I think I was half asleep when I heard three hard knocks at the door. It’s hard to remember sometimes. Like a dream that’s fuzzy in your head. It doesn’t really feel real, and I don’t think it ever will.
I had off from school that Friday— some teachers’ convention. My favorite kind of day off, because I know there’s no functions to go to or any commitments we already have, and no bad weather, either. I spent the whole day rotting on the couch while everything else happened around me. My brother, James, was off, too. At some point during that day, I think everyone I know had been in our house, whether for a few minutes (Michael) or 5 hours (Logan, James’s best friend).
Maybe I was sleeping. Who knows. But I heard some stupid laugh track off the TV every so often, and sometimes Logan and James would giggle to each other. I heard our neighbor Joey’s voice there too, a witty comment on something someone on the TV said. But everything went silent after the knocks. No one ever knocks at our house. They just come in— the door is never locked.
From the stove, my oldest brother Daniel turned right to the door, and it was the knocks that finally brought me to full consciousness. Logan, James, and Joey all stared at each other, brows furrowed and eyes thinned. I stood up, answering the door just behind Danny simply out of curiosity.
Behind it was a policeman clad in blue, a black vest over top of his uniform. My eyes were drawn quickly to the gun in the holster on his right side, then up to the badge on his chest. L. Rutledge, it read.
“Can I help you, officer?” asked Daniel, his voice professional and low, like it sounded when he was on phone calls with strangers. The three other heads in the living room paused the TV and immediately looked over, now very interested in the officer in the doorway.
The officer held his hat in his hands. He was shifting as he stood, and he hadn’t looked Danny in the eyes until he asked him the question. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t look angry, either. His mouth was a straight line, and he had dark bags under his brown eyes. He was older, but not ready for retirement just yet, even though he looked like he could use a good, long break.
“Is this the Carter residence?” he asked, no emotion in his tone.
“Yes, sir,” said Danny with a nod. “I’m Daniel. Is something wrong?”
My first thought was Michael, arrested once again or maybe badly hurt, or a third thing that I didn’t really want to think about. But this officer wasn’t angry, and the ones who ran into Michael Hunter usually were. The suspense was getting to me.
“I have some news, Mr. Carter,” he said. “May I, uh, may I come in?”
Danny blinked, pausing for a moment before saying, “Sure, officer.”
Danny led him to the dining room table. The officer politely walked inside, not looking around gawkily like some people did when they stepped into what I liked to call our hovel. He wiped his feet at the door and followed Danny quietly. I nodded to James to come along, leaving Joey and Logan conversing silently.
The dining room was closed off from the rest of the house. It was the most open room, with the least clutter, because mom liked to keep at least one room free of what she liked to call our “boy junk.” She kept her favorite things in a wooden cabinet complete with glass windows, like plates passed down in her family and some art projects my brothers and I had made for her in elementary school. It was interesting to look at— the duality of the things she treasured.
“There’s three of you, correct?” said the officer, his voice low, still devoid of any defining tone. Why was he here? What was such sensitive information?
“Yes,” said Danny with a nod. “These two are my brothers. I’m the oldest.”
“And how old are you, son?” he asked.
“I’m 20, officer. 21 in a few months.”
“God,” he muttered.
“Officer,” said James, finally cutting in, “what’s it you’re here for?”
“I hate to be the one to break this to you, boys. They thought it’d be best if it were me. I’m a father to three boys myself.”
We didn’t say anything. We just listened.
“I wanted it to be as comfortable as possible,” he said. “I didn’t want to just tell it to you blunt in the doorway.”
“What, officer?” asked Danny, a tilt of his head.
“Your parents have been in a car accident,” he said. The words came out so slowly, as if he were walking on ice when he said it. “They were driving back toward the city, and it was dark. Eighteen-wheeler with malfunctioning headlights.”
None of us said anything. I wanted to scream, but none of us did anything.
Officer Rutledge took a deep breath. “They died on the scene,” he said. “Before the ambulances even arrived. The truck driver’s been arrested.”
I blinked. Then I pretended I didn’t hear him. That he didn’t actually mean what he said. That it was some sick elaborate joke by Joey or some of those rich kids that hate us or someone else. That I was watching one of those soap operas I like to binge, and this wasn’t actually my life. That my parents were safe, in their car, driving back to see us, because we were going to surprise them with dessert, and all headlights in the world were working and car accidents didn’t happen and my parents were okay and they would come back and give me and Danny and James big hugs and say that they’d never go on a trip without us again and that they were okay. I pretended, for so many moments, that my parents were okay. And for those fleeting moments, they were.
“I’m so sorry,” said the officer, no longer looking any of us in the eyes. I didn’t look at either of my brothers, afraid I might see tears building in James’s eyes, or even Danny’s, because either of those things would make me cry, too. But I couldn’t cry in front of the officer. I couldn’t cry in front of my brothers. “Because you are legally an adult, Mr. Carter,” he addressed Danny, “you have formal custody of your brothers. But until you turn 21, any delinquent behavior, and they do risk being put in a home for boys,” he explained.
Danny just nodded.
“I’m so sorry, boys,” he repeated. “If there’s anything more I can do, that any of us can do, don’t hesitate to give the department a call.”
Bring my parents back, I thought. But he couldn’t do that.
“Thank you, officer,” said Daniel. I’ve never heard his voice so quiet and shaky.
Officer Rutledge didn’t say anything more. Instead, he let himself out of the house, and left me, Danny, and James, just standing there, in front of our mother’s treasures, listening to his words over and over again. They died on the scene, was all I heard for the rest of that night, playing on a loop.
Danny put his arms around me and James. He did not cry, but I could see now that tears were streaming down James’s face, and they had been for a minute, because his face was all red. It made me break down, too, because I realized that it was real. That we said goodbye to them Wednesday night and wished them a good trip and those would be the last words we would ever say to them. And that we would never see them smile again. They wouldn’t see James turn 17. They wouldn’t see us graduate high school. Or go to college. Or meet girls. Or get married. Or anything else for the rest of our lives. It really hit me, just then, as our knees buckled under us and we broke down to the floor together, that we would never see our mother and father again.
Joey and Logan came in to check on us minutes later, all sitting on the floor, James and I bawling our eyes out. James stood up and threw his arms around Logan. He was a much more graceful crier than I was, sitting and sniffing quietly as tears ran down his face. Logan didn’t say anything when James hugged him.
I, on the other hand, was loud, and my face was all red and I couldn’t see anything through the tears. Danny just rubbed my back and let me lean into him. When Joey came along, he knelt next to me and I felt his hand on my shoulder, cold from the bottle of soda he had been holding.
I’m not sure if Logan and Joey heard any of the conversation, or maybe just made a lucky guess, but they seemed to know without us telling them. Or maybe Danny or James did say something, and I just didn’t hear over the sound of my own sobs. I don’t know. But as the night went on, everyone else seemed to find out, too, and by the time the sun had set, even Michael Hunter had joined us at our house.
Everyone slept over that night, all of us on the living room floor.