The Bay at Midnight

“You sat on the porch with your grandmother and me last night,” my mother said. “You heard us talk about the Walker boy being a rapist, and you said nothing! How could you do that? Why didn’t you tell us?” She tried to strike me again, but Grandpop had moved next to me and he raised his arm to catch the blow.

“Maria, don’t,” he said to my mother.

“Why didn’t you tell an adult what was going on?” my mother screamed at me. Grandpop put his arm protectively around my shoulders, but my mother could not stop yelling. “How could you do this?” she cried. “How?”

I had no answers and the words I’m sorry would be so weak, so useless, that instead, I said nothing. I hung my head, trying to lean into my grandfather’s chest, but even he seemed distant from me in spite of his arm around my shoulders. I felt my insides coiling up like a snake ready to squeeze the life out of me.

“I’m going to throw up,” I said, and pulling away from my grandfather, I ran to the bathroom.

I did not throw up; I had nothing inside me to come up. I sat hunched over on the closed toilet, sobbing, listening to the wailing of my mother and grandmother in the living room. No one came to comfort me. I must have sat there for forty minutes, afraid to leave the room, afraid to face my family.

I heard my father arrive, heard him with my mother in the hallway outside the bathroom. I pictured them embracing. His sobs were as loud as hers, and I cried harder, hugging my arms, rocking back and forth, knowing that I had stolen his favorite daughter from him. I heard car doors slamming and leaned forward to look out the window. A police car was parked on the dirt road in front of our house, and two men in uniform were walking up the sidewalk.

I closed my eyes, listening to the voices in the hallway. There was a knock on the bathroom door.

“Julie?” It was my grandfather. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” My voice squeaked.

“You need to come out,” he said. “The police want to talk to you.”

I wanted to stay in the small, safe room, but I stood up and opened the door. I looked at my grandfather’s basset-hound face. His eyes were red. “Grandpop,” I said. I wanted to say that I never meant for this to happen, but that was an excuse for what I’d done, and there were no excuses big enough to cover this particular multifaceted sin. He put his arm around me again and led me down the hallway. I could see all the way through the living room and porch to our yard, where the police were talking to my father. And I could hear voices coming from my parents’ bedroom. My mother and grandmother and Lucy were in there, hushed voices cut with sobs. I heard my sister hiccup.

I wiped my face with the back of my hand as we walked across the porch. Grandpop opened the screen door and I nearly tripped down the two steps to the yard, my legs felt so wobbly. My father and the policemen looked up as the screen door slammed closed behind us. I recognized one of the policemen as Officer Davis, who had lauded me when I’d found the little boy. I felt humiliated now, the fallen heroine.

Ned and his father were there as well. All at once, I realized what a fool I’d been: Ned was a man, standing there with four other men. I was a skinny-legged idiot for thinking he could ever be romantically interested in me. I’d been playing a twelve-year-old’s game with grown-up consequences.

My father limped forward to hug me, and the gesture caught me off guard. “I know you didn’t mean to hurt her,” he said into my ear, his voice cracking on the last word. I would never forget the gift he gave me with those words. He pulled away from me, turning back to the police.

“And you were supposed to meet her last night?” Officer Davis was asking Ned.

Ned looked as though he was already tired of answering questions. “Originally,” he said. “But I couldn’t…” He glanced at his father, and I remembered the argument that had led to him telling me he could not see Isabel last night. “I wasn’t allowed to go out last night. So, I asked Julie if she’d give Izzy that message.”

“Why weren’t you allowed to go out?” the other office asked.

“He hasn’t been helping out much around the house this summer,” Mr. Chapman said. “Always on the go. My wife and I decided he needed to stay in for a change. Help the family out.”

“And did you?” Officer Davis asked. “Did you help the family out last night?”

Ned nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. The word came out in two syllables.

“What exactly did you do?”

“I didn’t kill her,” he said. “Why aren’t you talking to Bruno Walker?”

“I’m not saying you did kill her, and we’re in the process of looking for Mr. Walker,” Officer Davis said. “Right now, I’m trying to put together a complete picture of last night. What did you do around the house?”

“I swept the whole house,” Ned said. “I washed the dishes. My brother dried. I folded laundry. I fixed a radio. Is that enough?”

“Shh, Ned,” Mr. Chapman said. “That attitude isn’t going to help.”

“And where were you around midnight last night?” Officer Davis asked.

“I thought you weren’t looking at him as a suspect,” Mr. Chapman said. “He’s not answering any more questions until we contact his lawyer.” I remembered suddenly that Mr. Chapman was a lawyer himself, as well as chief justice on the New Jersey Supreme Court. He would know how to advise his son and I was relieved. I didn’t like how Ned was being questioned. Officer Davis had been so nice to me when I found Donnie Jakes. This was a different, no-nonsense side of him.

“Answer the question, Ned,” my father said. “Where were you last night?” I noticed the other cop had his hand around my father’s arm as if holding him back from punching Ned in the face, and I wondered what had transpired before Grandpop and I had gotten out there. I could imagine how Daddy’d reacted to the news that Ned and Isabel met on the platform nearly every night.

“He worked like a dog around the house,” Mr. Chapman said. “I was proud of him for finally helping out. So then he and I sat out in the yard for an hour or so looking for shooting stars. The meteor shower.” He looked at Ned. “We