Page 12 of As the Rain Falls
Mr. Lin goes for a second objection. Lawyers are not allowed to ask two questions at the same time during cross-examination. I open my mouth, speaking first, and the jury gasps, making me feel like maybe I was wrong.
This moment does sort of feel like television.
“It wasn’t Beckett’s fault,” I shake my head, swallowing hard and clearing my throat. “Nathaniel and I were very close, until…”
“Until?” The lawyer presses again. “Ms. Rivera, please answer the question!”
“I…”
Nathaniel slams the table, cursing my name and telling me to shut the hell up before he beats the shit out of me. He snarls and trashes against the desk, glaring like I owe him for this. Like today is my fault and I should repay him.
The sound of his voice ignites something so frightening inside of me, a feeling I haven’t felt in months.I stand up in reflex, trying to flee, but my screams get stuck in my throat as the police officer grabs me.
The motion makes me dizzy, and my head is throbbing, but I still sense commotion on the other side of the room.
“Let her go!”
It’s Beckett.
I know in my heart it is.
I blink, staring at the ceilings.
Everything becomes too blurry and too light.
Then, it all fades to black.
OCTOBER, 2016
LUCIA'S BIRTHDAY CAKE
Beckett
OCTOBER, 2016
Three hundred seconds. Fiveminutes are made out of three hundred seconds. Sixty times five. There are five minutes left before midnight, so three hundred seconds before October 15th turns into October 16th. Five minutes before my sister’s eighteenth birthday. Three hundred seconds before I fall apart.
It’s the kitchen tiles that get me the most.
Our mother renovated the kitchen back when I was still in middle school. Susan Evans thought the house needed a pop of color to bring in the warmth our family seemed to lack.
I remember it as the kind of project rich wives of boring businessmen take on in the hopes of fighting the early signs of what later becomes chronic depression. All my earliest childhood memories disappeared after she disposed of the old chipped marble.
My sister was different; she jumped right into it. Lucia was creative; she really enjoyed DIY projects. I personally didn’t really see the point of it back then, but she’d spend hours browsing on the Internet, looking for inspirations, cropping out pictures of fancy magazines, and visiting antique shops hidden in our town.
The inside of a house matters, Becks.
No one likes to live in some kind of dumpster.
The end result turned our minimal decor into something more rustic, but I guess that was the whole charm. Lucia insisted on replacing our simple white cabinets with some fancy woodwork and Mediterranean yellow tiles. She couldn’t wait to see how the color would fade over the years from overuse, but the furniture never got to turn old.
Mom moved back to England soon after we buried Lucia.Only a week after her death, actually.Nobody really uses the kitchen anymore.
I wasn’t surprised.
I wasn’t surprised at all.
Susan was never one to care very much, and I wouldn’t describe her as sentimental about her children by any means. She tried at first, but deep down she never cared about being a mother. I felt like she always kept us at arm’s length, both literally and figuratively, sometimes watching us from afar with a weary look of contempt or disgust.
