I’m turning in my gun and badge, Chanise said.
Jimmy Lark set his jaw and ground his teeth, a nervous tic he couldn’t control awake or asleep.
Not me, he said.
They’re going to fire you, maybe arrest you.
I’ll see them in court.
Mahlik’s death was your fault, she said.
Mahlik knew he wasn’t supposed to touch the gun.
Mahlik was three years old.
I taught him to say hot whenever he saw the gun, he said.
I guess he didn’t listen.
That’s not my fault.
Like father like son, she said.
Don’t make it worse.
Have you shared any of your feelings in group therapy?
I quit.
That’s all you have left to save you.
I’m already saved.
Let’s retire, Jimmy, go away. Start new. Heal together.
The counselor told me to take responsibility for my negligence.
And lose your obsession with guns. You’re as bad as those maniac white cops who kill unarmed black men.
When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.
You really don’t get it, do you?
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.
Jimmy, please.
We don’t need new gun laws. We just need to enforce the ones we have.
You sound like a robot.
And you sound like my mother.
Chanise stared at the father of their dead child.
I used to be Mahlik’s mother, she said.
Jimmy trembled.
Chanise spotted the bulge.
What’s that under your shirt?
Don’t worry about it.
You’re suspended from the police department and you’re carrying a loaded firearm.
I’m still a cop.
You’re a killer cop.
The push, not a punch, not a slap, seemed to come out of nowhere. Jimmy’s body weight amplified by arm strength increased with every bicep curl he powered his way through in the gym propelled Chanise backwards. Her head slammed against the same refrigerator on top of which Mahlik found daddy’s gun. One foot left the ground, maybe both, as she crashed into the stainless steel door, hitting her head on the freezer handle. Out on her feet, she fell, biting her tongue and smashing her head against the Italian marble floor tile. Blood drained slowly from her left ear as Jimmy stood frozen in time.
This time nobody showed up to stop him.
This time he pulled the trigger.
This time Jimmy Lark died.