I See You Read online

  They had arrived at the modest storefront of Ebony’s Beans and Greens. The smell of slow-cooking soul-food greeted them. There were party lights strung out over the striped awning, and they could hear laughter from inside.

  ‘Hey, you made it!’

  Hannah looked up and smiled at the sight of Frank Petrusa, walking down the block toward them, arm in arm with Kiyanna Brooks. Hannah tried to cover her surprise. She hadn’t realized that the group leader and the head of the nursery were a couple, though clearly they were. They had certainly kept their relationship under the radar. Of course, Hannah generally avoided asking people personal questions, for fear that she might be called upon to answer such questions in return.

  ‘Frank! Kiyanna. I want you both to meet … Alan, my husband.’

  Kiyanna smiled her broad, beautiful smile, and extended a graceful hand. ‘Nice to meet you. We were beginning to wonder if we ever would.’

  Adam shook her hand warmly. ‘The pleasure’s mine. You run the nursery, right?’

  ‘I do. I’m very fond of Cindy. She’s a very bright little girl.’

  ‘She … Thank you,’ said Adam.

  ‘And this is Frank,’ said Kiyanna.

  ‘Frank Petrusa,’ said the group leader, extending his good hand.

  ‘Frank runs the PTSD group,’ said Hannah.

  ‘My wife speaks very highly of you,’ said Adam pleasantly.

  ‘She speaks very highly of you too,’ said Frank in his gruff voice.

  Adam looked at Hannah fondly. ‘Nice to know,’ he said.

  Kiyanna laughed. ‘Let’s get in there and have a drink on it,’ she said.

  Hannah felt something she hadn’t felt in such a long time. A festive evening unfolding. Friendships being forged. It was almost like being home. ‘Yes, let’s,’ she said.

  Mamie had made them a supper of macaroni and cheese with some applesauce. Sydney had eaten heartily but still eagerly attacked the piece of cake when Mamie put it in front of her on a little plate.

  ‘Aren’t you gonna have cake?’ the child asked Mamie.

  Mamie grimaced and rubbed her chest. ‘Not right yet,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling a little … something … indigestion.’

  Sydney finished her cake and carefully carried her plate across the room. She had to stand on tiptoes to put it on the counter next to the sink. Then she turned to look at Mamie. ‘Can I watch TV now?’ she asked.

  ‘You sure can.’ Mamie struggled to her feet, and glanced at the sink. ‘I’m gonna leave them dishes till later,’ she said apologetically.

  Sydney had already scampered out into the living room and was pushing buttons on the remote.

  ‘Now just stop that,’ said Mamie. ‘Let me do that.’ She took the remote from the child and aimed it at the TV.

  ‘Come on, now. Oh, what’s wrong with this thing?’ Mamie shook the remote, frowning at it.

  ‘I can do it,’ said Sydney.

  Mamie shook her head. ‘You probably could. Better than I could.’ Mamie peered at the remote, and then suddenly, she squeezed her eyes shut. She let the remote fall from her hand. It clattered on the worn wood floor beyond the Oriental rug.

  Sydney rushed to pick it up. ‘You dropped this, Miss Mamie.’ She held it up to the old woman, and then took a frightened step back. There was a terrible look on Miss Mamie’s face, and she was clutching her chest. Her warm brown skin had taken on a grayish cast.

  ‘Oh, Lord,’ Mamie whispered. ‘Something is wrong.’ And then she collapsed on the floor.

  Sydney began to whimper. She cautiously approached the woman lying on the floor. ‘Miss Mamie,’ she whispered.

  The old woman did not answer.

  ‘Miss Mamie, wake up,’ Sydney pleaded, pushing her shoulder with her pudgy fingers. But the old woman did not stir.

  ‘Miss Mamie,’ she cried, and then, when there was still no answer, Sydney began to wail.

  TWO

  Dominga was nodding off. The empty pint bottle of Night Train had slid off her lap and landed, still in the brown-paper bag, on the dry grass beside the wall. Every so often Dominga started, and had to right herself on the low wall where she was sitting, but then the haze would return. She had the dream that she often dreamed. She was back in the desert camp, dry and dusty. The men around her were strangers, not the buddies she knew. Everywhere she looked guys were maimed and bleeding. Dominga knew it was her responsibility to go after the enemy, but her arms and legs would not move. It was like she was paralyzed. The sergeant was yelling but Dominga couldn’t figure out what he was saying.

  Someone in the camp began to cry. It sounded like a child crying, and Dominga knew she had to find the child, to help. But where? She jerked awake. The wailing did not end with the dream. She heard it still. The frantic cries were coming from the window of the house behind her. Dominga blinked a few times, and forced her eyes to stay open. The child’s cries were piercing, jangling her nerves. Dominga stood up unsteadily.

  As she gathered her wits, she realized that it was the voice of a little girl, a little girl calling for help.

  Unlike in the dream, all her training, so long ignored and forgotten, seemed to return to her in a torrent of protocols which she needed to remember. She struggled to pull herself together. Weaving slightly, she made her way to the break in the wall, and up the walkway to the front stoop of the old house. Carefully, she climbed the steps, and hesitated. The cries came again. She leaned over and peered into the bay window, her eyes blinking to adjust to the light within. Then she saw where the cries were coming from. A little blonde-haired girl was huddled on the floor, next to the body of an old black woman with gray hair. The child was crying out at the old woman, ‘Miss Mamie, Miss Mamie!’

  Dominga felt a rush of pity for the child. She knew how it felt to be left alone like that. She had felt that way for much of her young life. She did not want to frighten the child any further. ‘Hey, little one. It’s OK,’ she called out as kindly as she could. ‘It’s OK. I’ll help you.’

  The child looked up, perplexed by the voice coming through the window.

  For a moment, her sobbing stopped.

  ‘Listen to me,’ Dominga said. ‘Do you know how to unlock the front door?’

  The child’s eyes were wide and filled with abject terror. ‘Nooooo …’ She began to sob again.

  Dominga thought about it. The child was pretty small. She probably wouldn’t be able to reach the lock and turn it. The woman on the floor was lying still. She might be dead. If she had a phone, she’d use it, but Dominga was using tracphones that she bought at the bodega, and the last one she had just ran out of minutes. Dominga had to make a quick decision. In a way it felt good. The adrenaline was pumping through her, and her head felt clear. She hesitated, and then she decided.

  Years of living in the neighborhood had taught her to keep a weapon handy when she was on the street. A switchblade rested in the zippered pocket of her nylon jacket. She pulled the switchblade out, snapped it open, and cut a large slice in the screen of the living-room window. Using her hands, she pulled the screen apart, wide enough so that she could force her sturdy body through the opening.

  ‘I’m coming in now, chica,’ she cried out. ‘Don’t be afraid.’

  She climbed over the window sill and fell to the floor beneath the window. There was a telephone sitting on the end table beside the sofa. She grabbed up the receiver and dialed 911.

  ‘What is your emergency?’ asked the operator.

  Dominga explained that there was a woman lying on the floor. The operator told her to check for a pulse, but Dominga had already crawled over to the prostrate woman and was holding her free finger and thumb on her wrist. ‘It’s faint,’ she reported, ‘but she’s alive.’

  The operator recited the address, and asked if it were correct. For a moment, Dominga was flummoxed. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I just heard a child crying and came in. It’s near the corner of 50th and Chestnut.’

  The operator assured h
er that there was help on the way. ‘In the meantime …’

  ‘I know what to do in the meantime. I’m a soldier. I was in Iraq,’ Dominga said abruptly. ‘Just tell them to hurry.’

  ‘Miss Mamie,’ the child wailed.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ Dominga said, as she positioned the old woman’s head so that her throat was open, cleared her mouth out and began to compress her chest. ‘Miss Mamie’s going to be OK.’

  Oblivious to the drama unfolding at Mamie’s house, Hannah and Adam ate heartily from the soul-food buffet which had been laid out in Father Luke’s honor. They each had a couple of drinks, and even danced a few times. When, after their last dance, they returned hand in hand to the table they were sharing with Frank and Kiyanna, Kiyanna smiled complicity at Hannah.

  ‘You two are cute as can be,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Hannah.

  ‘How long have you been married?’

  Hannah waved the question away. ‘A looong time,’ she said.

  ‘And Cindy is your only child?’

  Hannah moved the straw in her drink around and took it between her lips as if this were an operation requiring great concentration. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  Kiyanna nodded thoughtfully, not wanting to pry but clearly curious.

  ‘We’d just about given up hope when she came along,’ Hannah explained.

  ‘She’s really a sweet little girl.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Hannah. She didn’t want to talk about this subject but she didn’t want to be rude to Kiyanna, who had been nothing but kind to Sydney ever since Hannah had been bringing her to Restoration House.

  ‘What about you?’ Hannah said. She glanced over at Frank, who was picking out a piece of pie from the dessert buffet. ‘Are you two … together?’

  Kiyanna sighed, and gazed at Frank. ‘Yeah. Yeah. We are.’

  ‘At work you’re very …’

  ‘Businesslike,’ said Kiyanna. ‘Yeah, we try to be cool about it.’

  ‘Is it serious?’

  Kiyanna smiled bashfully. ‘Yeah, I think it is.’

  Hannah nodded. ‘You make a nice couple.’

  Kiyanna frowned. ‘Frank was married when he went to Iraq. When he came home, she’d found somebody else. He’s still got some trust issues.’

  ‘Well, trust is essential,’ Hannah admitted.

  ‘I’m trying to convince him to go with it,’ said Kiyanna, stirring her drink.

  ‘I’ve seen him work with those vets. He has such a good heart,’ said Hannah. She glanced over at her husband, who was deep in conversation with the thin, anemic-looking Father Luke, and his large brown-skinned partner, the party’s host, Spencer White. ‘Alan and I have been through a lot together,’ she said. ‘A lot.’

  Not long after that, Adam suggested they should think about getting home. They had Sydney to think about. Hannah agreed, and they said their goodbyes to the festive group.

  The streets were quiet at that hour, except for the occasional boom box passing by, or motorcycles or arguments in doorways as they passed. The city. Hannah had never expected to enjoy life in the city but there was something about it that appealed to her, even though they had chosen it mainly for anonymity’s sake.

  ‘Did you have a good time?’ she said to Adam.

  Adam nodded. ‘I did,’ he said. ‘I like the people you work with. They seem like nice people.’

  ‘They are,’ said Hannah. ‘I like them too.’

  ‘I like being out with you, again,’ he said.

  Hannah smiled at him ruefully. ‘I know what you mean. I felt almost guilty having fun.’

  ‘Maybe our life is going to get some semblance of normalcy at last,’ he said.

  ‘You think they’ll have a party at Geek Squad headquarters?’

  Adam shook his head. ‘They really aren’t into real people. They like to party with their avatars. No need to get cleaned up.’

  Hannah laughed and squeezed his hand as they turned the corner onto 50th Street. And then she gasped. ‘Adam. Look.’

  He had already seen it. An ambulance. And the blazing lights of police cars.

  ‘That looks like our house,’ Hannah said.

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Adam.

  But Hannah had already broken into a run. The closer she got, the more convinced she was that the emergency vehicles were parked outside Mamie’s house. ‘Please, God,’ she said. ‘Let Sydney be all right. Oh, we should never have left her, should never have gone out.’

  She was breathless by the time she arrived at the house. She could hear Adam’s footsteps pounding on the pavement behind her. She ran up to the crowd of police, and saw at once the open bay on the ambulance. She grabbed the arm of the nearest officer. She could hardly form the words.

  ‘My daughter? What happened? Where is she?’

  The officer turned to her with a serious look on his face. ‘Are you the little girl’s mother?’

  ‘Yes. Where is she?’ Tears rose to Hannah’s eyes. ‘Is she all right? What happened?’

  ‘She’s all right. She’s right over here in this squad car. Hey, Mickey,’ the officer called out. ‘The kid’s mother is here.’

  Hannah sagged against the nearest vehicle. She felt Adam behind her, gasping for breath. She reached around and grabbed his hand. ‘She’s all right,’ Hannah whispered.

  Suddenly, the milling crowd of officers parted, and a policewoman was standing just a few yards from Hannah, holding Sydney by the hand.

  Hannah caught the child’s eye and fell down to her knees, her arms open.

  ‘Mom, Mom,’ Sydney cried, rushing to her.

  Hannah thought she had never smelled anything as sweet as the child’s hair, or felt anything so welcome as those little arms wrapped around her. ‘You OK?’ she asked, squeezing her.

  Sydney nodded. ‘Miss Mamie fell down. She got sick and fell down,’ the child said gravely.

  ‘Oh my God,’ said Hannah. ‘How …? What happened?’

  Adam prodded Hannah in the back. ‘Get up,’ he whispered. ‘We need to go.’

  Hannah looked up at him, perplexed by his urgent tone, and then heard a voice booming beside her.

  ‘Mrs Whitman. Mr Whitman.’ Isaiah Revere, Mamie’s eldest son, approached them. They had met several times over the course of the last ten months, when he came to pay a visit to his mother. He was a bald man in his late fifties, wearing a nicely cut overcoat in a muted brown. He also wore a tie and gleaming cordovan shoes.

  Hannah rose to her feet and shook his outstretched hand. ‘Hello, Mr Revere. How is Mamie? Is she going to be all right? What happened?’ she asked.

  Just then, the bay doors slammed shut and the sirens on the ambulance began to wail.

  Isaiah’s forehead was furrowed. ‘They think she had a stroke. They still have to do a lot of tests. I’m headed over to the hospital in my own car. I just wanted to commend your little angel here, Cindy. She was very brave. Weren’t you, dear?’

  Sydney, huddled in Hannah’s arms, nonetheless looked directly at the city councilman. ‘Miss Mamie fell down. She’s sick.’

  Isaiah Revere smiled. ‘She is. But she’s going to be all right. The doctors are going to take care of her.’

  Hannah shook her head. ‘What happened? Who found her?’ she asked, looking at the collection of police vehicles, the ambulance gearing up to roar away. ‘Cindy’s too young to call for help.’

  ‘Well, in fact, we have this lady to thank,’ said Isaiah. With that he turned and gestured to a mannish-looking young woman standing nearby, speaking with another officer. Hannah immediately recognized the vet whom they had passed as they left for the birthday party.

  ‘Can you come over here, soldier?’ Isaiah asked. ‘These are the child’s parents.’

  ‘Dominga?’ Hannah said.

  Dominga, looking somewhat shy, nodded. ‘Hi, Anna,’ she said.

  Isaiah Revere looked surprised. ‘You two know each other?’

  ‘Yes. Well, I work at Restorati
on House. It’s a non-profit for vets.’

  ‘Apparently Ms Flores here heard your daughter screaming and went to the window. She saw my mother lying on the floor, so she made a quick decision and went in through the window.’

  Hannah could feel Adam tugging on her arm. ‘Hannah, let’s go in,’ he whispered. ‘Cindy needs to get inside.’

  Hannah felt annoyed at her husband for his abruptness. She too wanted to commend Dominga for her quick thinking. ‘Dominga, I don’t know how to thank you.’

  Dominga tried to shake off the praise. ‘Just did what needed doin’,’ she said.

  A bright light suddenly shone into Hannah’s face. ‘Councilman Revere. We got your call. We’re here from Channel Ten News. We heard your mother was ill. What’s going on?’

  Sydney lifted a pudgy hand to cover her eyes. Hannah froze, realizing, too late, why Adam had wanted them to slip away.

  ‘Thank you for coming. I’ll tell you what’s going on,’ said Isaiah Revere, addressing the microphone. ‘I am on my way to the hospital to attend to my mother who was taken ill in her house tonight. But before I go, I want to point out that she would undoubtedly be dead but for the quick thinking of this young woman, Dominga Flores, who broke in and called 911. My mother was alone with this small child whom she was caring for.’ The cameraman turned his apparatus onto Hannah, who had Sydney in her arms.

  Heart pounding, Hannah averted her face as best she could.

  ‘Ms Flores is an Iraq war vet, who has suffered greatly after her participation in that conflict,’ said Isaiah. ‘It’s not been an easy road for Dominga, as I understand it. She is without work, and without a place to live. But when my mother was in desperate trouble, and Ms Flores was facing an emergency, all her skills as a soldier came into play, and she performed heroically.’

  Hannah heard Adam groan softly behind her. She felt paralyzed, trapped in the camera’s glare, exposed.

  By this time several other news networks had showed up on the scene, answering the call from the councilman’s office. Anyone else would be on their way to the hospital or in the ambulance with their mother. Hannah realized, too late, that for Isaiah Revere, this was a political opportunity. He would never let a chance go by to collect a few votes. She felt as if she wanted to throw up, or faint. But she was holding Sydney, and they were talking about a young woman who had rescued her child. She couldn’t just turn her back and walk away.