One Moment (5 page)

4

Hands Clasped Tight

“What are we gonna say?” I whispered as two uniformed police officers walked past the chairs where Adam and I were seated. It was a wide hall in the entry of the police station, the tiled floor a marbled gray and white that looked like it would be cold against the bottoms of my feet if I kicked off my flip-flops.

“What do you mean?” Adam looked at me, his eyes scrunched tight. The officers’ footsteps slammed against the walls, echoing like the gorge, vibrating my entire body. “We’re gonna tell the truth.”

I pressed myself against the straight back of the chair, trying to mold my body to the hard surface. “Right.”

“We don’t have anything to hide.” Adam’s foot, which had been tap-tap-tapping the floor nervously, suddenly stopped. He swiveled in his seat and leaned toward me, his eyes searching mine. “Do we?”

Adam’s hand gripped my knee, and I placed my hand over his, soaking in the warmth of his skin, reassured that he was sitting there next to me. Alive.

“Mags.” Adam ran a hand through the dried clumps of his sun-streaked hair. “If I should know something,
now
is the time to tell me. They’re gonna be done talking to our parents any minute, and—”

“There’s nothing more to say.” My bangs fell forward and I swiped them out of my eyes, blinking away the fear that had taken hold of me, and settled even deeper into the raw pain of Joey’s sudden absence. “I can’t remember anything.”

“You really can’t?” Adam pressed his lips together so tightly they disappeared. He quivered a little, and for a moment, he looked like the kindergarten version of himself, lost and alone, like he had when his mother dropped him off for his first day of school. I squeezed his hand, the way I had all those years ago when I’d led him to the reading corner to distract him from being left behind.

I closed my eyes, playing the day’s events along the backs of my lids like a silent movie. Driving in Tanna’s car, windows down, music blaring, watching Shannon’s hair whip, and dip, and flip all around her head in the crazy, rushing wind as she giggled about how Ronnie Booker had puked all over Gina Hanlon’s purse at the party we’d gone to the night before. Hiking up the trail from the parking lot to the Jumping Hole, the rush of a cool breeze against my skin. Feet running, pounding, crashing.

My eyes snapped open and I sucked in a deep breath. It felt like I was underwater, struggling to find my way to the surface.

“What?” Adam asked, his eyes wide. “Did you remember something?”

“Feet,” I said. “Running and—”

The door to the room where the detectives had taken our parents swung open with a loud
click-swoosh
, and the gruff voice of the detective, who reminded me of a gorilla, chased my found memory back into hiding.

All that was left was the fear. And the comfort of not knowing.

They filed out of the room in pairs, the two detectives, my mom and dad, Mr. and Mrs. Meacham. Our parents looked like deflated shells of their usual selves. I saw it in their eyes, the way their heads hung low, how their shoulders slumped with exhaustion, like two hours of this news was already too much for them to bear. If there was hope there, masked by the emotion that threatened to suck them under, I couldn’t find it.

When they saw us, their feet stuttered. Stopped.

The long, flowy skirt my mother wore swayed around her legs as if a strong wind had just drifted through. I heard a slight grunt escape Adam’s father’s lips.

The detectives just stared, taking us in.

Me.

Adam.

Our heads bowed together.

Hands clasped tight.

And the way we practically clung to each other like our individual survival depended on the connection.

It was as if they’d been able to forget reality for a moment, to place it in the dark corner of a high shelf while they dealt with the formalities. But seeing Adam and me shifted things, brought it all spilling down, nearly knocking them to the ground.

“We’re very sorry for your loss, Maggie.” Detective Wallace looked at me, creases wrinkling the loose skin on his face. “Your parents told us that you and Joey had been dating for the last two years.”

“
Almost
two years.” I pressed my fingers into my eyes, realizing they were leaking again. “Would have been two years this fall.”

My mother handed me a tissue, then placed a hand on my knee.

“We asked you here so you can help us piece together the events of the day. We need you to tell us everything you can about what led to Joey’s accident.” Detective Meyer shifted in his seat. His large body strained the chair beneath him, causing it to moan in protest.

I took in a shaky breath. “I can’t remember much,” I said, wishing they’d allowed Adam and me to be questioned together, wondering what they’d asked him while he was sitting at this very table with his own parents just ten minutes ago. We’d passed one another as he exited the interrogation room and I entered, his eyes saying a thousand things at once: be calm; that was brutal; you can do this; I hate these men. He’d grabbed my hand and given it a quick squeeze before the detectives rushed him along with a firm reminder that we were to be questioned separately. And now, without Adam by my side, I felt lost.

My father cleared his throat, and I realized I hadn’t really answered. “After the climb up the trail, everything just kind of disappears.”

Detective Wallace’s mouth twitched, the thick gray moustache on his upper lip looking like a caterpillar wiggling to free itself from a prison. “Your parents explained that already, Maggie. Occasionally, in the event of a trauma, a person will suffer from memory loss. You’ll probably begin to recall the day in bits and pieces. You can give us more information as it returns to you. For now, we would like for you to tell us what you
do
remember.”

I looked from one detective to the other, hating the way their eyes pierced my skin. “Okay.”

“Let’s start with the easy stuff.” Detective Meyer flipped through a small spiral notebook and tugged a pen from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. “When did you arrive at the gorge?”

I looked at my father whose face somehow seemed ten years older than it had when he’d sat across the table from me earlier in the morning as we ate a blueberry pancake and bacon breakfast.

“It was a little after eleven,” I said. “We wanted to be all set up by noon, to get the best sun.”

“And when you say ‘we,’ who are you referring to?” Detective Wallace asked.

“Me, Tanna, Shannon, Pete, Adam, and … Joey.” My voice broke when I said his name.

“What would you say Joey’s demeanor was when you arrived?”

“He was just Joey.” I closed my eyes and remembered the way the sunlight framed him after his first jump. He’d stood above me, shaking water from his hair all over me as I lay on the towel. I’d giggled. Kicked him away. I wanted to scream at myself for that. I should have pulled him closer and never let go.

I took in a deep slicing breath as I remembered his smile. The sound of his laughter. “He was joking. Laughing. Like always.”

“So you wouldn’t say he seemed depressed. Or angry about anything? Maybe a fight with his parents? His brother? Or … anyone else?”

“No.” I blinked several times, something else in my memory shifting just out of reach. “Summer’s about to start…. We’re almost seniors. He was as far from depressed as a person can get.”

“Can you walk us through the events leading to Joey’s accident?” Detective Wallace asked. “Tell us everything you remember?”

“We were just hanging out,” I said. “Listening to music. Tanna, Shannon, and I were lying out on our towels, getting into the water when we were too hot. The guys went up and made several jumps. Tanna and Shannon jumped, too. Once each, I think.”

“But not you?” Detective Meyer asked, his eyebrows pulling inward.

I shook my head. “I’ve never jumped off the cliff.”

Detective Meyer jotted something down on the paper in front of him, then looked me directly in the eyes. “Why not?”

I shrugged. “Too afraid.”

“I see,” Detective Wallace said. “So what made you go up with Joey? We were told that you intended to jump together. Is this true?”

Shannon’s face flashed in front of me.
I dare you,
she’d taunted, a giggle escaping her lips as she grabbed the bottle of tequila planted at the head of the towels and took a long swig.

“It was a dare,” I said. “I’ve tried to jump before. It’s like a running joke. That I’m too afraid.”

“Who dared you?” Detective Wallace asked.

“Shannon.”

Detective Meyer wrote the name in his notebook.

“And what made you decide to try again? What made you feel like you could do it today?”

“I don’t know,” I said, remembering Joey’s smile, the feel of his skin sliding against mine as he tucked my arm against his body and we began walking toward the bridge of rocks.

“Was it the alcohol?” Detective Meyer asked. “We found a bottle of tequila at the scene.”

The scene? I cringed at the word. Blue Springs Gorge, our most sacred hangout, had become a crime scene.

“How much did Joey have to drink?” Detective Wallace asked.

My eyes stuttered between the two men’s faces, their features blurring into a shadowy puzzle.

“We’ll find out for ourselves when the results from the autopsy come back,” Detective Meyer said.

“Autopsy?” The word whirred through my brain, flipping around and around. That meant they were going to cut Joey open.

“Yes.” Detective Wallace’s lip twitched again and I had an urge to pluck the hairs from his face. “In the case of an accidental death we always order an autopsy. And we run through a complete investigation.”

“He’d had a little to drink,” I said, recalling the way Joey had stumbled as he walked out of the water the last time.

“Would you say he was intoxicated?” Detective Wallace asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“You’re aware that we just finished interviewing your friend Adam. He told us that Joey was a daredevil,” Detective Wallace said with a sad smile. “That he often showed off, performing stunts when he jumped from the cliff.”

I pictured Joey at the top of the cliff, smiling down at us, his arms spread wide.
Watch this,
he’d yelled just before disappearing. Seconds later, he reappeared, soaring out from the lip of the cliff, his body circling over itself in a flip before he slipped into the water with barely a splash. Had that been his second or third jump of the day?

“Yeah,” I said. “Joey liked attention.”

“Can you describe your relationship with Joey?” Detective Meyer asked. “Would you say that the two of you were happy?”

I closed my eyes briefly, remembering my plan to spend the night with him in just a few weeks. “We were very happy,” I said.

“What about your relationship with the rest of your friends?” Detective Meyer asked. “It seems as if you are all very close.”

My father cleared his throat. “These kids have all grown up together, Detective. They’ve known one another since kindergarten.”

“That’s a lot of history.” Detective Wallace scrunched his lips in a sympathetic pout.

Detective Meyer scribbled more words on the paper in front of him. I wanted to rip the notepad out of his hand, to tear the flimsy paper from the wire spiral. How could my life—and Joey’s death—be whittled down to just a few words?

“We’re trying to figure something out,” Detective Wallace said. “And we’d like your help, Maggie.”

“Okay,” I said, drawing the word out so it sounded more like a question.

“We don’t understand why you and Adam left the scene.” Detective Meyer’s voice suddenly sounded very official. Almost demanding.

My heart started beating more rapidly. I felt hot. Stifling hot. I shifted in my seat, and my mother’s hand squeezed my knee again.

“Maggie?” Detective Meyer said. “Can you explain that for us?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know why you left?” Detective Meyer’s voice was tight with something I couldn’t place. Irritation. Maybe anger. “Or you don’t know if you can explain it?”

“Adam was looking out for our daughter,” my mother said. “He was the one to find her after Joey’s fall. Maggie was in shock, and it scared him when she claimed to have no memory of what had happened. He thought it was best to bring her straight home.”

The detectives looked at each other. Then they stared at me.

“Can you tell us the first thing you remember?” Detective Wallace asked. “
After
Joey’s fall?”

I looked at the table in front of me, my eyes following the swirls in the wood, shuffling through the memories I had, trying to categorize them into
before
and
after
.

“The seat belt clicking into place,” I said. “Adam’s hand.”

“Adam put your seat belt on?” Detective Meyer asked. “Good. That’s very good. What else?”

“The quilt my grandmother made. Spread across my lap. And whispering.”

“That was right after she came home,” my mother said. “She sat on the couch while Adam told us what happened.”