Rich is dead.
He’s dead because I didn’t try hard enough to help him. I saved myself by not going, but I didn’t save him.
Naomi asked me to help him, but instead I got him killed.
My sheets are soaked in tears, but I don’t care. Nothing matters anymore. Nothing even makes sense. I know he was doing something wrong, but they were for good reasons. He didn’t deserve to die for it.
Mom tries to console me. “Danny?”
“Go away,” I say, falling back on the bed.
She ignores me, like I knew she would. But my father murmurs something about going to get me something, and then he leaves.
“He was just trying to save his brother,” I say after he’s gone.
“Save his brother from what, dear?”
I sniffle and cough. “From prison,” I answer. “His parents refused to bail him when he was arrested.”
“He told you this?” I nod, or more like push my head deeper into my bed. She didn’t ask me when I saw Rich, she only said, “So that’s why he ran away, to find a way to bail his brother? If they’d known they would have just told him the truth. Oh my God this is even worse.”
What is she talking about? What truth?
I force myself to rise up from the bed. I sit beside my mom. “What truth?”
She sighs. “Nelson was released the day his parents found out about his arrest.” What! “They bailed him on the condition that he never makes contact with Richard again. Then they told Richard they would leave him there until further notice. They didn’t want him to have anything to do with Nelson anymore.”
It was all for nothing. Rich died for nothing. My mom stays with me until I fall asleep.
At some point in the evening, Naomi’s call wakes me up.
“Why aren’t you here? Are you grounded? You should have called.”
“Rich died,” I say weakly.
“Who?”
“The friend I was trying to help. The police killed him.”
“Oh.”
And then I end the call. I didn’t even remember I was supposed to have lectures today. I resume my tears, falling back to bed. I eat dinner and fall asleep again.
Sunday comes. Mom makes me come down for morning prayers. Now was when I needed prayers the most, she said. I mumble words throughout, saying nothing in particular. I have nothing to say to God. He let this happen.
Mom doesn’t make me do chores, but she does make me get ready for service immediately. We don’t normally eat before going to church, but that morning mom serves me a small plate of rice with plantain. I happily eat it.
The sermon topic happens to be, ‘The Just God’.
The pastor rambles on about how merciful and just God is, and I zone him out. Friday’s events prove otherwise. God isn’t just. If he was, Rich wouldn’t be dead.
“I’m not going to school tomorrow,” I announce when we get home.
“Alright that’s it,” my father says. “You will go to school tomorrow and you will have your lectures after school. I will not watch you put your life on hold because of one tragedy.”
I simply go up to my room. There’s no arguing with him when he gets like this.
I go to school the next day. I don’t remember much of what happened. Naomi tries to be supportive when we begin the lecture, but I tell her not to bother. That evening mom comes to my room immediately after I finish eating.
“How are you holding up?” she inquires.
“How do you think?”
“It’ll get better,” she promises, even though it’s not in her power to ensure it will.
I don’t say anything for a while. But then I decide to ask the question that has been disturbing me. “Why did Rich die?”
“I’m sorry, dear, but I don’t have the answer to that.”
“I mean, why did God let him die? He was just doing the right thing. After that day he was going to stop. Why didn’t God just let him live. Why is everything so wrong with my life?” I burst into tears without warning. I hear Naomi’s voice; that’s life. It sucks for everyone. If you haven’t realized that yet, then you’re not ready for it.
Then maybe I’m not ready.
Mom pulls me close. “Danny, God’s ways are mysterious. We may never know for sure why it happened. What we can do is take a lesson from it. Doing the wrong thing, even for the best of reasons, doesn’t automatically make it the right thing. And doing the wrong thing never ends well.”
I know she’s right this, but I don’t want to accept it. I pull away. “Really, you’re taking advantage of this to lecture me? You don’t miss an opportunity to tell me what to do, do you?”
“It is my job to advise you on what to do, to tell you what is good and what is bad, even when you don’t want to hear it. In fact, especially when you don’t want to hear it.”
“Please go mom. I want to be alone.”
She hesitates, but she leaves anyway. And I resume my tears.
It will get better, she said.
I’m more responsive and attentive in class the next day, and the day after that, even during the lectures. Naomi doesn’t try to console me again. She simply teaches me and makes sure I understand it.
She gives me an English assignment at some point, essay writing. She asks me to write on Murphy’s Law. I tell her I don’t know what it means and she asks me to Google it. I do. It’s a weird law but I know why she wants me to write on it. Murphy’s Law says that anything that will go wrong will. She doesn’t want me to blame myself for what happened.
I don’t know what to write at first, but I figure it out later. She praises my write-up, commending that it’s as though it were written by a professional writer. She tells me that I have potential, that I should hone my skills.
I feel alive with the compliment.
It will get better.
But will it?