Liberation Day: Stories

One morning, a woman struggles with writer’s block. She attempts to craft stories from inanimate things in her kitchen, including the can opener and the dog’s peanut butter treats. She calls her son, Derek, to put the dog on the leash, but he doesn’t answer or appear, even though he is meant to be staying in the yard. She becomes nervous about her son, thinking about how he once suffered a collapsed lung. The mom grabs a first-aid kit and starts to make a phone call, but she stops when she thinks about how her husband, Keith, would tell her to calm down. She distracts herself by brainstorming new titles for her story, until Derek appears in the yard, stumbling and with blood on his face. Derek tells his panicking mother that an old man pushed him into a bush while he was walking on Church Street. Shortly after, the police call to notify her that they have found a suspect; she brings Derek to the station to identify him, and Keith joins them there.

When Derek and his mother meet the suspect, Derek is unsure about whether he is truly the culprit; his mother, however, is convinced that this must be the man who pushed Derek down. As Derek contemplates, another old man is discovered on Church Street, and is also brought to the station as a suspect. The two men look almost identical, and Derek cannot decide about the culprit. His mother decides to end the process and takes Derek home, thereby letting both men go.

Derek’s mother is agitated by the day’s events and feels resentment over both men escaping punishment. That night, she writes an essay titled “Justice,” in which she expresses her fury over the attack on her son. The next morning, Keith reads the essay before abruptly leaving for a run, which his wife notices is out of character. The cop from yesterday calls her and says that they caught one of yesterday’s suspects attempting to break into a car, at which point he confessed to pushing Derek. He adds that the two suspects are cousins and that their uncle is Gus Dimini, who owns a local furniture store. She thinks about her cousin Ricky, who committed violent crimes and also had an addiction to drugs. He damaged private property, abandoned multiple women, committed arson, and punched a church usher who had cancer. She ultimately forgave Ricky while he was alive by tapping into her empathy, but she assumes that he is now in Hell.

Keith returns home. He tells his wife that he hadn’t actually gone on a run but had instead found the old man from yesterday and broken his knee with a baseball bat. Afterword, the old man recognized Keith as Derek’s father from the police station. Keith says that his act of violence was inspired by his wife’s essay on justice. When his wife asks which man Keith hit, he describes the first man to arrive in the station yesterday. His wife tells Keith the news that the true criminal had been the second man to arrive at the station, and that he recently confessed to the police. When she rereads her essay about justice, she realizes how bad it is and vows to quit writing for good.

The police call back to say that Leo Dimini—the first suspect, whom Keith hit with the bat—told them about Keith’s attack. The cop suggests that Derek’s parents drop the charge against their son’s attacker and that, in return, the police will not pursue Keith for his reciprocation. The mother agrees and nothing comes of either event.

A few weeks later, Derek’s mother sees the cousins while she is driving downtown. She notices that one of them—Leo—walks with a pronounced limp, and she realizes that her husband’s act of violence has left permanent damage. She begins to panic, blaming herself and her essay for Leo’s injury. She imagines what it would be like to apologize to the innocent man who now walks with a permanent limp.

The mother arrives home and contemplates whether she should tell her husband about what she saw. She thinks about how distraught Keith has been since the attacks and decides to keep the limp a secret. She also imagines a conversation between her and one of the suspects of the attack. When she tells the suspect that she is unable to forgive his cousin, she determines that this instance is different than the Ricky incidents. Instead of telling Keith about the injury, she will make Christmas cookies and attempt to have a happy, cheerful holiday with her family.