Larry, Graham’s room-mate, chewed his thumbnail. ‘He gave no sign. No warning. Well, this morning, he was pretty grouchy, but – truthfully? Graham was grouchy every morning. Nothing seemed different.’
Anna awoke and gave her statement in a whisper too low for Harper to hear.
Jeremy threw up behind a tree.
Finally, Harper went back to the group, having listened to parts of fourteen statements and learned exactly nothing.
Dean Van Arsdale addressed the group, his smooth baritone bellowing through the borrowed megaphone. ‘. . . And remember, free counseling is available for any and all who need or want it. Make sure you fill out the forms being distributed by my assistant, Marge, and take a brochure about the university’s mental health services and ways to access help.’ He urged students to seek support, reminding them that they’d been through a terrible ordeal. A trauma. Explaining that the effects of a trauma could be unexpected and lasting. Harper listened, blinking away sniper fire.
When the dean finally finished, Detective Rivers took the megaphone again. ‘If you think of anything relevant to Graham Reynolds’ suicide, get in touch. Meantime, everyone is excused.’
‘Wait. Ma’am?’ Harper didn’t want to overstep authority, but it was, after all, her recitation. ‘I’d like to say something.’
The detective offered the megaphone, but Harper didn’t take it. Instead, she let out another attention-getting whistle. These were her students, her responsibility. Fourteen faces – not counting those of the dean, the onlookers, the cops or the press – turned her way.
‘Next recitation is a memorial.’ She spoke quietly. ‘Dedicated to Graham. Write something about him. Or to him. We’ll share them as a group. Before we go, anybody have something they want to say?’
Eyes diverted; heads shook.
‘RIP, man,’ Terence finally offered.
A few voices mumbled, ‘Amen.’
Nobody added anything.
‘OK, then. Stay strong. See you in class.’
With that, most of the students and bystanders wandered off. Gwen and Shaundra stopped to give Harper hugs. Larry lingered a few feet from Harper.
‘Larry?’ Monique hefted her pink book bag. ‘You coming?’
He didn’t answer, didn’t even look at her. Finally, she stomped off alone.
Larry didn’t say anything. Didn’t leave.
‘You OK, Larry?’
He shrugged, watched the grass. ‘Sure.’
Clearly, he wanted to talk. Harper watched him, saw tension, small twitchy movements of his head and neck. ‘This must be hard for you, losing a room-mate.’
Larry shook his head. ‘Truth is I hardly knew the guy.’
Harper was confused. ‘But I thought you lived with—’
‘I only met him a few weeks ago. At work. Graham needed a place; I had an extra room. So he moved in.’
An edgy silence. Larry twitched, cleared his throat, shifted his weight. Getting up the nerve to say something?
Dean Van Arsdale was talking with the police. ‘Mrs Jennings.’ He gestured to her. ‘Would you join us, please?’
She nodded, but didn’t move. ‘Larry, if you need—’
‘No, Loot. It’s cool. Thanks.’ He backed away. ‘I’ll catch you later.’
Harper watched him as he took off after a pink form crossing the quad.
The police asked Harper the same questions they’d asked the students. Had she known Graham Reynolds well? Had she noticed any changes in his behavior? Any signs of depression? Any personal crisis?
She answered, No. No. No. And no. She felt useless, frustrated. And surprised that no one was blaming her for Graham’s death, even though she’d been in charge. In fact, as he left, the dean squeezed her hand and offered his sympathy and support.
Detective Rivers offered her a ride home, but Harper had her Ninja parked on campus. Besides, the gunfire in her head was escalating rapidly; she couldn’t fend it off much longer, so she thanked the detective and told her she wanted to linger a while. Finally, when the police, the media and university officials had gone, she sank under an oak tree, leaning against the sturdy safety of its trunk.
There was not even the hint of a breeze. No matter where Harper looked, she saw Graham’s red tank top disappearing out the window, his curls dropping beyond the sill. Again and again, his skinny wrists slipped from her grasp.
No, she repeated, shaking her head, trying to reject the emotional triggers. Think of something else. Repeat your wedding vows; picture the sparkle in Hank’s eyes. Or try to find a squirrel to feed. Or count the trees on the quad. But it was too late. She smelled gunpowder, saw explosions. Her mind had already begun its spin, would have to cycle through, so she sat stiffly, arms crossed, waiting for her flashback to pass.
Harper pressed her back against the wall of a blown-out building and clutched her rifle. No, wait – it wasn’t her rifle; it was Graham’s wrists, and she clung to them, felt them slide out of her hands, saw his eyes watching hers as he fell. But no, it wasn’t Graham who was falling. It was her husband, Hank. She was home in the yard, planting tulips. She smelled damp soil, glanced up at the roof where Hank was fixing shingles.
Hank didn’t make a sound. Not a grunt, not a curse. He simply fell.
Watching him for the thousandth time, Harper still couldn’t take a breath. Couldn’t move or stop her brain. Shutting her eyes, she waited for Hank to hit the chimney, then the ledge; she anticipated the thud of impact.
But there was no thud. Just a bang, a flash of white-hot wind. Men were shouting, guns popping. Dust and smoke, an acrid, burning smell. Weapon raised, Harper dashed to take cover but stumbled, glanced down to see what she’d stepped on. The boy. He had no face. It was entirely gone, blown away. His head, a ball of red.
Or was that the red of the tulips? Back in the garden, digging, she paused to look up at the roof. Again, Hank slid, limbs akimbo, his head smacking the chimney, his body tumbling over the gutters and falling through the air.
Hot air. Dusty air. Someone was approaching through the haze: a woman. Sameh. Harper knew her name, saw her every morning as she passed the checkpoint on her way to the market. Sameh, in traditional black garb, with shining eyes. Often, she had children with her – two young boys. But not this time.
Marvin was jabbering about an old movie. ‘The guy’s a genius, but when the schoolteacher chick’s around, he trips, falls, bumps into things—’
Sameh came toward them, crossing the road. Harper nodded a greeting. Sameh nodded back, eyes smiling. Marvin talked. ‘. . . He’s a complete buffoon . . .’
Was there a burst of light? A bang? Harper saw, heard nothing. She was vaguely aware that she’d left the ground. She was flying . . .
Downward, from the classroom window. Whooshing through hot air, four stories to the ground of the Arts Quad.
No, not to the Arts Quad. To her garden. Harper raced across the flowerbed, stomping on her new plantings. ‘Hank!’ His name erupted from her belly, a soul-wrenching howl. Hank’s eyes were partly open, but he didn’t respond to his wife’s frantic calls or her desperate rattling of his body. She needed to get help.
But Harper couldn’t move. She smelled smoke and burning flesh, tasted metal. Blood? She was on her back, her arm on her belly; her hands felt sticky clumps – oh God, were they her guts? She closed her fingers around something, lifted it. Saw a red fleshy glob. Oh God, oh God . . .
‘Oh God—’ The voice came from above, from the roof. Trent’s voice. Trent Manning, Hank’s colleague, close friend. He’d been up there, helping Hank with the repairs. ‘Christ – Harper. I’m coming down. Don’t move him.’
Move him? Harper couldn’t move him. Lord, she couldn’t even move herself, lying there holding a glob, trying to call out but making no sound. What the hell had happened? Where was Marvin? Sameh? The others – Cooper? Phyllis? Mike? Were they OK? Why couldn’t she move her legs? And the blood on her belly – she must have been shot. Must be dying. But she didn’t feel pain – wasn’t that interesting? Death didn’t hurt, wasn’t as bad as she’d imagined. She lay still, watching the empty sky, aware of flickering light. Waiting to be dead.
But she didn’t die. She was on her feet again, running for help. Breathless, pushing through enemy fire, seeing bodies drop around her. Stepping on the kid with no face. Holding her body low to the ground, dashing past overturned trucks and wounded comrades, up on to the deck and into the kitchen where she grabbed her cell phone. Every action took too long, and her thoughts were jumbled, interrupted by surges of gunfire and cries of pain. And by Graham turning into Hank and falling, landing with a muted thud and an understated rustle of dogwoods.
Which, absurdly, she noted needed trimming. Their old house needed so much work. The upstairs bathroom was gutted; the kitchen only half redone. Shingles were coming up on the roof . . . and – damn, there went Hank again, falling. Or was it Graham? Marvin chattered; Sameh stepped through the dust, about to cross the street.
But Harper was beside Hank again. Time stopped. Gunfire hiccuped intermittently; white light flashed with deadly explosive pops. Harper knelt beside Hank, stroking his face, promising him, the others and herself that everything would be all right. Hank was tough. Hank would survive. Unlike Graham – or Marvin, Phyllis, Cooper, Sameh and the boy without a face – Hank would be fine.
But Hank wasn’t fine. His head had slammed first the chimney and then a concrete ledge, and his brain had ricocheted against his skull. There was damage to the frontal lobe, particularly on one side. For weeks, doctors repeatedly operated to relieve swelling and pressure inside his skull and waited to see how much permanent harm had been done, not sure he’d recover. Harper had prayed, had made deals with God, promising never to curse again, to give to charities, to install solar panels on the house and minimize her carbon footprint, even to make peace with her father – anything if Hank would get well. A month and a half later, though, Hank was still in the clinic of the Cayuga Neurological Center, still not fine.
Neither was Harper, for that matter. Hunkering down with her weapon raised, she watched for potential suicide bombers and told the suspicious-looking Iraqi boy to halt, but he didn’t; he kept approaching. She called out again, warning him. ‘Stop right there.’
He didn’t. Two more steps and she’d have to follow protocol, firing at him. Dropping him to the dust.
‘. . . you OK?’
A voice drifted through the smoke and dust.
‘Miss? Are you all right?’
Harper peered out from the alley where she’d sought cover, her gun aimed and ready. Through the clearing smoke, a skinny guy with glasses peered back at her. He wasn’t in uniform. He wasn’t even in Iraq.
‘Miss? Can I help you out of there?’ He frowned, not an angry frown, though. A worried frown. And he stepped closer, offering his hand. Why wasn’t he afraid? Didn’t he believe she’d shoot?
‘Step back,’ Harper breathed, aiming at him. But when she glanced down, she saw that she wasn’t holding her firearm. Her gun, in fact, was a twig. A short, fat, pathetic twig.
The guy stepped back but took out his cell phone. ‘Do you need assistance? Should I call somebody?’ He eyed her warily.
Oh God. Harper closed her eyes, opened them again. The streets of Iraq were gone. The war, her yard where Hank had hit his head, all of it had retreated, fading back into her head. She looked around at the building behind her, the bushes, the skinny guy with glasses who gaped at her. Another man joined him, older, bearded. Wonderful, she was drawing a crowd. She should put out a hat, sing a little tune, get contributions. The two stood watching her, talking. Harper heard them mumbling, ‘. . . needs help . . . maybe campus police . . .’
Campus police? Oh God, not again. ‘No, no – I’m fine.’ She swallowed, looked around, getting her bearings. She was outside Olin Library, across the quad from White Hall. How the hell had she gotten there? Lord, had she really gone running for cover? Time had passed, but how much? A few minutes? An hour? She didn’t know.
She stood tall, hoping to convince the men that she was all right. Dropping her twig, she slapped dirt off her hands, brushed off her khaki capris and stepped out of the shrubbery.
‘I’m OK – really.’ She attempted a composed, authoritative voice. ‘Just fine.’
The men didn’t move. They stared, assessing her.
‘Seriously. Everything’s cool.’ She straightened her back, met their eyes. Her tone might have been too emphatic, skin too flushed, eyes too wild. But she walked away with deliberate dignity, as if she weren’t smudged with soil and sweat, as if she didn’t still want to dive for cover in the shadows.
Harper felt the pair watching until she turned at the library and hurried out of their line of sight. Then, looking back, making sure they weren’t following, she stopped, bent over and clutched her stomach. It was over; she was OK. The gunfire, the explosions hadn’t been real. They’d been just another damned flashback.
She stepped off the path and touched the library wall, scraping her fingers along the rough concrete, making sure. Leaning against it, she pressed her hands against her eyes, pushing away memories. It was almost comical, the repetition. The absurd replays of people blowing up and falling down. If only she could add a little music – piano, like in Charlie Chaplin movies – she’d have some real entertainment. Could sell tickets. If not for the stomach-knotting, heart-flipping fear. If not for the horrific realities behind them, the flashbacks would be hilarious.
But she wasn’t laughing. Not even snickering. She was mad at herself for having another flashback, for losing control. Her shrink insisted that the flashbacks weren’t her fault; they were mental scars from the war. From what happened there. Even so, she’d thought she’d gotten better. That the images, the smells of fear and death would leave her alone.
Until a few years ago, the only dead person Harper had ever seen had been Grandma Emma, who died at eighty-eight, crocheting an afghan in her living room. In her coffin, Grandma Emma’s face had been brightly rouged, her eyelids dusted with startling blue shadow, her silvery hair elegantly coiffed. She had been dressed in a rosy Jones New York suit fit for the symphony.