The Reckless Oath We Made

It went on for another hour at least, like watching ants evacuate a den. I stayed where Mansur had stopped me, no closer, no farther. When the sun came up over the roofline I was still in the shade, but it hit Mom and Emma full in the face. I walked back to them, planning to ask Mom how she was doing, but it was a stupid question. She was standing in front of her house in her bathrobe, watching the police drag all of her shit out on the front lawn.

“I can’t do this again, Leroy,” she was saying under her breath. Over and over.

I put my hand on her arm. Her skin was clammy. Emma stood there like a mannequin, like I’d been doing for the last hour. I turned around and walked toward the front porch, so that a cop who was carrying out more boxes had to dodge me.

“Ma’am, you’ve been told to stay back,” he said.

“And I told you that my mother needs to sit down.” I didn’t know if I’d told that particular cop, but I’d told one of them, and they hadn’t done a damn thing about it.

I made it all the way to the porch, but the cop on duty there put out his hand in this way I recognized. This badge-wearing Toby way, so I knew he wasn’t afraid to hurt me. The Tobies of the world, they all end up as thugs or cops.

“I want to talk to Mansur,” I said. “Right now.”

“Will you tell him?” the Toby cop said to one of the box-carrying cops.

I waited at least five minutes. Then I put one foot up on the bottom porch step.

“Ma’am. I will cuff you, if you don’t stay back,” Officer Toby said.

“Tell Mansur he better go ahead and call an ambulance, because if he leaves my mother standing out there in the sun any longer, she’s going to need one.”

“He’s coming. You can tell him yourself.”

When Mansur finally came outside, he was empty-handed, but now he didn’t just have an ink stain on his dress shirt. He was covered in dust and cobwebs and all the other things that were hiding in the corners of my mother’s house.

“Miss Trego. I would—”

“Do you see my mother out there? Standing in the sun?” I said. I stood up on the second-to-top step so that Mansur and I were eye to eye. If Officer Toby touched me, I was going to deck him, and to hell with the consequences. “She hasn’t eaten breakfast so her blood sugar is probably rock-bottom. She has high blood pressure. And phlebitis. And lymphedema. I told them she needs a chair. Something that will hold her. If you’re going to keep at this, you need to bring her recliner out here, so she can sit down.”

“I’m sorry, Miss Trego,” Mansur said. “Of course, we can arrange that.”

“Can you arrange it before she faints and you need a hydraulic lift to get her up off the ground? I’m not kidding. You need to get her chair or an ambulance.”

“My apologies. We’ll get her chair.”

It took them another ten minutes to clear the front hall, but finally two cops came out carrying her recliner. They staggered down the front steps and carried it to a patch of shade under the ash tree. In another hour, they’d have to move it again to get shade, but in the meantime, Mom was able to sit down. She slumped forward and put her elbows on her knees, panting.

“Do you want me to get you something to eat?” I said.

“No. I’m okay.”

“I don’t think you are.”

“What about some water?” Emma said.

“Miss Trego.” Mansur again, coming across the lawn toward me. “Could I ask you to come inside?”

It was that or argue with Mom, so I went with him. I still had the search warrant in my back pocket, so I took it out and unfolded it.

“Are you serious with this shit?” I said. “Components for improvised explosive devices? Do you think my mother is building bombs?”

“We have reason to believe that associates of Ligett and Barnwell may be planning to use pressure cooker bombs in a repeat of their attack on the Muslim student center. So far we’ve recovered three pressure cookers.”

“Oh my god,” I said. “My mother is a hoarder. I bet she has three bread machines, too. She has five goddamn microwaves, even though only one of them works.”

“Miss Trego, if you’ll help us with something, we can finish this more quickly.”

They’d cleared the front hall and half the crap out of the kitchen. I could see the hesitation marks—like a suicide attempt—where they’d been trying to decide what to do in the front room and the sunroom. Where they wanted my help, though, was in the hallway to the bedrooms.

“Do you know what’s in this room?” Mansur said, pointing to the first bedroom door.

“Like specifically or do you mean in a—a—” It took me a second to get the word. “In an archaeological sense?”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, I don’t know exactly what’s in there, but most of it dates to about 1999 to 2002. It used to be the guest room, but Mom started filling it up with craft projects and books after my dad went to prison.”

Mansur took a couple of steps backward and pointed at the next bedroom door. I laughed, because I was in danger of crying. I shifted all my weight to my right foot, and the pain in my hip sobered me up pretty quickly.

“That used to be my bedroom.”

“Do you know what’s—archaeologically speaking, can you tell me what’s in there?”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. The cops had managed to get the door open about four or five inches. Most of what I could see were cardboard boxes and plastic bags, but at the bottom, there was a swatch of purple-striped fabric that I thought was a hand-me-down nightgown from Emma.

“Miss Trego?”

“Um, 1993 to 1999, it’s mostly my stuff. Clothes and stuffed animals and books and things like—you know, when the feds searched the house in ’99, after the bank robberies, they were convinced the bookcase in my room was a hidden door or something, because it was built in. So they got in there with pry bars and tore it off the wall.” I wanted to unload on Mansur. Dump absolutely everything on him, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it without crying, and fuck him. Fuck him and Officer Toby. I wasn’t going to cry.

“1999 to maybe 2004, it’s a mix of my clothes and shoes, plus romance novels and my mother’s craft projects, and then by 2005, mostly her crap. Dolls and quilts and dishes and stuff.”

“What about after that?” Mansur said. He was shining a flashlight into the gap in the door. With the room piled up to the ceiling no daylight could come through the windows.