Sarah Sparrow - A Guide for Murdered Children

“Can you tell me a little bit about Renée?”

“We call her Honeychile.”

“Right—Honeychile. From everything I’ve heard, she sounds like a very good person. A sweet, decent girl.”

“She is ,” said the loyal friend. “Oh my God, she’s the best .”

“That’s why what happened is so hard to understand. Because I’ve talked to a lot of people about her. And they say she’s a wonderful, funny girl. A joy to be with. That’s not up for argument—that’s a fact.”

Zelda nodded. She was getting calmer, which was good. It was all about building trust.

“What really bothers me,” she said emotionally, “is that people are saying— some people—that she was on drugs . She is so not on drugs, she hates drugs. She never even tried marijuana!”

He pushed a box of Kleenex her way.

“Okay. Okay. And I believe that. I really do believe that, Zelda. And I understand how hurtful it is to hear people make false accusations about a friend.”

“They are so false!” she said, blowing her nose.

“What I need to know—what I’d like to know, if you’ll help me—is if there was anything you noticed that was different about her, different about your friend. In the past few days or weeks. If she was hanging out with any kids or even grown-ups that you didn’t know. At school or outside of school—”

“Not really,” she said, nonplussed.

“I need you to think about it. Really think. Because it’s important—if you want to help your friend. If you want to help Honeychile.”

“All I want to do is help her!”

“I know. I know that. And you’re helping her right now , Zelda, just by meeting with me and talking with me in exactly the way that you’re doing. I just need you to think about what I asked. And it doesn’t matter if it’s a big thing or a small thing, Zelda, you can let me decide. All I want you to do is go back in your mind and think —we can meet again too—go back and search your thoughts about Honeychile’s activities and behavior over the last few weeks.”

“Well… she did start acting kind of different—”

“Okay. Good. Tell me about it.”

“After the asthma attack.”

“She had an asthma attack.”

“A really bad one.”

“When was that?”

“Maybe a week ago? Oh my God, we thought she was going to die . Maybe she got scared that it would happen again. Maybe she started acting different because she thought it was going to happen again and that she would die. It was really , really bad .”

“Can you tell me how she was acting ‘different’?”

She shook her head and he didn’t want to press.

“Did Honeychile ever mention Mrs. Collins?”

“The woman who placed her?” said Zelda.

“That’s right. Did she ever talk about her?”

“Not really—but I know she really loved her.”

“Did Honeychile ever talk about Mrs. Collins’s little boy? She had a son named Winston. You probably heard what happened to him.” Zelda nodded. “Did she ever talk about Winston?”

“I don’t think so—”

“Did she ever tell you about going to visit Mrs. Collins?”

“No…”

“Are you sure? That would have been sometime recently. Are you sure she never mentioned going to see Mrs. Collins?”

“She didn’t!”

Owen believed she was telling the truth. Still, he followed the theme. “Did Honeychile ever say anything to you about Winston, before or after he disappeared? Anything at all? It’s important, Zelda.”

“No.”

“She never said she was upset about what happened? That she was upset for Mrs. Collins and wished she could find the people who were responsible for what happened to her little boy?” Zelda kept shaking her head. “Did the two of you ever go to the beach together?”

“Not really.”

“‘Not really’—does that mean ‘maybe’? Try to remember. Did you ever go to New Baltimore? The beach over there? I used to go when I was a kid. There’s a pier there and a park. Did Honeychile ever take you there?”

She shook her head once more, then said, “There was something—it sounds really dumb…”

“If it’s ‘dumb,’” he said, smiling, “which I promise it won’t be, then we’ll laugh about it together.”

“Honeychile asked if she could sleep over. After she had the asthma attack. We’d been fighting so much I thought it would be really nice. The next day, we went to the museum in Detroit. Five classes went. And we…”

“Go ahead, Zelda.”

“Am I going to get in trouble for this?”

“You’re not going to get in any trouble, I promise.”

“Well—Honeychile said there was someplace she needed to go, so we left. I don’t want to get thrown out of school for this!”

“You’re fine. No one has to know but you and me.”

“We left—I mean, while everyone else was still there. But only during lunch hour! We were totally back in time and no one even found out.”

“Where’d you go?”

“To this church—we took a cab.”

“You went to a church…”

“I don’t think she ever went there before, but it was like she knew exactly where she was going. But they wouldn’t let us in.”

“Who wouldn’t let you in?”

“These people . It was weird, I can’t explain! This woman… actually, they wouldn’t let me in, they were going to let her in but the woman said I couldn’t come. Honeychile told the woman no way —that she wasn’t going to go if I couldn’t go.”

“You said that she told a woman. What woman?”

“She was older and wore a long dress. And jewelry—like turquoise jewelry? She said I couldn’t come with. She wasn’t, like, mean about it, she was really nice . She said I could sit outside and they’d bring me cookies and lemonade. But only Honeychile was allowed to go in.”

“Then what happened?”

“We left.”

“Did Honeychile tell you who the woman was?”

“I don’t think she even knew ,” said Zelda. “It wasn’t like they were friends.”

“Did Honeychile tell you what was going on? After you left?”

“She wouldn’t . I kept asking but I finally gave up.” Zelda’s face contorted in a mask of misery. “It wasn’t her fault , what she did! Everyone hated him! He was a bully and everyone hated him!” Her entire body seized. “I’m sorry , I’m sorry ! I know he shouldn’t have died, no one deserves to die, but he was so horrible , he texted such horrible things to her! People don’t have a right to do that either, do they? And I know she probably didn’t mean to hurt him like that—she probably didn’t even know what she was doing! Because she’s a really, really good person! And I just want to see her! I just really need to see her! Can’t I see her? Why can’t I see her! Why can’t I see her?”

He knew the interview was over.

1.

The entity known as Dabba Doo sat in front of the television at the end of a long day, as was his habit. All of his days were long now—almost beyond belief.

He was not a child; nor was he a man.

Neither a landlord nor a tenant be…

He was a diver who’d spent too much time in the lower depths, with no decompression chamber waiting.

His memories were a miasma, a stew dissolving into broth. His physical body, such as it was, flicker-faded. Intermittently, his breath became labored and he could feel his very blood coursing its last lap. When he asked himself (with growing infrequency) what it was that had happened to him, he was baffled, and dropped the thread. What he lived for, if living is the word, was the Meetings—communion with those who were like family now. For the first time in his life, he loved and felt loved in return.