In the First Early Days of My Death Read Free Page B

and I wondered why he was wearing a suit jacket on such a humid day. Then I recognized him.
    â€œSay, you’re that cop, aren’t you? I mean, aren’t you the police officer? In that brick house with all the trees?”
    â€œThat’s right. Felix Delano. I’m a police detective.”
    â€œI’m Wendy,” I said. “Wendy Li. And this is my sister-in-law, Noni Li.”
    Noni had recovered her composure, but she stayed on the porch, away from Poppy.
    â€œLi?” Felix asked. He looked with interest at Noni. “That’s a Chinese name, isn’t it?” He peered through the shadows of the porch, trying to see her face more clearly.
    Noni didn’t answer. She had no patience for that particular question, which she’d heard too often.
    I’d carried the name for a year, but nobody ever asked me if it was Chinese. They just misspelled it, Lee , and I constantly had to correct them. This didn't bother me one bit. I loved being a Li. I had belonged to a lot of different families in my life, but the Li family was the only one I’d had a say in choosing.
    â€œDo you want some lemonade?” I asked Felix.
    He coughed, a little embarrassed by Noni’s silence. “Sure,” he said. “Thanks.” Then he offered me his hand to shake, and I took it. His grip was strong, and he held on for a long moment, even though my fingers were caked with dirt.
    After Felix left, with a bag of zucchini and broken romaine, I walked Noni out to her car, and we stood for a while, talking. We hadn’t quite finished with the subject of Evelyn.
    â€œShe’s probably harmless,” I said. I was in a better mood by then. Felix had cheered me up. It made me feel a little safer to know I was friends — well, friendly — with a detective.
    â€œDo you think so?” Noni asked.
    â€œProbably,” I said. “And anyway I’m getting the locks changed today.” I looked at my watch. Where was that locksmith?
    â€œI don’t know,” said Noni, as she got into her car. “I have a bad feeling about her.”
    â€œA premonition?”
    Noni blushed. “Not exactly.” Then she shivered suddenly, though it was still a sweltering day.
    â€œWhat is it?” I asked.
    â€œOh, nothing,” she said. “Don’t pay any attention to me.” She waved as she drove away.
    I couldn’t dismiss Noni’s bad feeling so easily. And I didn’t like that shiver. But I tried to reassure myself by remembering that Noni wasn’t the clairvoyant in the family.
    According to family legend, it was only Rosa who possessed the power of second sight. Rosa could often predict disasters. She’d had ominous intimations just before the Challenger spaceship exploded, before Mount St. Helens erupted, before the assassination of John Lennon. These powers manifested themselves shortly after her marriage. Alika’s father was booked on a flight from Maui to Molokai, on one of those tiny, dangerous planes that belong to small, disreputable airlines. Rosa had a feeling about this, a sinister feeling. She begged him not to go, and finally, he relented — not that he believed in premonitions. He thought she was making it up because she wanted him to stay home. In any case, the plane crashed, spectacularly. For no apparent reason, the fuselage cracked in two, right down the middle — a stress fracture, they called it later — and the tiny aircraft burst into flames, went down and sank beneath the Pacific waves. Noni’s eyes had been dark and wide and serious when she told me this tale. Her mother had a gift, she said.
    Why, then, I wondered, had they had that terrible car accident? Why had Rosa not seen, or felt, the truck approaching on the highway, not sensed the sleepiness of the driver? Why had she not been warned that her children would be traumatized, disfigured? That she would suffer that unspeakable fear, searching