Gwen was born when her mother was seventeen. Although no one ever talked about it, it was believed that her father had been the vice-principal at Alene’s school. Alene had dropped out, fallen into the grip of alcohol and God knew what else, and eventually disappeared, so from the time Gwen was three until just after she turned twelve, she had lived with her great-aunt Emmaline in Inglewood. It was Emmaline, a retired mail carrier, who’d come up with Gwen’s name, in honor of the famous poet. And it was Emmaline who’d passed on family stories—of Gwen’s great-grandfather who’d left Alabama for Chicago in the early 1900s; of her ancestor Phillis, who’d escaped from slavery in Tennessee and fled up to Ohio, where she’d given birth to Emmaline’s grandmother. For much of her childhood Gwen only saw her mother two or three times a year, and sometimes not at all.
When Emmaline passed away, Gwen lived with two foster families—first the Grandersons, a black family in Culver City, and then the Weisses, a Jewish family in the Valley. Both families had been kind to her, but by the time Gwen was fifteen, all she wanted was to live with someone who wasn’t paid to take care of her.
And then, almost miraculously, Alene reappeared. She’d sobered up, earned her GED, gone to college. She’d eventually gotten a master’s degree and started a job with a food company. She’d married Stuart Robinson, whom she’d met at their church, and given birth to another child. When Gwen went to live with them soon after her fifteenth birthday, the Alene she met was so different from the one who had left her that it was almost like she’d been placed with another foster family. Her own experience had made Gwen shy away from the idea of having children. There were enough kids in the world already, she thought, too many of them unwanted.
* * *
After telling the receptionist that the girls from Lincoln might drop by, Gwen made her way back to her office. She called up the image of the lake on her computer again and tried to recapture her sense of calm. But the scene was flat now; it had lost all its power. Damn her mother, she thought. Damn her for so swiftly poisoning even this.
She brought her mind back to where she was, the office where she spent so much time that she sometimes inadvertently called it “home.” On the walls there were pictures of her colleagues at various work events, a certificate naming her employee of the year, a framed commendation from the city councilman for her outstanding work with youth. On her bulletin board, there were photos of kids who’d been in her groups, and school portraits of some of her colleagues’ children.
At the corner of the board, closest to her, was a picture of Robert. He was posing on a rock high up on a hiking trail with all of LA spread out behind him. His hands were on his hips and his chin was raised at a jaunty angle, as if he were a conquering hero. He looked beautiful and ridiculous, pleased with himself and with the world. Gwen had taken this picture two weeks before he died.
Robert had been in seventh grade when Gwen first met him; he’d been referred by a therapist at his school. A tall, gangly kid, he’d shown up for group sessions in threadbare clothes, with holes in his worn-out sneakers. But he was unfailingly polite, and he always seemed to speak in complete paragraphs, using words—sustainable, honor-bound, erudite, Darwinian—that were almost comically formal. When Gwen finally asked him what had brought him to group, he answered only, “I was suspended for fighting.”
She couldn’t fathom the idea that this gentle kid was a fighter, and so she tracked down the school therapist. That was how she learned that Robert and his little brother Isaac had bounced around to several homes as their mother fled an abusive relationship. Robert had seen the man hold a gun to his mother’s head; he’d watched him break her arm. He’d gotten into several fights at his new school, the therapist said, while standing up for girls when boys harassed them.
Robert had always been a good student, so he didn’t need help with academics. But he was awkward and shy and down on himself, so Gwen connected him with other activities—Devon’s job prep group, a digital media class, and a group that went on outings, like that hike in the local mountains. He stayed in her youth leadership group through middle school and high school, where he got mostly As and a couple of Bs. In his senior year he applied to UCLA, and when his acceptance letter arrived, there’d been an impromptu celebration at her office—cupcakes and soda and teary speeches from the staff, Robert grinning and embarrassed at the attention. He seemed like the ultimate success story—a black boy from Watts who’d grown up in extreme poverty, and who had made it to a top-notch university.
Then Robert showed up to group one day with a fresh black eye. He wouldn’t talk about what happened. But Trey, another student, told her that some boys had started bugging him again, a couple of the same ones from back in seventh grade. Robert was skinny and nerdy, too into his books—he thought he was something special. He didn’t try to get with girls; there must have been something wrong with him. Gwen went to talk to the principal but he just smiled and nodded absently; he was new to the area, from Maine or Maryland, and he said the boys should “work it out themselves.”
A few days later the boys cornered Robert in the locker room. They stripped off his clothes, knocked him around, and left him there, naked. There was speculation that more might have happened but no one
