"I'm here," he said. She reached for the back of his head with her good hand, the way she had when he was a small boy with a fever. Jackson lowered his forehead until it touched hers, careful not to disturb the injured side of her face. Henry turned toward the window, and Raymond busied himself with the zipper on the jacket because neither wanted their mother to see them crying.
Beatrice asked Jackson whether he had driven all night. He admitted that he had, then received a gentle scolding about sleep, food, and the dangers of an exhausted driver. She told him that she had called because she knew he would understand how to remain calm around frightened people. Jackson looked at the hospital bandage and said that he was not sure calm had much to do with what he felt at that moment.
They took her home in Henry's truck because she found the thought of sitting inside the Corolla unbearable. Jackson rode in the back beside her, keeping a folded blanket between the seat belt and the injured shoulder. Each turn made her tighten her grip on the edge of the cushion, but she refused to ask Henry to stop. When they reached Willow Street, the pecan trees were standing in bright morning light as though nothing had happened beyond their shade.
The house had always been Beatrice's refuge. That day, she stood in the doorway and felt uncertain whether she wanted to enter, because she knew that at some point she would have to sleep and wake in a world where the police were no longer simply people she called when she needed help. Jackson carried her hospital paperwork to the kitchen while Raymond opened the curtains and Marcus put groceries in the refrigerator. Henry checked the porch rail he had been promising to repair, unable to remain still.
When the brothers began discussing lawsuits, newspapers, and whether somebody should confront Stanton's supervisor, Beatrice made them sit down. She had a way of issuing commands without raising her voice, an ability developed during four decades of family dinners. "Nobody is going to make another bad decision in my name," she said. They fell silent, and Jackson looked at her with an expression that suggested he knew the order had been directed partly at him.
Patricia recommended that Beatrice photograph the visible injuries each day and keep a dated record of pain, sleep, treatment, and limitations. Beatrice had spent years teaching church children to write down what happened before memories became mixed with other people's versions. She found a ruled notebook in the kitchen drawer and began on the first page, using her right hand because moving the left was too painful. The handwriting looked shaky and unfamiliar, but the facts were recognizable.
She wrote that she had told Stanton where the registration was. She wrote that the envelope was yellow and had William's handwriting on it, that she had asked the officers not to pull her arm, and that the hospital had confirmed a broken bone. She also wrote about the sound of the glove compartment opening, because her mind kept returning to it. At the bottom of the page she added a small sentence that mattered more to her than any of the others: I was trying to go home.