Cheryl calls me late on the first Sunday evening after that awful night. Everything that’s happened in Houston has been splashed all over the state newspapers, I’m sure, even though I’ve avoided those. Mama must have filled her in on everything, too.
‘Baby sister, how are you?’ she asks. She sounds so far away, like her worried voice is fighting to get to me through the phone lines.
‘I’m all right.’
‘I miss you so much,’ she says. ‘I didn’t know you were going through all this.’
‘I miss you, too,’ I say. I’m so exhausted it hurts to even say these words. I want to ask Cheryl how she’s doing, how things are with Dennis. But I can’t manage it. Besides, we can’t stay on the telephone for very long.
Juanita and Connie and Sunny try to visit that same day. I know because Mama tiptoes into my room to tell me they’re at the front door.
‘Just tell them not now,’ I say, and the flat, blank sound of my voice scares me even more than my thin, sickly voice at the hospital.
Mama opens her mouth like she’s going to protest, but then she shuts it and gives me sad eyes before turning around and closing my bedroom door behind her.
A little over a week after I get home from the hospital, two men appear on our front stoop while Mama is at work. Grandma has left the front door open to let in a breeze, and I spy them through the screen door from my spot on the couch.
‘Grandma!’ I holler, not taking my eyes off these two figures looming in my doorway. My heart starts to race. It’s a strange sensation, almost like I’m remembering that I’m still really alive.
They tell Grandma they’re police officers, but they’re wearing suits. They could be twenty or fifty, I’m not sure. I just know they’re cops, and they want to ask me questions. The way they say all this, I know I can’t send them away like I sent away my friends.
Grandma brings coffee out and they arrange themselves awkwardly on our secondhand furniture. I notice the one losing his hair scanning the walls, taking in everything, probably quietly judging our house and us.
‘So what do you need to ask my granddaughter?’ Grandma says primly. ‘She’s been unwell, and I don’t think you need to be taking up that much time, if you don’t mind my saying so.’ I shoot Grandma a look of thanks, and she manages a very tight smile. I think she’s nervous, too.
‘We just wanted to ask Evelyn about the situation involving Diane Farris,’ says one of the officers. The one who isn’t losing his hair. His eyes are a little warmer, and the way he smiles at me makes me think maybe he has kids at home. ‘We’re just wrapping up a few things.’
‘All right,’ Grandma says, ‘but please try to keep it brief.’ She gazes over the officers’ faces as she sits down, her eyes filled with concern.
The officers start slow, asking me about my head injury and how I’m feeling and how long I was in the hospital. They have little notepads and stubby pencils in their hands, but they’re not taking any notes. I have a feeling these questions are only being asked to get me used to answering.
‘Can you tell us how you came to know Diane Farris?’ the balding cop says at last, and he leans forward in his chair, like he’s actually interested in what I have to say.
My throat tightens and my heartbeat picks up again.
‘We met at Winkler’s,’ I say. Connie always says never give the cops more than they ask for.
‘When?’
‘A while back.’
‘The night of October tenth?’ the not-as-nice cop presses. ‘The night she killed Preston Fowler?’
I look down at my hands folded in my lap. I want to disappear.
‘Look, Evelyn,’ says the smiling cop. ‘We already know what happened. We have the written confession with your writing on it, too. We’re just trying to fill in the details before we officially close the case.’
Maybe they’re pulling a good cop, bad cop routine with me like they do in the movies, but anyway, what does it matter? There’s no one left to protect. Diane is gone.
Something inside me cracks, and I feel warm tears start to pool in my eyes, but I blink them back. I remember how easily Diane cried. How she wasn’t ever afraid to let her tears out. I admired that so much, but I don’t want to cry in front of these cops.
‘You’re upsetting my granddaughter,’ Grandma says, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket and handing it to me. I take it, grateful for her kindness. Surprised, I guess, that she would defend me so strongly. I manage to fight the tears back completely, and a stillness comes over me. Then I remember what the papers said when Diane and I were hiding out. Only that the police wanted to question us. Grandma doesn’t know what happened with Preston and me.
‘Ma’am, we won’t be much longer,’ the nice cop says, smiling politely. Then he turns to me. ‘Evelyn, in her written confession and in what she shared with Betty Howell, Diane claimed to have killed Preston Fowler because he was hurting another girl, and … in an additional note in this confession, you suggested that …’ At this the cop pauses, thinks, glances at my grandmother. I can tell he’s choosing his words.
Grandma gasps.
‘Evelyn!’ she says.
She’s figured it out even before the cop finishes his sentence.
I take a shaky breath and summon all my courage – all the courage Diane promised me I had – and look at the cop directly.
‘Preston Fowler tried to attack me that night at Winkler’s,’ I say, my voice beginning to shake but steady enough. ‘Behind the bathroom. He grabbed me and he wouldn’t let me go. I fought back, and he just laughed. He told me all he needed was a minute. Those were his exact words, and I’ll never forget them. I’ve never been so scared. Not ever! We struggled, and I passed out, and when I woke up, Diane Farris was there, holding a switchblade. She told me she killed Preston, but she didn’t mean to. Honest, she didn’t! She was just trying to scare him off to protect me. And she didn’t even know me! Not really. I was just a stranger to her, a girl in her English class. And she risked everything to help me.’
Tears are threatening again, but I manage to fight them off and instead point at the nicer cop’s notepad in his hands and say, ‘So why don’t you write that down? That’s what you need to put in your damn notepad. That’s what you need to put down to fill in your damn details! I was nobody to Diane, just a girl from the wrong side of town. She could have walked away. But she helped me because she was a good person. A great person. She was my best friend, and I miss her so much!’
And at last I let the tears fall, let them drain from my eyes and slide down my cheeks. Then I bolt up so fast I knock one of the officers’ cups of coffee from the table in front of us, and I hear it clatter and break into pieces as I race to my bedroom and slam the door behind me. Collapsing into bed, I sob and sob until I can’t cry anymore. I let myself feel – really feel – what’s happened to me. To Diane. I sob until everything in my body aches, I sob through my grandmother’s knock on the door and her hands rubbing my back and her voice begging me to talk, but I can’t. I just sob until I fall asleep.
When I wake up, the sun has fallen but my watch says it’s only just past dinnertime. I sit up in bed, groggy and confused. Then the afternoon with the cops comes flooding back. I long for the same numb feeling I had in the hospital. The same numb feeling I’ve had sitting on our couch watching As the World Turns and Password and every other mindless soap opera and game show I can find. But every nerve ending is exposed now. My guts are turned inside out.