Silent Alarm by Jennifer Banash Page A

him?” Delilah asked last Christmas. “Is he okay?” Her eyes, violet now, reflected against the white lights of the tree, fragrant and tall. I brushed it off, nodding my head yes with a snort as if to say,
Duh, how could you be so stupid? Of COURSE he’s fine.
    But you weren’t, Luke. Not really. I just didn’t want to see it.
    â€œWhen I checked my phone earlier, her number came up a few times from yesterday, but she hasn’t called back. I talked to Ben this morning, though.”
    Tears blur my vision, and I concentrate on the street signs that flash by as we creep toward the edge of town. Ben’s face appears, his wide smile superimposed on the translucent glass, and something in me shatters further, and so I look away, reaching over to flip on the heat.
    My mother lets out a long sigh and pulls the car over on the side of the road.
    â€œHe told you about . . . about Katie?” My mother’s tone is halting but matter-of-fact, and I wonder how she knew, who told her, and then I remember the paper crumpled in her hands this morning. Was Katie’s name there, in stark black and white for everyone to see?
    Katie Marie Horton. Fifteen years old.
    â€œWe have to go. To the service,” I manage to say through a wave of tears.
I have cried so much in the last twenty-four hours that my face feels abused, stinging with salt, my eyes swollen. I’ve blown my nose so repeatedly that there are actual scabs forming on the raw skin.
    â€œAlys.” She sounds so much like Ben when she says my name like that, so resigned that I want to clap my hands over my ears, open the car door and run as far away as I can. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, do you?”
    Arianne’s words float back to me, and I take in a breath so deep that my chest aches.
    Haven’t you people done enough?
    The engine hums quietly. Heat pours from the vents, but my fingers are icy branches shaking in the wind.
    â€œDad ran into Arianne this morning at the hospital, and . . .” She stops, exhaling loudly and turning away. “It didn’t go well, Alys.”
    A small, dry laugh escapes from my throat, although nothing is even remotely funny about any of this. All at once I am angry with Luke, furious about what he’s done to us, the rage bubbling up from deep inside me, my chest hot and tight with all I haven’t said, everything I can’t say. “Well, how could it? How could it when Katie’s dead?” My mother flinches, her face blanched of color, but I can’t stop. I am shouting now, the space between us constricting more tightly with every word that leaves my lips. “She’s dead! And whether he meant to or not, he shot her!” I feel dizzy, dislocated, my face hot and sweating, my hands ice-cold.
    My mother reaches out, palm open, and slaps me once, hard, across the face. I raise my hand to my cheek and it burns beneath my fingers. My mother has never hit me before. Not even when I was five and flushed all of her good jewelry down the toilet because I wanted to see what would happen.
    I drop my hand to my lap and begin ripping off my cuticles. The pain feels good, right somehow. My nose is running and I reach up and wipe it on the back of my sleeve. My mother exhales loudly, cursing under her breath, and I cannot look at her.
    â€œHoney, I’m sorry,” she says, her voice breaking. “But you’ve got to understand something.” She reaches over and cups my face in her hand, gently turning it toward her. Her eyes are bloodshot and so very tired that I can barely look at her. “Luke’s not around anymore for people to
    (hate)
    blame. So they’re going to blame us.”
    â€œBut we didn’t do anything,” I whisper.
    Did we?
    Or maybe that was the problem.
Was that it, Luke? Did you want more attention? Well, you certainly got it, didn’t you?
    Luke’s face appears before my