Another woman, a newer tenant, also a young, white mother, leaves her husband to come ask if we’re okay.
I want to call my husband but am not sure what to tell him, not sure what has happened. I don’t want to scare him, make him feel worse for having to leave us to go work.
I go up to the Dominican man who gave my husband cigars the week after both girls were born with a card that said Congratulations, a single flower from the bodega across the street for me. We’ve mumbled at one another over the years, held the door open. I ask if he knows where Josslyn is. He speaks only Spanish, and I look to the older woman standing next to him and ask her if she knows Josslyn.
No se, they both say, shaking their heads at the crowded bus, as people stand, talk, sleep. The girls don’t sleep but are quiet, eyes wide open. They wear mismatched pajamas; the two-year-old has hearts on her pants and Santa on her long-sleeved shirt. The four-year-old has trucks and bunnies.
We watch out the window as the firemen file out, then back into the building. The smoke comes from the sixth floor, our floor. I finally call my husband once the girls are back asleep. He asks if I want him to come home, but if he doesn’t stay we won’t be able to pay this month’s rent; we’re trying to save enough so that I don’t have to teach at the high school in the fall. I tell him it’s fine, I’m fine, that he has to stay. That whatever has just happened, there isn’t any way that he can help.
A police officer comes onto the bus and says he needs us to account for one another. Another officer comes on and repeats, I think, what the first said in Spanish, then in Mandarin. We go floor by floor. Slowly, everyone on one and two and three and four and five is counted, relief slowly seeping through the bus; Fine, we’re fine, we all say. When they get to us, the Dominican man and I stand up. The older couple that lives next to Josslyn is not on the bus and the Dominican man calls out for them. The Spanish-speaking police officer stops him, asks him a question. She speaks to her partner, who looks down at a list.
They were sent to a hospital, he says. Smoke inhalation.
Josslyn, I say, Josslyn isn’t here, I say.
I don’t know her last name. Six years, and I don’t know her last name.
6C, I say. Have you been in 6C?
The girls stare up at me with that wired, crazy look of far past tired, far past going to ever sleep tonight.
Sixty-something woman? Black? the cop says.
I walk toward him. Yes, I say. Where is she?
Ma’am, can you come with me? he says.
The Dominican man is behind him, asking the policewoman in Spanish, as frantic as I am. I grab the girls. They lead us off the bus.
Did Josslyn live alone? the cop asks me.
Someone’s found an iPad on the bus for the girls and they watch Dora. Someone’s found a bag of Cheetos for them and they sit entranced, orange powder covering their faces and hands.
I think so, I say. Where is she?
I run my hands up and down the girls’ arms and legs. It’s cold out and they don’t have sufficient clothes on. The big, rough blanket sits awkwardly around the three of us.
Is she okay? I say.
The cop looks at me, then smiles at the girls without responding.
Would you be able to identify a photograph? he says.
The female Spanish-speaking cop is talking to our neighbor and he grabs my arm as they lead us to a cop car. I grab hold of his hand.
They show us a blurry black-and-white photo of Josslyn. It looks paused, a screenshot. I nod, crying, though I can’t say why I’m crying.
Our neighbor keeps a hand around my arm. He goes three times a week to get dialysis. His skin is sallow.
The female cop is speaking to him about the photograph.
Where is she? I ask the male cop.
Did she have children? he says. A boyfriend?
She has three kids, I say. She talks about them to me. I know they’re grown up but she talks about them as if they’re as small as mine.
He shows me another picture. Another screenshot. The man is on the landing between the fifth and sixth floors. He wears a tank on his back.
I get queasy. He was there today, I say. I walked by him.
He was standing on the landing and I’d smiled at him. The girls had stopped fighting to smile at him. He’d kept his eyes angled toward the floor.
They nod toward me. Another screenshot, my back, hunched over, both girls holding my hands, their books and toys clutched in their free hands.
That’s you? the woman says. I don’t realize at first that it’s a question. Obviously it’s me. I look at them. They’ve frozen the screen. The girls are looking at the man, his head still down.
I nod.
Had you seen him before?
I look back at our neighbor, who is staring, shocked, at the screen before us, his face even more sallow.
I don’t think so, I say. I’m not sure.
On the security camera, which I watch, hours later, in the interrogation room with the overly apologetic cops, I see the man in the exterminator’s uniform. The girls are in another room with a female cop, more junk food, the same iPad. On the screen, I smile at the man, my lips move. I must have mumbled something. Hi, hello, good
