a set of stairs that creak as we move. His boots stomp on the metal steps, Mom’s heelsclick-clack. My sneakers are silent, and when I release my mom’s hand, she and the cop move ahead without glancing back to me.
Arching my neck, I look around the club as we head up, and notice a long bar with a billion bottles behind it, empty milk crates stacked between, two cash registers, one on each end, and a box tossed on one of the tables, the flaps a little open, and black sticks poking out of the top.
Turning back to the top of the stairs, I jog to catch up, and reach the landing in the same moment the cop taps on a heavy door. Only a second passes, long enough for Mom to look back and take my hand when I step closer. She clutches me close, twines her fingers with mine, and pats our knuckles as she turns back to the door.
She holds our clasped hands to her chest, so I feel her heart racing as the door slowly creaks open and the policeman whispers to someone inside.
It’s all “she’s here,” and “she brought the kid.”
My pulse speeds as the cop steps aside with a kind smile and waves us in. Mom steps forward first, but she keeps my hand in hers and pulls me forward to step into a fancy office with black curtains and a heavy, wooden desk.
A man sits at the desk with his ankle on his knee, his hands clasped together.
He’s the man from the photo.
His eyes are almost black, the same as his hair. It’s a little bit strange, because this is a fancy room and there are two other men in here, both wearing black suits. But the man sitting in the center wears an Army uniform. He looks like a worker like the rest of us; rough hands, clean shaven, a uniform that isn’t faded, but it’s not brand-new either. The ankle resting over his knee is covered with scuffed combat boots and socks. A gun on his thigh, a knife on his ankle.
