Tully. Paullina Simons

Makker,’ she heard dimly. ‘Miss Makker. Could you tell us what happened? I know it’s hard for you, but you must try. Please, Miss Makker.’

      I’m not her keeper, she wanted to say. I am not her keeper. I could not keep her. Could not.

      ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Have you called Mr Mandolini?’

      ‘We need to. Miss Makker, were you here when it happened?’

      Yeah, sure, she thought. Why, I helped her. Me and her mom, together. We helped her and then watched.

      ‘Was it, perhaps,’ the police officer was saying, ‘an accident? That’s what we’re trying to find out. What to put in the police report. Could it have been, perhaps, an accident?’

      Tully slowly shook her head and stood up. She felt a light-headedness not unlike what she felt when she ‘healed’ herself She sat back down. Ah. That was better. Still, though, I’m breathing shallow. She touched her skin. It was cold and clammy. ‘Look, I am in shock, right? I cannot help you very well right now. But you know,’ she said, her voice catching a little, ‘she was a good Catholic girl. Perhaps if you say it was an accident, she’ll be able to be buried by the Church. You know how the Church doesn’t approve of those…unaccidents. So perhaps maybe you could just do that, what do you think?’

      Tully looked him straight in the face and saw his eyes fill with tears. ‘Miss,’ he said. ‘I’m a police officer. I have to do my job. I have to put in what really happened. I’m sorry, Miss.’

      Tully’s eyes went hard. ‘In that case,’ she said, ‘it was an accident. She was playing around, I didn’t even know they kept a gun in the house. It was an accident. She had everything going for her. We were going to go to California, you know. She was gonna be valedictorian of her class.’ Tully looked down at her hands and began to shake.

      ‘All right, Miss, all right,’ said the policeman, putting his hand on Tully. ‘All right.’