“I know.”
She smiled slightly.
“Stop.”
Over the next forty-eight hours, the story began spreading despite everyone’s attempts to contain it.
The teenager near the fountain had recorded ninety-three seconds.
Not the entire contact.
Enough.
The video began with Jalen’s hands raised and Officer Brenner telling him to stop moving.
Then Camille appeared.
Then the phone call.
The clip ended before Chief Henley instructed Brenner to disengage.
Online, that missing ending became whatever viewers wanted.
COP HARASSES BLACK KID UNTIL HE FINDS OUT WHO MOM IS.
POWERFUL LAWYER DESTROYS RACIST COP.
MOM CALLS POLICE CHIEF AFTER OFFICER TARGETS SON.
The words destroy and racist appeared most.
Jalen watched every version until Camille took his phone.
“You cannot confiscate my phone because people are saying bad things about the officer.”
“I’m confiscating it because you have watched the same ninety-three seconds thirty-seven times.”
“You counted?”
“I’m a lawyer.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It sounded authoritative.”
Jalen almost smiled.
Then he became serious.
“They think you're famous.”
“I’m not.”
“One video has four million views.”
Camille closed her eyes.
“I hate the internet.”
“People are on my side.”
“Some.”
“All the comments—”
“Do not read comments.”
“Mom.”
“No.”
She sat beside him.
“Attention is not the same thing as support.”
Jalen frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“It means people who love you as a symbol today may forget you next week.”
“That doesn’t make them bad.”
“It means don't build your recovery around strangers staying interested.”
He looked away.
“Recovery sounds dramatic.”
“Your hands shook for three hours.”
Silence.
Jalen hated when his mother noticed things.
“I'm fine.”
“Maybe.”
“I am.”
“Okay.”
Her answer irritated him more than argument would have.
That night Jalen woke at 1:17 after dreaming he had dropped his phone and could not pick it up because Brenner kept telling him not to move.
He did not tell Camille.
She knew anyway.
The next morning she found him asleep on the living-room couch.
His skateboard was beside him.
Andre’s photograph glowed faintly on the charging phone.
Camille sat in the armchair and watched him sleep.
For the first time since Andre died, she wished desperately that somebody else could be the parent.
Not forever.
One day.
Andre had been better at anger.
Camille organized anger.
She turned it into tasks.
Emails.
Lists.
Deadlines.
Andre let Jalen be mad without trying to improve the emotion.
She missed that.
When Jalen woke, he saw her.
“You're creepy.”
“Good morning.”
“How long have you been sitting there?”
“Long enough to reconsider motherhood.”
He smiled.
Then saw her expression.
“What?”
Camille took a breath.
“I need to tell you something about Dad.”
Jalen sat up.
“What?”
“The reason I accepted the Briarwood review.”
He stared.
“You said the families asked.”
“They did.”
“That wasn’t the only reason.”
Camille looked toward Andre’s photograph.
“Your father had an incident here.”
Jalen became completely still.
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
Andre had been alive.
Healthy.
Before pancreatic cancer.
Before hospitals.