Light as a Feather, Cold as Marble

Chapter 17

"Henry," my mother said as she walked up our driveway and front steps carrying her enormous purse and a paper bag from the grocery store. Two uniformed cops in heavy winter jackets trailed a foot behind her. "What on earth brings you here?"

Of course, my mother would have recognized Henry Richmond even though she probably hadn't had occasion to speak to him directly in eight years because our town was small enough that surely she had shared Classroom Mom responsibilities with Mrs. Richmond at one point or another, or had chaperoned a field trip with her. Everyone knew everyone else's kids, even long after friendships began and ended.

"Hi, Dr. Brady," Henry greeted her. Mentally, I gave him points for remembering that my mom had a PhD. "I just stopped by to see how McKenna was feeling."

"What's going on, Mom?" I asked, lingering in the open doorway, not wanting to step out onto the snowy stoop in my socks.

"Back inside, McKenna. You're letting all the heat out of the house," my mother said as she reached the top step of the stoop.

"I'll text you later, McKenna," Henry said, keeping in mind that the yoga class would be starting at any second, and he only had a limited window of time to catch the attention of Shannon and Hailey after the class let out.

Mom entered the house with the policeman, and I immediately recognized the one who wore glasses as one of the arresting officers who had apprehended me and Trey back in November. Great. With even less enthusiasm, I realized that the name on the tag pinned to the outside of his coat was MARSHALL. I guess I had always kind of known that Dan Marshall, the kid whose locker had been next to mine when I'd still attended normal high school, was the son of a cop, but had conveniently forgotten that.

"Mom, are you going to tell me what happened? Where's the car?" I asked.

 My mother took her coat off slowly and hung it on the coat rack just inside our front door. "Please, have a seat," she told the officers, motioning to the love seat, where Henry had just been sitting. It seemed to me like she was moving kind of slowly, like she was a little stunned.

"Everything's fine," she told me as the police sat down on the edge of the love seat, clearly not wanting to get too comfortable. They looked around our living room as if trying to memorize the details of what they saw: the Christmas tree in the corner, my blankets on the couch, the school portraits of me and Jennie hanging over the television.

Maude moved in, tail wagging, to conduct her routine investigation of any visitors to the house. She sniffed at Officer Morris' and Marshall's kneecaps. The officer I assumed to be Dan Marshall's dad patted her on the head and said, "What a great dog you've got here."

"Yes, she's about six months old," my mom informed him with pride. Turning to me, she said, "I was just in a small accident at the shopping center. I still, for the life of me, don't understand," she shook her head, "exactly what happened."

I sank into the couch with a horrible knowing feeling growing in the pit of my stomach.

"Ma'am, you said that when you tried to hit the brakes, nothing happened," Officer Morris asked, referencing his notes in a small notebook he pulled out of the breast pocket of his uniform shirt beneath his coat.

"Yes, yes," Mom said, remembering back. She pulled a wooden kitchen chair from our attached kitchen into the living room to sit across from the police. "I started the car, and pulled out of my parking spot. Drove to the edge of the lot as if I was going to turn left back out onto State Street, and then as I tried to brake at the stop sign, my brake pedal just didn't do anything. It just wasn't..." Mom shrugged, "it just didn't work."