September 23
By Nicole Weaver
“What’s your name, son?”
“Lawrence, but everybody calls me Laurie.” The boy fidgets, one knee bouncing, scuffed sneaker squeaking slightly against the aging linoleum under the table. The kitchen is warm, full of late afternoon sunlight pouring in and coating the yellow walls, trapping the two of them in a golden cage.
“That’s alright, Laurie.” The man clears his throat with two short coughs. Laurie watches him, trying not to notice how large his nose is or the way his eyebrows hide his kind eyes when he isn’t looking up.
“For the record, it is September 23rd, 2012. This is Detective Forestt speaking with Lawrence Price concerning his mother’s accident.” The man speaks clearly, looking down at the recording device on the table between them, so Laurie looks down at the red light too.
“How old are you?” the detective asks.
“Ten.”
“And can I get your account of what happened?”
Laurie is quiet, listening to the squeak of his shoe and the man’s breathing.
“Take your time,” the detective says calmly.
“I didn’t see anything. But there was a loud noise, and she was at the bottom of the stairs.”
Detective Forestt breathes out through his nose. “And was your father there?”
Laurie’s shoe squeaks faster. “No.”
“Where was he?”
“I don’t know.”
The detective is silent for a long moment. The sun glares against the table’s surface, seeping into every fiber of the wood grain. Laurie stares at that instead of the man’s face.
“You can tell me, Laurie.”
“I don’t know where he was,” Laurie says again, still studying a fissure in the table.
Detective Forestt tries again, readjusting in his chair. Laurie hears the table creak, sees the man’s shadow shift. He’s leaning closer. “Both of your parents are at the hospital. You know that, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What we’re talking about right now, it’s between you and me.”
“Okay.”
“So, I’m going to ask you again. What happened?”
“I was in my room. There was a noise, and she was at the bottom of the stairs.”
“You left your room to investigate and found your mother on the floor of the basement,” the detective says, ending the statement with his tone scaling up, prompting Laurie to go on.
Laurie doesn’t, though.
“Where was your father?”
“I don’t know.”
“He called 911. How did he know to call if he wasn’t there?”
“I don’t know.”
The chair creaks, the table bumping Laurie’s arm as the detective shifts again. “Look at me, son.”
Laurie obeys, raising his head for the first time since the interview has started. The man’s eyes are kind, squinted in the corners and brighter without those heavy brows in the way.
“You’re not in any kind of trouble. You know that, don’t you?”
“Okay,” Laurie says quietly, already feeling as if he is in trouble.
“I need to know how your father found her.”
“I don’t know.”
He knows they’re fighting: his father’s voice floats up to his room, seeping under the door. It’s loud and angry, gruff and scary. He can hear his mother, knows she’s backing away, hands out as if towards a wild animal.
“Please, Laurie is upstairs. Let’s not do this now,” she pleads.
A striking sound, a yelp. Laurie squeezes his eyes shut and bounces his leg faster. The math worksheet on his desk becomes distant and unimportant.
The crash noise sends a jolt through Laurie’s heart—a spike of fear. What’s worse is the silence that follows it: dead and cold.
Laurie flies down the stairs. He rounds the corner, coming into the kitchen. The basement door stands open, and his father is motionless in the doorway. The anger gone from his face, replaced with a look of surprise.
Silent tears pour down Laurie’s face. “No,” is all he says, the single word barely formed before it passes through his lips, coming out like a moan.
“She fell,” says his father.
“Please, no,” Laurie cries.
“I’m calling 911. Your mother fell. She fell, and I don’t know what to do.”
“No.”
“Laurie,” the detective tries again.
The squeaking stops. Laurie’s leg freezes. “She fell, and I didn’t know what to do.”
Detective Forestt lowers his head, looking up at Laurie from underneath his eyebrows again. “What did you do?” His voice is hushed and reverent, as if maybe he believes he can make Laurie tell the story playing and replaying behind his eyelids.
“I stood there. My father called. I was crying.” The clipped sentences make it easier for Laurie to speak, easier for him to pretend he’s not really here.
“How did your father get there?”
“I don’t know. He just called.”
The detective waits. Laurie knows he’s waiting for him to continue, but he doesn’t, so the man speaks. “Were they…talking? Before it happened?”
Laurie’s breathing begins to speed up, his chest heaving a little too hard. “No, I don’t know. I was upstairs.”
“I know, that’s okay. Do you think they might’ve been?”
“I don’t know.”
“Take a breath there, son. It’s okay.”
“Okay,” says Laurie. “Are we almost done?”
The detective sighs. “I guess so.”
Laurie looks back at the table, leading his eyes through the maze of grooves and lines in the wood. There’s dust too, golden as if on fire in the sunlight.
“Can you tell your story one more time for me?”
Laurie’s shoe starts squeaking again, in time with the bounce of his leg. “I was upstairs in my room. I heard a noise, and I came down. My mother had fallen down the stairs. I cried, and my father called 911.”
“How do you know she fell?”
Bringing one hand up to the table, Laurie is silent. He picks at the surface with a fingernail, scratching the polish off in one tiny section. A whole minute passes. Laurie knows because he counts the seconds and waits to breathe.
“Thank you, Laurie. That’ll be all for now.” The detective clicks a button on his recorder, shutting it off. The red glow winks out. He stands up, bringing his hands down his chest to smooth out his suit jacket. The recorder goes into a bag, and the table is empty except for the sunlight and the dust.
“Listen.” Detective Forestt reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a card. “This is my business card. It has my number on it. You can call me if you need anything.” He puts it on the empty table and slides it across to Laurie.
Laurie picks it up, then looks at him standing there with his creased forehead and kind eyes. Laurie knows that he knows.
“If you need anything, if this happens again. Even if it doesn’t.” The detective nods.
“Okay.”
Nicole’s Bio:
I’m a communication major at Rutgers, having transferred after earning my associate’s degree in the Chicago metropolitan area. I read anything I can get my hands on, and I’ve loved writing ever since I could hold a pencil!