Child Z

CHAPTER 9 - LEONIE

It was a beautiful, crisp sunny day—wholly wrong for the occasion. The church was so full it was turning people away. From around the state, people had flocked to Luiza Largo's funeral to mourn and pay their respects.

The recently defeated outgoing governor was in attendance and ready to speak. Meyerson wore a black blazer over a black skirt. Her expression was solemn, ceremonial. After reciting a Bible passage, she told the story of when she'd first met Luiza Largo. The story was touching, a few moments of levity in just the right places. Then Meyerson got political. She promised before the end of her term, just weeks away, she would implore Colorado's legislature to pass a suite of overdue gun safety bills, including an assault weapons ban, universal background checks, mandated safe storage regulations, magazine limits, and red flag laws—this last of which the governor claimed would have allowed police to confiscate the firearms of the two Cheesman Park gunmen who mowed down Luiza Largo and twenty-three other innocents, including three children.

If Leonie could vote in Colorado, she would have voted for Meyerson. She would have voted for just about anyone over Alvarado. But she didn't believe Meyerson could realistically get anything done before leaving office, especially when it came to gun safety reform. It was all lip service with the same refrain: mass shooting, public outcry, promises of reform stymied by the gun lobby and political gridlock—lather, rinse, repeat.

Leonie was squeezed into a pew between Pearl and a stranger. The stranger sobbed quietly, dabbing his cheeks with tissues. She recognized the man from the Thanksgiving potluck at Luiza's house. As she glanced around the room, she saw weepy faces everywhere, a room full of apprehension about what Largo's death meant for Sim Pride going forward.

After the funeral, Pearl and Leonie booked a joint post-trauma therapy session. The counselor, a middle-aged woman with patient eyes, said situations perceived as unpredictable and out of one's control, such as a shooting, were likely to trigger symptoms of PTSD, including prolonged feelings of helplessness and anxiety. The counselor gave them pamphlets with tips for how to cope. She said it was normal to have nightmares or daydreams replaying the event in their minds. They were also apt to feel hyper-alert and on guard in the coming months, or possibly years, jumpy at certain sounds. The sound of popcorn popping in a microwave, for instance, could trigger the urge to flee. This, apparently, was how the brain dealt with trauma. It needed time to make sense of things.

After the session, Leonie and Pearl didn't feel much better. Being told that post-traumatic suffering was normal did little to alleviate it. They were only glad that so far, Brandon Junior seemed unaffected and was behaving as if nothing had happened.

The gunshots weren't even loud. That was what Leonie kept coming back to. Weren't guns supposed to be loud? In the park, when it happened, they hadn't been close to the shooters. The large open space of the park swallowed up the bangs. But people were still getting injured all around them. They could see the carnage but not the bullets causing the carnage. All they could do was duck, run, and pray.

Leonie couldn't bring herself to tell Zane the whole truth. It was a hard decision, but she honestly didn't think he could handle it. If she told him the details, he might demand that she return to Connecticut or suggest giving up on surrogacy altogether. So she told Zane that she and Pearl had gone to the Sim Pride rally at the governor's mansion. That much was true. Then came the lie. She said when the crowd marched down 8th Avenue to Cheesman Park, she and Pearl decided it was too crowded and headed home. Now they were racked with survivor's guilt, which was, in fact, true.

Despite fudging the details, Leonie held nothing back from Zane emotionally. It could have been us. Her mind repeated this hypothetical to distraction, and she was open with him about that. Zane, of course, told her not to feel guilty. He reassured her that it wasn't her fault, that there was no way she could have known, that she shouldn't blame herself. He said all the things people say to loved ones after they endure trauma—and Zane was especially good at being comforting. His efforts lifted Leonie's spirits, though she felt no actual comfort. Bullets had pierced the air of Cheesman Park, and bullets had pierced bodies—shells fired from guns designed to tear apart human flesh. Twenty-three people were dead, Luiza Largo and three children among them. There was nothing Zane could say or do to make that okay.