Jiwoo had offered to walk George to her car but was waved off. George went through the motions of scrubbing out and removing her surgical gown and gathered her things relying on muscle memory to carry through. She walked out into the half-lit reception office. Lisa having gone home hours ago. The motion sensor lights tracking her movements down the corridor and illuminating the lobby. George hadn’t registered how flushed her face had become until the cool night air hit it as she pushed the crash bar on the door to the parking lot. There were only three cars left. Pools of light shone from streetlights onto the striped pavement.
It was only once she was in the car that she felt the numbness ease. But in its place was a “FUCKKKKKK” that reverberated off the steering wheel back at her. George framed her hands slightly to cradle her face as she said it into the void of the parking lot before her. The science didn’t lie. Her eyes didn’t lie. Her mother would insist she trust both.
George shook off the stress, straightened up in the driver’s seat, and fished her phone out of her back pocket. The lock screen read 10:15 PM. She unlocked it and slid her finger to call Callie. The one ring it took for her to pick up felt like both an eternity and not enough time to figure out what she was going to say.
“George? Where are you? How’d it go?” Callie’s voice sounded tired. George heard the TV turn off in the background.
“I... um, I... it’s—” She was at a literal loss for words.
“Are you safe? Okay? Do you need Nate to come get you?” The anxiety in Callie’s voice was rising.
“Yes, I’m fine.” It came out as if she wasn’t. George tried again. “No, really, I am. It’s just—are you still at Dad’s?”
“We left about an hour ago. Since we hadn’t heard from you and Dad looked like he was about to pass out from exhaustion, we figured we’d head home and wait for you to call or text with updates. Should we head to the house?”
“No! No. I know it’s late, but could I swing by your apartment?” George reassured Callie that she was alright, and didn’t need a ride from Nate. She’d see them soon. The blink of the car’s turn signal broke up the darkness as she turned right on red out of the parking lot. Hers was the only vehicle on the road until she reached the highway.
She’d had to park around the corner from Callie and Nate’s apartment building. This late at night, all the optimal spots in front of their building were taken. There had been one spot, but it required a tighter parallel parking job that required more skill than George’s rusty ones. The car door echoed in a neighborhood already tucked in for the night.
They answered the door before George finished knocking. Callie was on the other side in a matching blue star polka-dot pajama shorts set and her nutmeg-colored hair pulled up into a messy bun and her bangs held away from her face by a get-ready-style headband. Nate directly behind her having also ditched his work clothes for a pair of checked pajama bottoms and a worn swag T-shirt from when his company sponsored the Popham Harbor 5K two years ago. Most of the screen printing had come off so it only read: “—murder, she underwrote.” Realizing that answering the door wasn’t a two-person task but unsure where to put his anxious energy, Nate turned and let them into the main living area of the apartment, stepping up into the kitchen and starting the electric kettle for tea. The sisters each took a chair around the small dining table that was placed between the kitchen and the living room. Callie clearing off one so that George could sit. Even with her jacket still on, George could smell the combination of antiseptic and death that wafted off of her. She was mostly nose-blind to it, so if she noticed it, it must be pungent to Callie and Nate, though neither seemed to outwardly react.
“Tea will be a few moments. Would you like water? Something stronger?” Nate called over from the kitchen. “Have you eaten?” George shook her head “no.” She couldn’t think about eating now. She heard Nate start to open various cabinets and the refrigerator.
“Did you get to see Mom? Is she okay? When will they release her? Do you know the cause of death?” The questions came tumbling out of Callie. The answers to which George had run through on the drive over.
“I did. The medical examiner from Augusta, Dr. Whitford, was kind and let me observe him perform the examination.”
“Oh, Georgie!” Callie leapt up and rushed over to hug her. “I can’t imagine.”
George couldn’t maintain her composure after that. She felt the tears rush out of her bottom lashes and spill down her face. Callie stayed hugging her, at some point Nate slipped a box of tissues on the table. The tea kettle went off and Callie went to gather mugs and the tea caddy, while Nate brought down an assortment of snacks: grapes, crackers, some cheese, nuts, and fun-sized promotional candy from his work.
George wrapped her hands around the mug, watching the tea turn the water an ochre color. She thought about how the next sentences would land in the room. “Dr. Whitford completed the examination tonight while I was there. He has some paperwork and procedural things to finish, but she should be able to be released tomorrow. He’s preliminarily ruled it a homicide.” She couldn’t look up to meet their gaze.
Nate slammed his hand on the table and propelled himself upward to his feet. “Well, that calls for something stronger than tea.” More cabinets were opened, and he returned with a bottle of whiskey and three glasses, generously pouring for each of them. All three knocked it back. He refilled, and this time they each left theirs to sip in front of them.
George saw Callie struggling to find the words she herself couldn’t find less than an hour ago. “Wait—what are you saying, George? That Mom was—murdered?” Callie landed on a whisper as if saying it any louder would be admitting to a reality she wasn’t willing to accept yet.
“Murder implies motive. Right now it’s ruled a preliminary homicide until toxicology labs come back. Mom had a blunt-force trauma wound to the back of her head with no signs of bracing or secondary injury.”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been part of this family long enough that you would think I can follow that, but can you explain what you mean?” Nate had gained a lot of knowledge in the years he’d been dating Callie, but hadn’t grown up steeped in the language of murder like the sisters.
George laid out the facts just as Dr. Whitford had laid them out in the autopsy suite: what had been ruled out, why, and what the evidence presented in terms of wound location and pattern.
“Couldn’t she have hit her head during the fall?” Callie puzzling through the myriad of reasons other than homicide. Not because she doubted her sister, but because the reality she was about to settle on was unimaginable. George assured her. She’d seen the wound. Dr. Whitford’s ruling was correct.
“But Georgie, Dad swears he was the only one in the house when she died.”
And there it was. The words George couldn’t find in the car. The thought Callie had fought against with a whisper. The question Nate had wanted to ask when he had George walk him through it.
George drained her glass. Nate followed suit and refilled them both. Callie began to pace. “You don’t think—it can’t be—it’s unimaginable. Dad would never kill Mom.” She pleaded with the room but received no reassurance. “George! Nate! You really don’t think he did it, do you?”
“Cal, I don’t think Daniel did it. It’s just that I don’t know what to think.” Nate pulled her into him to stop her pacing. He held her hand, while she stayed standing above him. They both looked at George.
“George?” Callie implored.
“The only available evidence is cause of death. An actual investigation will be needed to answer who or what caused the blunt-force injury. That’s not something I can speak to. I have to remain agnostic while Sheriff Patel investigates.”
“That’s not an answer, George,” Callie retorted.
Nate attempted to soothe her by rubbing the back of her hand. “Sweetheart, we’re all shaken by the news. No one. Not me, not George, not you is saying Daniel did it. All George said was that we have a lot more questions now than answers.” He stood up, wrapped his arms around Callie, and leaned his cheek against her head. “Now, it’s late. We’re not going to get any more answers. The best we can hope for is some rest, though I doubt any of us are sleeping. George, I’ll get the pull-out set up for you.”
A little while later, George found herself, freshly showered in borrowed sweats, curled up underneath a blanket, listening to the soft hum of the refrigerator fill the apartment. Nate was right, no one would be sleeping, but Callie was also right; that hadn’t been an answer. But George didn’t have answers.