We Are Called to Rise (21 page)

Do you know that northern Nevada looks like Afghanistan and southern Nevada looks like Iraq?

Do you know that a lot of soldiers come back and are policemen?

Bye,

Bashkim

I cringe at this letter, but I am not feeling shocked like I was before. There’s something more than Bashkim’s letters here, and even I can see that something is wrong with him. This is not the kind of letter he has been writing.

March 7, 2009

Dear Luis—

I don’t think soldiers should be police. Like my nene said, some men shouldn’t be in war, and they shouldn’t be policemen either.

I think the president should say that soldiers can’t be policemen. It would be a lot better that way.

My baba doesn’t like policemen or soldiers. He tried to tell us they were bad.

Hope you feel better in the hospital—

Bashkim

March 10, 2009

Dear Luis—

Tirana is only three years old, but she can speak English and Albanian. And she can make some letters too, like T and O.

When Tirana grows up, I am going to take care of her. I am going to buy a house for her, and some red shoes too. If she has a husband, he might want to do that, but I will do it if he doesn’t.

Also, when Tirana grows up, I am not going to let her marry a mean man.

I am still leaving Las Vegas, so you won’t be able to see me—

Bashkim

Well, Bashkim sounds different, but I really don’t know anything that I didn’t know before. I look at Dr. Ghosh. He hands me the typed letter from the school.

March 11, 2009

Specialist Luis Rodriguez-Reyes

c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center

6900 Georgia Ave, NW

Washington, DC 20307-5001

Dear Specialist Rodriguez:

I am writing to you because there has been a significant change in Bashkim Ahmeti’s life. I have been holding his letters to you, and I have enclosed them here.

As you know, I have been sending Bashkim’s letters to you since he first wrote last December. I did this without the permission of Bashkim’s parents. Bashkim did not want his parents to know of your communication, for reasons that made sense to me, and yet I thought your correspondence with him was positive. I have read your letters to him before allowing him to see them, and I have read all of his letters to you. I felt this was necessary to ensure Bashkim’s protection.

Last month, Bashkim’s mother, Arjeta Ahmeti, was killed by a police officer during an otherwise routine traffic stop. The details of the incident are in dispute, and I enclose some newspaper stories about what happened. I know little more than what these stories indicate.

Bashkim was with his mother when she was shot. His father, who has a troubled past, has been distraught since the shooting and unable to care for Bashkim or his sister. They are each in separate foster homes. Bashkim was placed in a home nearby, so he is still attending school here, and I see him every day.

Bashkim’s letters to you have not always been strictly honest in their details. I did not find this particularly unusual, given his situation, and I did not see any harm in his minor embellishments. The letters he has written since his mother’s death are somewhat different. It seems to me that he is able to express some significant ideas to you, and that your responses might be important to him.

I don’t have any advice for you in this situation. Only information. If you would like to contact me, please do so. I would be happy to talk with you.

Sincerely,

Dr. Martina Moore

Principal, Orson Hulet ES

I am not able to hold this letter still long enough to read all of it, so Dr. Ghosh reads the last several paragraphs aloud. When he is done, neither of us speaks. I hold out my hand for the newspaper clippings, skim the headlines, read parts of the articles.

Woman Shot in Routine
Traffic Stop

Las Vegas, Feb. 21—
A woman was shot and killed by a Las Vegas traffic officer around 5 pm this evening. The woman and her husband had been pulled over for a missing brake light, but the incident escalated.

Las Vegas Police Department officials have yet to release any information, but witnesses said that the woman who was killed was standing next to her child.

LVPD Says Officer Who Shot Woman Feared for Child’s Life

Las Vegas, Feb. 22—
In the first official statement from the police department on the death of a woman stopped by a Las Vegas traffic patrol, Sergeant Lee says that the officer who shot “feared for her child’s life.” According to LVPD, the woman was holding her son while brandishing a knife and threatening to kill him.

Witness Claims Woman Did Not Have Knife, Was Holding Son

Las Vegas, Feb. 23—
A witness to the Las Vegas traffic stop that resulted in the death of Arjeta Ahmeti says that Ms. Ahmeti was holding on to her son, and that she did not have a knife, as was stated by LVPD Sergeant Lee this morning.

LVPD Officer Who Shot Woman Identified

Las Vegas, Feb. 24—
The Las Vegas PD officer who shot and killed Arjeta Ahmeti has been identified as Nathan Gisselberg. Officer Gisselberg has been an officer since October 2008, and served three tours of duty in Iraq prior to joining the force. Per department policy, Officer Gisselberg, and his partner Corey Stout, are on administrative leave until an internal investigation into the shooting has been completed.

Woman Was Holding
Ice-Cream Scoop, Not Knife

Las Vegas, Feb. 25—
LVPD spokesperson Sergeant Lee acknowledged that Arjeta Ahmeti, the woman killed by a Las Vegas police officer on Saturday, was not holding a knife at the time of the shooting. “It appears that Ms. Ahmeti pulled an ice-cream scoop from her pocket and brandished it as if it were a knife. LVPD officers are trained to practice restraint in tense situations, but obviously the safety of the child at the scene was of paramount importance to the officers.”

Coroner’s Inquest
into Las Vegas
Shooting Scheduled

Las Vegas, Mar. 3—
Clark County officials announced on Monday that a coroner’s inquest into the shooting of Arjeta Ahmeti will be conducted next month, on April 16.

Funeral Held for Vegas Woman Killed by Police Officer

Las Vegas, Mar. 9—
The funeral for Arjeta Ahmeti, who was killed by an LVPD police officer after a routine traffic stop three weeks ago, was finally held today. Imam Omar Hadiz officiated at the small service held at the Islamic Center of Las Vegas.

The news media was not allowed inside, but photos showed Ms. Ahmeti’s children and husband arriving in three separate cars. The children are under the care of Child Protective Services, presumably because the father is unable to care for them in his grief.

I’M NOT SURE IF I’M
dizzy because I haven’t read this much in a long time, or if I’m dizzy because of what I’ve read. I’ve spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself here. Which really takes the cake, when you think about what I did to deserve what happened to me, and about what happened to Bashkim, who didn’t do a thing.

I wonder how he’s doing in foster care. My friend Kevin had to go to a foster home when we were in the fifth grade. His dad was already in prison, and then his mom did something, and she got put in jail too. They sent him to Child Haven, which was this terrifying place to me, a place that the news always reported—“The children have been taken to Child Haven”—and when I first heard that Kevin had gone there, I was petrified for him. I didn’t see him for a couple of weeks, because they just made him go to school there, but when he finally got back to our school, he said Child Haven wasn’t really that bad. He said the foster home was worse. His foster dad was mean.

I didn’t see Kevin much after that. He didn’t come back to our school the next year. I don’t know if he ever got out of foster care. I don’t know anything about him. This is the first time I’ve thought about Kevin in years, but I still remember the way he looked, kind of nervous, when he said his foster dad was mean. I wonder about Bashkim. About who his foster parents are. About how he’s doing. I look at the dates on his letters, and see that they were all written after his mom was killed. Poor kid. Eight-year-old kid. He should still be sleeping on the floor next to his mom’s bed.

28

Avis

IT’S BEEN A MONTH,
and except for the fact that Nate still isn’t working, isn’t doing much but going to the gym and riding his motorcycle, things are sort of normal. I’m getting used to my new little house, and while there are bad hours when I drift into thinking about how I thought my life was going to be, there is also the task of getting a second gallon of paint for the study, or figuring out how to move the sprinkler pipe so I can extend one of the flower beds farther into the lawn. I signed up for a weekend seminar two months ago, how to start a business, and I’m still planning to go. I don’t want to work in a casino again, even in the administrative offices, so I might use my alimony to buy a franchise; I want to work hard.

For now I’ve always liked a home project: liked planning it, liked doing it myself, liked the puttering and the fixing and the unexpected problem that has to be solved. Cheryl wants me to call her designer, and Margo has a workman who takes care of everything, but if it’s up to me, I’d like to see what I can do in this house on my own. And, of course, it’s all so easy now. I check YouTube whenever I get stuck. People who post videos about installing bathroom tile or fixing refrigerators with busted defrost thermometers are my new heroes. I’ve already made friends with the man at the corner hardware store, and yesterday the waitress at the deli next door to it asked if I wanted my usual (cabbage soup, with an onion ring), and none of these people knows my full name, can’t connect me to the stories about the shooting, or to the police officer who just got back from Iraq. I am grateful for this space.

Still, there is this vague sense of children in trouble. Is it me I sense? Me and Rodney? Or the Ahmeti children? I don’t know. I’m not quite able to think about that; to think about what I am feeling. Maybe it’s progress just to know I have a feeling. But the shush of children’s cries is always there, like the low hum of summer cicadas, vibrating me, reminding me: the way absolute powerlessness feels.

I can’t go to the next thought, the one that connects my son to this pain, because that does hurt too much, that does drop me to my knees. I love my son. Being his mom is who I am. We were one body grieving his sister, and his is the body that cuddled next to mine, snug between Jim and me in the big bed that had felt so desperately empty after Emily died. There isn’t any way for me to feel this: the Nate that I adore—every mother has the right to adore—and the Nate who somehow, somehow, took those children’s mother away.

“Mom. Are you in the back? I’ve been ringing the bell.”

It’s Lauren. She’s got coffee in one hand and my red garden shears in the other.

“Did you remember that I had these? I figured you’d be looking for them.”

“Oh, no. I didn’t. I haven’t started cutting things yet.”

We both smile, because my penchant for scalping everything on a certain kind of a spring day is a family joke.

“Come on in. I painted two walls of the study. I want you to see them.”

It’s nice, having a daughter-in-law. I hope that she and Nate can make it, though I will understand if she can’t. I don’t know what I would have done faced with something like this when I was still newly married to Jim. And I don’t know if Lauren should stay with Nate. I’m not ready to think about that, either.

“How’s it going? How are you?”

She looks away before she answers, just a bit. Lauren is so young. So little ever happened to her. She’s easy to read.

“I’m good. We’re doing fine, Mom. Nate’s keeping really active, because not working is driving him crazy. And . . . and he’s stopped talking about it so much. He’s stopped talking about her and the boy and . . . what happened.”

If I were someone different, I would put my arm around her. I would comfort her. But her words slice right through me. I can’t risk touching her.

“Yes,” I say. Slowly. “Do you want something to eat? I could make a salad?”

“Sure. That’d be nice. Thanks.”

So I open the fridge and pull out some vegetables, and Lauren finds the cutting board and a paring knife, and we make the salad together: two women who love the same man in different ways, two women who don’t know what to do about what that man has done, about who he might be, about whatever has happened to him. That’s something, isn’t it? That we each have someone else in the world with the same problem?

“Nate’s sergeant says the coroner’s inquest is no big deal. He says there’s never been an inquest that found fault with a police officer. He says Nate should just take it easy, enjoy the time off, and get ready to come back to the force when it’s done.”

“Mmmm,” I manage.

“Nate tried to call Corey, to talk to him, but Corey’s wife said he didn’t want to talk. She said Corey doesn’t want to talk until after the inquest. Do you think that’s weird?”

“I don’t know.” I remember what Jim said the first night. Nate’s partner didn’t see a knife, asked him what he had done. The cicada hum grows louder. I shake my head. Lauren is looking at me, waiting for me to reassure her.

“I don’t know what Corey’s thinking, Lauren. But I’m sure Nate’s sergeant knows what he’s talking about. I don’t think the inquest is anything to be afraid of. Is there an internal investigation? Has Nate said anything about that?”

“Yeah. There is. But Nate doesn’t talk about it. He says the guys have all been really nice to him. That everyone says it could have happened to anyone.”

“Good. That’s good. How are things with you and Nate?”

I brave the question, mostly so she’ll stop talking about the shooting. She should be able to talk to me about it—who else should she talk to?—but I can’t take any more right now.

She ducks her head again.

“We’re good. We’re fine. Nate’s okay. He hasn’t gotten mad, really.”

I open my arms then, and she leans her head on my shoulder. Nothing terrible has ever happened to Lauren before—that I know of, anyway—and her puppy way of hiding breaks my heart.

I ALMOST WENT TO THE
funeral. There wasn’t much said about it, just a little note in the paper when it was over, and then I was relieved I hadn’t gone. The
Sun
said it was a small service, and I couldn’t bear to have been recognized. But I wanted to go. I knew what day it was, what hour. I spent that morning outside, stabbing at the hard dirt with an inadequate gardening fork, striking caliche or maybe just bits of concrete left from the formation of the back wall, and mixing in a rich, smelly loam that reeked to me of decay and fecundity at once.

I couldn’t go, of course. There’s nothing I can do, for that woman, for those children, for that family. I’ve run the options in my head over and over. Could I give money. Could I send flowers. Could I speak to those children. To their father. And, of course, I can’t. Because I am Nate’s mother. I’m on the other side. Whatever this is, I’m on the other side. But I don’t always feel it. That mother. Those children. They don’t feel like the other.

ON TUESDAY I CALL JIM
and ask to meet him next week. I’ve been thinking about the inquest, about the way we will all be together, about the press, and whatever happens, I want Jim and me to be able to speak normally. We haven’t been alone together since the shooting, and it’s just better if we have been.

He says he’s really busy, that he doesn’t know if he can, but then he agrees to meet at the coffee shop at the Bellagio. We set the time, and then I call Cheryl, because I’m going to need a drink with the girls after. Also, I know they’re worried about me, and they’ve stumbled around, trying to talk about Nate, and, at least today, it seems clear to me that I should get all of this settled before the inquest.

“Avis, how’s it going? How’s the manor?”

“Cheryl, you would hate it. But I like it. It’s fine. And it’s nice to be busy.”

“Yeah. Good for you. How’s Nate?”

“He’s fine, according to Lauren. He’s still off work, and his sergeant says he should think of it like a vacation.”

Cheryl knows I hate this.

“Avis, you can’t do this to yourself. This isn’t your fault. And this town isn’t your fault. I know it’s killing you, but the best thing that could happen now is just to have a plain old Las Vegas inquest, where nobody gets charged, and everyone goes home, and somebody tries to make those kids’ lives work again. It sucks, but that’s what you want, Avis. It is what you want.”

“I don’t know what I want.”

“I know. But this is what’s going to happen. And this is best for you. And best for Nate. It’s a bad deal, Avis, it’s as bad as bad can be. But now we’ve just got to go forward.”

“Cheryl, please. I don’t want to talk about it. I can’t talk about it. I want to see everyone. I want to do something else, have some fun, do something ridiculous on the Strip. Can we go see Kenny Kerr or something?”

“Kenny Kerr? Hel-
lo,
Avis. I think his show closed, like, two decades ago.”

“Well, okay, maybe not Kenny Kerr. Something really bad like that, something really Vegas.”

“But that’s the thing, he wasn’t bad. He was great. It should have been bad, but he was so damned good.”

“Okay, fine, okay, Kenny Kerr. You’re right. I don’t want to go to something terrible. I want to go to something great that the tourists have never heard of. I want to go to a lounge act where the singer makes me cry. I want to drink scotch, and watch Julie flirt with some younger guy, and take bets on whether Margo’s husband will show up to see what we are doing. And I don’t want to be at the Bellagio. I don’t want to be anywhere Jim might be. God, I absolutely do not want to see Darcy.”

“Oh, Darcy. How is the home wrecker?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. I just don’t want to see her.”

“All right. Let me work on it. I’ll set something up, get tickets if we need them, get everyone out. We’re here for you, Avis. But really, Kenny Kerr? You are going to have to step up your act.”

I laugh. Cheryl has no idea how really hopeless I am. She thinks that because I grew up in Las Vegas, I have some sort of kinship to it. She doesn’t know a thing about the Vegas I grew up in.