It didn’t work, however.
“Thomas Cook apparently made the connection.”
“Only because he was trying to save his ass. He saw the liability of the heart medicine and preemptively looked for a way to redirect responsibility. It just so happened that 3% of those victims were eating grapefruit. That’s not your fault your dad happened to be one of them.”
“I’m his daughter! I’m supposed to be a health expert! I should have known, or at least looked into it first. I’m the one who told him to eat it. How can I help others when I basically murdered my dad with my so-called expertise?”
Raul pulled her to him, holding her while she let the internal balloon deflate, soaking his shirt with her tears.
“Sam, I think it’s time to let it all go. The ledger, the medicine, the grapefruit… all this guilt… it’s been six years since your dad died. It’s time to stop faulting yourself, stop going after Thomas Cook, and move on.”
Sam sniffled, wiped her snot on Raul’s sleeve, and straightened up. She was utterly exhausted. More than she had ever felt before.
“You know what? You’re right. It’s time to give up.”
Raul had never been accused of being right before, at least not by Sam, but for the first time since this whole Thomas Cook drama had started escalating, he felt relieved.
“Good. Now how about we get some fresh air and take Fido for a walk?”
Sam nodded silently, calling Fido over to put his halter on. As she snapped his lead rope onto the strap, Raul stood at the front door, looking at the snow-covered street where a group of people stood yelling at the house next-door. Among them was Miss Posey. In the side yard Bernadette stood under her porch’s short striped eave, bent over a frosted metal tub, washing her clothes and rolling the handle of the wringer.
“What’s going on out there?” Raul asked Sam.
“Bernadette is washing clothes in the cold. I need to go help her.”
“No, I’m talking about them.” He pointed to the growing group of looky-loos.
“Oh, they’re just the friendly neighborhood welcoming committee. They don’t like that Bernadette’s family moved here, so they want to make sure she knows it.”
“Did the family do something to deserve it?”
“Why would anyone deserve being treated like that?”
“Certainly they must have done something wrong.” As a former reporter he assumed there were always two sides to every story, and as always, his assumption was correct. In this particular story, there were two sides: the white one, and then the “wrong” one.
“You mean other than being born with a darker complexion? And you know what the worst part is? The husband is a police officer. He spends his life serving and protecting the same people that vandalize his home and intimidate his family.” Sam handed Raul the lead rope. “Here, you take Fido for his walk while I go check on Bernadette.”
“Okay.” Raul’s brain began popping and fizzing, as it often did when an idea—a possibly brilliant, or possibly dangerous idea—began to form. “The husband is a cop, you said?”
“Yes. Why?”
“No reason. Just something came to mind…” Raul’s ambiguity only held Sam’s attention so long before Fido started huffing an urgency to get outside.
While Raul took Fido in one direction, his mind working overtime, Sam walked across the yard in the other direction, offering Bernadette as forced a smile as she could manage after finding out she had killed her own father.
“Hello, neighbor. Ignore the impromptu town meeting out there.”
“You mean the meeting about me in particular, and which I wasn’t even invited to?” Bernadette grumbled.
“They’re just bored, lonely people. Here, let me help you with this.”
Bernadette glanced at the group of gray-haired terrorists whose complaints could be heard across the yard, then she grinned stiffly and grabbed the basket full of wet, frozen clothes.
“I’m actually done. Want to come inside?”
“Definitely.” Sam emptied the wash tub, then followed Bernadette’s trail of footsteps through the dusting of snow, across the ice-slicked porch, and into the warm kitchen. “With a family of three, why don’t you have an electric washing machine? Washing by hand must take forever.”
“The seller took the one that was here with her when we bought the house, so we’re saving up for a new one. It’s just been tight financially…”
Bernadette, Sam, and every family in the suburbs felt the same pinch. Prices across America had skyrocketed since inflation had squeezed every last penny out of America’s middle-class pockets. While the laundry hung to dry, Sam set down two plates of shortbread cookies and two cups of tea from a special blend she had given to Bernadette.
“Why do you think they’re starting this up again?” Sam asked.
It had been quiet on the block over the winter holidays, but suddenly the volatility was picking back up and Sam couldn’t figure out why.
“Because it’s the anniversary of the Reverend’s birthday. In honor of him, our family celebrates his legacy and mourns his death. And those people out there hate it.”
It had been just shy of three years since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, yet to Bernadette it still felt like yesterday.
“I don’t know if I can bring another child into this environment of hate,” Bernadette said pensively.
“Another child? Are you saying…”
“Yes, I’m pregnant,” Bernadette confirmed.
Bernadette vividly remembered the day she knew she was pregnant with Alonzo Junior. It was in the middle of teaching her kindergarten class their ABC’s.
She had gotten to the letter N when the nausea hit. By O, oh how she made a mad dash for the tiny bathroom connected to her classroom! By the letter P she was puking, while little girls peeked under the stall door wondering if their teacher was dying.
