The Last Handful of Clover - Book 1: The Hereafter

1.10 Drama Kids

June 5, 10:15 pm

Michelle's crying jags had seriously depleted her supply of Pil's fast-food napkins. He had a tendency to stash napkins and plastic cutlery from fast-food places in the dashboard and pockets of their SUV with the fervor of a squirrel hoarding acorns.

She looked at her watch. It was after 10:00 pm, and she had been sitting in the driveway of their house for a good twenty minutes, hoping to let this round of tears pass before going in. After leaving Keith's house less than an hour ago, she'd made a detour to a convenience store on South Temple to get some milk. It was only a few minutes back to her house, but after pulling into the driveway, she just turned off the engine and sat in the dark. The cold gallon of milk was gathering summer condensation on the passenger seat, next to the wadded up pile of napkins from Wendy's and Burger King. But thankfully, her tears had stopped.

So if I'm done crying, why am I just sitting here? Why don't I go inside?

She could see Pil's outline through the curtained window of their living room, which now felt exposed to the street and dangerous in a way that it never had before. There was a sick feeling in her stomach that after Richard's death, none of them would ever feel safe in their own homes again.

Salt Lake City, and especially the Avenues, had held on to a small-town, Norman Rockwell, Americana character far longer than most urban areas in the country. It still felt like a community, and she knew all her neighbors. But it was still part of a big city, and maybe she was naïve to have ever felt safe here at all.

No, that wasn't it. She knew what was really bothering her was simple: She wasn't with Keith.

Richard's death had bonded them in ways that surpassed even their previous (arguably unhealthy) level of mutual attachment. And Michelle realized that this was the first entire waking hour she had been more than a dozen steps away from him since that night. Even when Detective Grayson had conducted their separate interviews, she'd sat outside the room, nervously twisting and folding a police brochure on sexual assault in her hands, until it looked like origami.

Three hours after the gun was fired, while the cops were still bustling over the crime scene, they had finally allowed Michelle to take Keith out of the chaos. Richard's body was on the way to the morgue, and they had both declined the offer to speak with a counselor. Pil had arrived by then, so the three of them simply walked the two-and-a-half blocks back to Michelle and Pil's house.

That night, after scalding hot showers, the three of them had huddled silently together in Michelle and Pil's king-sized bed—Keith in shock and too numb to cry, but shivering and nestled between them like a child who had awoken from a nightmare and ran to mommy and daddy's bed. Michelle left the bedroom TV on, tuned to reruns of Friends but with the sound turned too low to hear. The flickering images and the lack of a laugh track were surreal, but the moving colors on the wall provided them all a bit of comfort.

Very little passed between them in terms of conversation that night. And very little, if any, sleep. They just laid there, with Pil's heavy arm across Keith's chest, holding Michelle's hand. Keith's vacant eyes and his hands on Pil's arms made him look like a little boy, peeking over the edge of a swimming pool.

They had all cried, but less than Michelle had expected. They had talked even less.  She had thought they were all in various levels of shock and dreaded the moment when it would wear off.

Early the very next morning, a squad car had picked them up and taken them to the precinct house for the interviews with Detective Grayson. She interviewed them each separately, at first. But even then, Michelle had been sure to sit where she could easily get up to see Keith and the Detective through the little glass window in the interview room door. And while she was being interviewed, it comforted her to see Keith doing the same; standing on his tip-toes outside the door every few minutes to glimpse Michelle. He was just tall enough for his eyes to peek over the bottom of the little square window.