Summer

When Lisa and Michael stood staring at the cold lifeless body of their seventeen year old daughter, the combined and intentionally created narrative of their lives played out in their minds. They’d both been raised in the church, met in a youth retreat, promised each other to abstain from sex until they married after they had secured master’s degrees and started their careers in their competitive and lucrative fields. After buying their first home and investing in stock, having already saved enough to pay for college for at least three children, they started actively working on their dream to become parents. All of their work, all of their dreams for the future would be to prepare the way for a child, for children who would change their world, possibly change the world. After a few years of disappointments, knowing the hopelessness of infertility, they decided to adopt. It was as if the moment had been waiting for them. As soon as they had completed the necessary paperwork, one beautiful July morning, when the sun shone perfectly on their brown faces, they got a phone call from a cheery woman who announced, “We have a beautiful brown baby girl for you. If you want her.”

Michael had received the call on his phone and when Lisa saw the emergence of a single tear and a smile cross on her husband’s face, she nodded her head vigorously. Later that day, they were holding Summer in their arms.

The irony of that memory returning to both of them as they stood over Summer’s body, her color completely gone, one of the holes in her body from the multiple gun shots of a veteran police officer, peeking out from under the sheet, teasing them, asking them if it had all been worth it. “I just don’t understand. How could this happen?”

The report from the police department said that Summer had run a red light. When the officer pulled her over, and told her to get out of the car, she refused, a scuffle ensued, and in fear of his life, he shot the unarmed teenager sixteen times.

“This happens all the time, Mike, too often.”

“But why did it have to happen to her,” Mike pleaded.

“It shouldn’t happen to any of them, to any of us.”

Lisa felt a burning in her stomach, a fire that she had kept quiet, through prayer and hope that by being a good person, going to church, giving to charities, being active in her community, by doing all the right things, that somehow, maybe through her family’s effort, their existing as an example that Black people are good, would be all the activism they needed. White supremacy would fade away, one good Black person at a time. She was ashamed of herself, how quiet she had been when Sandra Bland was murdered, when Breonna Taylor was murdered in her sleep. She felt that one more voice, her voice wasn’t needed in the summer of the 2020 riots. She would just keep paying her tithes, keep participating in the PTO, keep being a good neighbor in her suburban neighborhood, keep being the safe Black person at her job. The fire in her stomach was raging. She had failed Summer, and so many Summers before when she had chosen silence. Lisa recognized that by being quiet and safe she had failed her people, Black people, Black women and society as a whole. Success was nothing without safety, without human dignity. All of that had to change.

The coroner replaced the sheet over Summer’s face as if he were closing a chapter, turning a page, on to the next one. Michael squeezed his wife’s hand and she squeezed back. They walked silently out of the coroner’s office, out of the police station, and into the chaos of journalists, reporters, and protestors waiting to capture their sorrow, their quiet, their obsequious gestures of holy, empty forgiveness. Someone had placed a podium with a microphone on the steps of the police station. They were prepared. It all seemed so routine. This wasn’t going away. There would be another murder by a police officer in a few days, maybe a few minutes, somewhere else, and her trauma, the life of her baby, their baby, their Summer, would be forgotten about. Who would say her name? Who would make sure that justice was served? Lisa knew the answers as soon as she felt them. No one was the answer. She turned to Michael and shared her sorrow and hopelessness. “Justice was never for us. They’re going to take our statement and forget about our baby. She mattered, Michael!” Tears streamed down their faces as they locked into each other with their gaze. For a moment, all the people were gone and it was just the two of them. “Trayvon mattered! Tamir mattered! Six year old girls being put in handcuffs and arrested for having a tantrum! They matter!” She buried her face into her husband’s chest and he wrapped his arms around her. They held onto each other for as long as they could.

“Mr. and Mrs. Golden! Do you have a statement? Do you forgive Officer Danube?” the loudest reporter asked, his voice bellowing over all the others.

Lisa pushed her head away from her husband. The fire had moved up to her eyes and seemed to dry up her tears. She looked at him once more. He saw the shift, felt the woman change before him while still enveloped in his arms. He leaned his head down and pressed his forehead against hers. “Whatever happens, we’re in this together,” he promised. They turned to approach the podium, walking hand in hand.

“Mr. and Mrs. Golden! Do you have a statement? Do you forgive Officer Danube?”

Standing side by side, Michael bowed his tall frame toward the microphone. “We have a statement and after it is spoken, it will be our last.”

The crowd became silent and still, frozen and cold. Like my baby, Lisa thought to herself. She released Michael’s hand and centered herself before the mic. She looked over the heads of all the people. Her eyes stretched out towards the horizon, trying to take in as much of the city as she could. She clutched the podium with both hands and lowered her head. Michael moved to stand closer behind her, not sure if she had the strength or the will to continue. He put his hands on her shoulders just as the clouds pushed themselves out of the way to reveal the glowing sun. They both lifted their faces into its warmth, remembering joy, remembering their daughter while also accepting that both had come to an end. There was no undoing, no making it right, no justice, no peace. Michael squeezed her shoulders once more, and took one step back, giving Lisa the space she needed, but also staying true to his promise.

Lisa drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. She opened her eyes to the crowd. She had not practiced what she would say, but she had prayed that the words that would proceed from her heart would achieve their end, would move the lives that heard them, would move society in a way that she would be the last Black mother, standing before a crowd, asking for forgiveness for the unforgivable. She released her clutch from the podium and let her fists hang loosely by her side. She took in one more deep breath, filling her lungs with air, with the despair of centuries, with the frustration of swallowing down oppression and futility. As she exhaled, she locked eyes with a group of Black and Brown teenagers, one of whom was proudly holding up a white sign with red writing that seemed to scream, SAY HER NAME! SUMMER! Seeing her brown baby girl’s name on that banner made the words spew forth like fire from Lisa’s lips. Her imaginations of a brighter more equitable tomorrow fell from her mind and shattered like glass around her feet. No summer, only winter. She snatched the microphone from its stand and held it to her lips and screamed, “No justice! No peace! BURN THIS MUTHAFUCKA DOWN!!!!”