The Execution of Noa P. Singleton (34 page)

“—like someone is carving a turkey in your belly,” I said to her. At least that’s exactly what it felt like when I was researching Napoleon for my history class. I remember making the decision weeks later in the hospital that I would never return to the institution where I experienced such pain. Even if it meant I would never get a degree, never
become a scientist or a doctor, I would never return. I didn’t deserve to go to college in the first place.

She nodded, slowly, chin to chest, chin to chest, three short times.

“Yeah, sort of just like that.”

She looked up at me and for the first time, the wrinkles around her eyes and the lines across her forehead smoothed. I walked over to her and tried to put my arm around her.

“It’ll be okay, trust me.”

“Stay away from me,” she said, as if she hadn’t just grasped her belly with compassion, as if she forgot what I was doing there in the first place.

“I’ve been through this before, Sarah,” I insisted. “It’s all going to be okay. I promise. Let’s get you to the hospital.”

“Stay the hell away from me.”

“You called me over here, didn’t you?” I asked. “I’m confused.”

“What did you give to me?” she insisted, lowering her voice.

“I didn’t give you anything.”

“I saw you there. I saw you.”

“Sarah, you saw me and my father, didn’t you? Why don’t you think he slipped you something?”

“Forget it. Just leave,” she said after contemplating my last few words. “This was a mistake. I don’t know why I called you. I shouldn’t have called you.” Her hands were spread over the incomplete belly that was her womb. “As you must know already, my mother is quite the superlawyer in town. You better get yourself a good defense attorney right away.”

“For what?”

“For drugging me. And disappearing him,” she cooed, massaging the slight growth around her belly as if something inside was actually kicking her. I could see little goose bumps pop up all over the bare skin of her forearms as she held it.

“You and I both know I didn’t do anything to you, Sarah.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

It was so hot it felt like ants were crawling down my shirt.

“It really is hot in here,” I said. Sarah nodded her head. “You need to open this window. You’ll pass out in your condition. Think about your heart.”

Without waiting for a response, as I clearly wouldn’t get one from her in this state of mind, I walked to the large window to the right of the kitchen and took a butter knife and slid it against the bottom of the window, just where the paint had dried, slicing it open like an envelope, breaking the seal as my hand drew from left to right. She needed some cool air. She needed a hospital. She needed a follow-up examination.

Within moments, there was an opening. I pushed open the glass pane all the way to its peak. A cool breeze tunneled into the dank apartment. I stuck my head out the window and within moments, a few winter flurries found their way inside.

“Ahhh,” I sighed. “See? Much better.”

When I turned back, I spotted a small pool of apple juice bleeding through the cheap skin of my backpack, dripping onto the floor, and Sarah sitting beside it, rummaging through its contents.

I sprinted from the window toward her.

“What are you doing?”

A few pieces of glass fell out of the bag. She continued investigating, as if magically she would find my father inside. This was not the Sarah Dixon I’d tracked for the previous few months. This was not the Sarah Dixon, spawn of Marlene Dixon, who was as weak as ramen noodle. Or strong. Or confused. Quite frankly, it wasn’t clear what she was, apart from acting a hair manic, pale and jittery as if she’d just swallowed a coffee shop whole.

“I’m not sure what you expect to find in there, but—”

“—I’m sure you have pills in here. Or powder. Or something illegal. I know I was drugged. I’m sure it was you. I know it was you. I know what you’re capable of.”

“Please stop.”

But she wasn’t listening. She didn’t even seem to care about the broken glass coating the inside of my bag. She was preoccupied with
looking for something that didn’t exist. I don’t know why I didn’t rush over and stop her. I don’t know why I didn’t grab my bag from her and tear away as fast as I did with Persephone.

“Why is there broken glass in here?” she finally asked.

Like a battered woman, I answered quickly.

“I fell.”

But she didn’t care. She wasn’t even trying to slow down as she emptied the glass shards onto the floor, the tea bags, my wallet. It was as if she were a train whose brakes had failed, until a bony set of fingers traveled to her chest in animated grandeur, and she stopped.

“Sarah?”

I watched slowly as her other set of bony limbs wrapped around the gun—my father’s gun—which had been sitting alone in the front pocket like an only child.

“Let me explain,” I said to her.

She dropped the gun back into the bag.

“It’s not mine,” I insisted.

She didn’t respond. She didn’t move. Instead, she locked eyes with the gun as it rested, uncomfortable amidst the mismatched contents of my bag.

“Sarah, please,” I pleaded. “Your heart. Please don’t get excited about this.”

“How do you know about my heart?” she said, looking over to me. “My heart is fine.”

“I know it’s not,” I said. She stood up and immediately fell back down to the ground, surprising even herself. “Please calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down.”

“Stay right there,” I said as I ran to the kitchen to get her a glass of water. I offered it to her, and she took it willingly.

“What did you do to me? What did you do to your father? Where is he?”

“I didn’t do anything to my father.”

“Then why is he gone?”

“Because that’s what he does,” I told her. Her breathing was becoming increasingly labored. Nervous laughter penetrated her nerves in redundancy. “Sarah, please calm down. Let me make you some tea.”

“I don’t want any of your fucking tea,” she said, violently placing the glass on the coffee table.

“Please, Sarah …”

“I know you hate him. He told me you hate him. I know you hate him.”

“I promise you, I didn’t,” I said. “I don’t.”

“You … you have a gun!”

“It’s not my gun.”

“You have a gun,” she repeated.

“It’s not my gun,” I repeated. “It’s my father’s. It’s his gun. He gave it to me for protection. For—”

“—for Persephone Riga?” she said.

Waterfalls of adrenaline flooded my body. My heart skipped a beat.

“What?” I coughed. “What do you mean … for Persephone Riga?”

She stood from me, distant, as if I were pointing the gun at her. But it was still sitting in the bag, touching nothing but the carton of tea bags.

“I know what you did,” she said. “He told me about what you did to your friend when you were a kid.”

Wisps of cool air swam into the apartment, mixing with the heat, causing the windows to fog over. This must be how urban legends travel—like gas leaks underground, like streptococcus in a kindergarten class, like impatience at the DMV—quickly and undeniably. There was only one person to whom I confessed. Only one person to whom I needed to connect one night when he was opening up to me about all the reasons he was in prison, about his absolution, his heavy fists and all the damage they caused as he wept that he feared they had spread to me. But he was quiet. He was trustworthy. He
was a vault out of which nothing would ever break.
Now you know my secrets
, he said to me.
Tit for tat, Noa. What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?

Before I could even hear myself finish the sentence I wished I’d never uttered, I saw myself walking out of her apartment and closing the door behind me, dramatically, theatrically. My mother would have been proud.
Anything you can do, I can do better
. I saw myself walking halfway to the elevator and pushing the Down button, until I realized I hadn’t budged.
I can do anything better than you
. I was still standing inside the apartment, across from Sarah Dixon, who might or might not be having a heart attack at my behest.

“My father gave you the abortion pill,” I said to her.

She laughed, sweetly, in a round.

“He called me over after he thought you were dead,” I continued.

“That’s impossible,” she laughed. “He couldn’t get drugs like that without a prescription. You, on the other hand. You might be idiotic enough to drop out of an Ivy League school, but you’re clever enough to get in. And you’re clearly clever enough to cover up for a ten-year-old murder. I know you know how to get things like this. Where did you get it? You do realize that you might have murdered a child. If you killed my baby, you’ll be held responsible for that. Mark my words.”

“Your mother blackmailed him to do it.”

“Stop,” she said. “That’s pathetic.”

My hands started shaking. I wanted to be outside the door. I wanted to be in the elevator, descending to street level, and walking away.

I looked directly at her, though, and continued speaking as if this was planned all along, as if someone else knew what I’d say and what I’d do.

“I don’t think my father is what your parents had in mind for the da Gama period, that’s all.”

Feathered wisps of lashes. Speedy blinking. A silent clearing of her throat.

“How do you know about the da Gama period? I never even told Caleb about that.”

“Your mother told me,” I said. I don’t know what came over me. My mouth opened, and I just said it. “She also asked me to give you that pill. But I refused, and so she blackmailed my father. She gave it to him, and he gave it to you. That’s what happened,” I said. “Is she bright enough to score that kind of a drug?”

A flake of white snow drifted in from the open window. Although Sarah was trembling, I was burning up.

She sat on the floor. “My chest hurts,” she said. “My heart’s beating really fast.”

Sarah continued rubbing her arms and, in her white shirt, she looked for a split second like an inmate in a midcentury sanitarium. Her head shifted from left to right, left to right, left to right. Her eyes began to bulge, her arms to shake, the shivering shifted up to her lips.

“I think I’m having a heart attack. Call an ambulance.”

I didn’t move.

“Dial nine-one-one! I can’t breathe,” she panted. “I can’t breathe.”

I ran over to the phone.

“N … No … Noa,” she tried to say, but all that came out was air, muffled air with the shadow of a voice. Stridorous breath. Sound was no longer an option for her. Her lips opened and shut. “Help,” I think she was trying to say, though I can’t be certain.

“Sarah?”

I stood over her, peering beneath like a mourner at a cemetery.

“Sarah?” I said again.

No response.

“Shit … Sarah?”

Nothing.

The glass of water on the table was beginning to cloud from the cold temperatures seeping in from the open window. The phone was sitting off the hook, still waiting to be used. It had spilled into the monotone operator who was asking me to hang up. That solitary
note, no different from the teakettle’s call back home or Persephone’s simple request to just do her a favor.

If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and dial again
.

I couldn’t move. The only difference between us, this time, was that I was breathing rapidly. So rapidly that I was about to join Sarah on the floor.

If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and dial again
.

Shit, I panted. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

If you’d like to make a call—

My index finger crashed down on the receiver, stabbing the nine so forcefully that the nail split in two. Blood poured out from the tear, but I didn’t notice the pain. Not just yet.

I tried again. I dialed. I dialed nine. I dialed one. And then I dialed one again. A man answered in less than two rings.

“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”

I dropped to Sarah’s body, cradling her in my arms. She was still warm.

“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?” the man repeated.

“Yes,” I managed to say. “Please send someone right away. My friend. She’s twenty-four years old.”

“And?”

I heard my mother say to me.
You were just so very close, sweetheart, I know. Two peas in a pod
. Persephone’s eyes opened on the bed, tilted upward at the edges as I pictured the bullet hole. In my memory, it is still there.

“And?” the operator asked again.

“And there’s been an accident,” I mumbled.

“What happened, ma’am?” the operator said. “I need to know what happened to help you.”

Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than you
.

“She’s injured.”

“Who was injured? How was she injured?”

Sarah’s bangs were falling in sweaty stalks over her eyes, which
still stared at the glass of water on the table.
I don’t care what you say. I know you did this to me. You’re going to be held responsible
.

“—ma’am?” the 911 operator said. “You said you think someone’s injured? How injured? Is she conscious? How did she get injured?”

You better get yourself a good criminal defense attorney because this is all your fault
.

But Sarah’s belly was only beginning to swell.

“Hello?” the operator asked.

I know about Persephone
.

The cameras in the elevator would put me here. The security guard downstairs would recall my entrance. My regular bus driver would put me at Bar Dive two days earlier when she saw me. Apothecary Bob saw me no less than an hour earlier with a gun in my possession.

“Ma’am?”

I thought of my mother’s friend of a friend who was serving a life sentence for accidentally killing her baby. I thought of my father weeping with regret about his time in prison. He was the one who dragged me into this. He was the one who told her. I wanted my sleeping pills. I wanted to close my eyes.

“Ma’am? Are you okay?” the 911 operator asked.

She was going to accuse me of killing her baby. She was going to put me in jail. She was going to make me pay for something I didn’t do. She was going to tell everyone about Persephone.