In the Absence of a Sinner

His eyes were still open, glazed over and staring, as if his last breath had fogged up his corneas on the way out. Michelle was huddled over by Brandon on the side of the highway and Kai was standing just a few paces beyond them with his phone to his ear. I was the only one still looking at the boy buckled into the backseat of my car. The moonlight bruised his features purple and blue. Something dark was seeping from his hairline, like smoke curling down his ashen face. The night breeze brushed across us like the graze of wingtips.

Michelle’s party playlist was still emanating from the car stereo, splitting the air with an unnatural rhythm. Tyler Joseph’s voice crawled into my ears and curled up in there, singing about turning back time and wishing to be a kid again. Guilt began to rot like a carcass in my chest as I stared at the stranger, willing him to gasp in a breath. He’d been sitting right behind me.

I couldn’t stop thinking, who is this? who is this? My left arm throbbed painfully. I could still taste alcohol at the back of my throat, like a small flame trying to escape.

When the first fire truck arrived, I was leaning over the guardrail, retching. Every drink I’d had that night passed back through my lips. I didn’t think I would ever stop throwing up.



Justin Uyeno. I hadn’t known his name at the time, hadn’t even known he was there. Now, when I look back I think I hear him say “Hi, I’m Justin,” shouted above the music and I say hi back but I know that’s not what really happened because I remember thinking, who is this? who is this? We were the very same age, to the day.

She hadn’t even crossed my mind, but I should’ve expected a dead boy’s mother to visit her son’s grave. I’d been there since before dawn, when the sky was still too dark to be called morning. I just stared at the stone, not knowing what to say, like the more I stared the less I’d have to feel. The silence ate at me. It broke off chunks of my mind.

Wearing a flowing white blouse and long navy blue skirt, she seemed to float through the morning air like a fine mist. Her hair was tied up in a loose bun, gray hairs tugging at her temples. In her delicate hands she held a small bunch of flowers she must have picked herself. I could tell because they were the weed kind that my mom always sprayed poison on in our yard. Tiny yellow and pink blossoms on short leafy stems, shining like suns in her arms.

I knew she was his mother, somehow. Maybe because of the look in her eyes. Like waves endlessly crashing on sand. She knew exactly who I was. I wondered if she’d ever seen me when picking her son up from school, if she’d ever scanned the faces for Justin and noticed another boy of similar height and looks. I thought maybe she’d hit me, thought maybe I’d like that, but she didn’t. Mrs. Uyeno just leaned down, placed the weedy flowers at the base of his grave, then stood next to me and stared too. The only other flower, a white tulip I’d brought, withered in their glow.



In my mind, his face is smiling. It’s not the watery smile of his mother, but the reckless grin of a kid doing something he knows is wrong. He’s got a toothy smile, like in the picture used for his memorial on the chainlink fence in front of our old high school. I think about his smile as I pick up trash on the side of the road in an orange jumpsuit, almost as often as I think of Aja’s teasing smile, her lips wet with sugary alcohol. I think of how she would’ve leaned in, covering my mouth with hers. How the heat from her breath would crack my lips and char my throat. How I hadn’t seen her since she’d driven past us That Night, yelling at her friends not to look.



Mrs. Uyeno told me a story about Justin once. She didn’t tell too many stories but this one she liked. She said it showed who Justin was; she said it showed his courage, his sense of humor.

Justin’s father had been real religious, a real Christian influence on him growing up. But when Justin was thirteen, his father had been arrested for molesting a kid, not much younger than Justin was back then. Mrs. Uyeno said it wasn’t true, but he was sent to a prison in Arizona to serve his time. After he got out though, three years later, he never came back to Oahu, never even contacted his wife or son, except to send money on occasion. Mrs. Uyeno said there were more jobs available for ex-cons over there. She said he was going to come back to visit Justin after graduation. They never got a divorce.

So with all this happening with his dad, Justin was real conflicted in his teens. On Saturdays he would get drunk and do soft drugs behind his school, on Sundays he would sing choir in church. After a couple years of this, he dropped religion entirely. He told his mom that he didn’t want to drink or smoke pot anymore, and she took him to AA meetings. He hadn’t taken a drink since. And it was true: he had no alcohol in his blood when they did the autopsy. He might’ve been better off drunk. But in the void of drinking and religion, he did weird things sometimes, that his mother couldn’t figure out. His friends all stayed at a hotel once, she didn’t know why, just for one night. They’d saved up the money to do it. The following day, Justin came home carrying nothing but a fluffy white pillow.

His mother asked him where all his stuff went.

“I left it all at Mark’s place,” he told her.

She asked him where he got the pillow.

“Took it from the hotel.”

Mrs. Uyeno scolded him for that, said that he shouldn’t steal and that sort of thing.

Justin wasn’t phased. He just looked at her and grinned. “It helps me sleep at night.”



Sometimes I hear his voice so loud in my head it’s all I can do not to scream. He fills up my mind, pushes everything else out, sloshing back and forth between my ears. It’s so loud sometimes I get breathless, like he’s using my lungs to yell. Smoke billows from my gaping mouth.



Ten months after That Night was our birthday, his and mine. He had died months ago but that day he turned eighteen. I didn’t feel older. I felt like I’d stayed in the same spot since That Night, not moving forward, not one inch. He turned eighteen that day and I got his cake. His mother baked it for me.

I remember how it had been all wrong, because I was the one crying, and she was hugging me when she should’ve been strangling me. I’d needed her hate, needed it like it could douse the fire in my chest.

It was all her fault, really. She shouldn’t have let me into her home, shouldn’t have fed me, shouldn’t have let me sleep on her couch when I didn’t want to leave, shouldn’t have hugged me so tightly when I finally did leave, shouldn’t have welcomed me back again and again, and she shouldn’t have baked me a cake on her son’s birthday.



I remember the morning before That Night like a dream, like it didn’t quite happen. Waking up late, barely having enough time to throw a slice of bread in the toaster before taking a quick shower, rushing out the front door with hair still wet and the toast burnt in my hand. I remember that I didn’t eat anything else all day, too busy graduating and thinking about the future. Just that crispy toast, black around the edges. As I stressed over visiting colleges in California and the plane ticket I could almost afford—I just needed to work a few more weeks at Papa John’s—the taste of ashes wouldn’t leave my mouth.

I still taste it, even after all these years. I still wake up some nights, choking on smoke that isn’t there.



I’d slept on her couch the night before his birthday so I woke up that morning smelling cinnamon. It always smelt like cinnamon in her living room, I don’t know why. I thought she must have one of those scented candles or an air freshener but earlier when I’d snooped around the room inspecting outlets and window ledges I’d never found one anywhere. My nostrils stung with it. Cushioning my head was a big white pillow. She must’ve put it there as I slept.

After I relieved myself in the guest bathroom, I wandered around her home, but I couldn’t find her anywhere. Her car was gone. I’d never been alone in her house before, and I felt obligated to return to my designated couch.

When I remembered what day it was I froze in her cinnamon living room, struck with a sudden chill. I was so afraid, but I didn’t know what of. Maybe I should’ve left but I didn’t. It felt safer here, in this stranger’s living room, than in my own home. The silence lapped gently at my knees.



Eight months after That Night, I ran into Michelle at Longs. I was picking up some aspirin for Mrs. Uyeno because she had been getting headaches, and when I turned into the aisle, Michelle was standing there clutching two bottles of NyQuil and a small bag of Cheetos. Her fingers were set at a low tremble. To her credit, she didn’t turn tail and flee the moment she saw me next to her. Unlike the rest of my past friends, who avoided me as if in fear I could infect them with manslaughter, with shame.

She stuttered over my name in her haste to make small talk, but I wasn’t interested in her discomfort. This girl had been like a sister to me. We grew up together, neighbors, waging wars against the evil twin sisters down the street who wanted to steal all the flowers from my mom’s plumeria tree. We used to collect kukui nuts to see who could throw them the highest or the farthest, or who could land one in Mr. Shimizu’s bird bath. Yet she hadn’t bothered to contact me once since That Night.

She was halfway through a compliment on my shirt when I interrupted her to say his name. Just his name. And that was all it took to crumble her. Michelle blinked a few times, her eyes squinty like she was trying not to cry. I could see her lips quivering slightly, and I knew she was about to confess something. She wore the same expression she wore at her tenth birthday party when she told her mom she already ate some of the cake. Her hands shook where they hung by her sides.

She said that Justin asked her out, earlier that same day. He told her he’d been working up to do it until graduation. And she’d said no. But then later that night she’d kissed him on the cheek and said to come in the car with us.

My whole worldview tilted. Michelle was looking at me like she wanted my forgiveness, even though there was no jury staring her down, no gavel condemning her. Only one thing mattered to me, the one thing she didn’t seem to grasp the importance of. Something within my chest flared up again. The question ground against my teeth on its way out, a question I’d been too afraid to ask his own mother: I asked what his voice had sounded like. Because I’d never heard him speak, even though his voice haunted the corners of my mind.

She didn’t answer. Her mouth twisted into a pout and her brows drew down in confusion. She shook her head, looking like she pitied me. I let her turn and walk away.

I tried to see what Justin saw, why he’d liked her. The sway of her hips. Her slim brown arms.

But she wasn’t Aja.



It’s a game. Every time I see his face or hear his voice, I take a drink. Except I can’t keep it down. My stomach is weaker than my mind. The moment that searing liquid hits my throat, like hot coals, something wrenches within me and I find myself on my knees, trembling with the force of an earthquake. My lips quiver as bile and Smirnoff vodka soak into them. I don’t know why I keep bringing the bottle back to my desperate mouth, slick with stomach acid, just to hurl it all back up again. As if with every dribble of vomit I’m ridding myself of Justin’s voice, Justin’s face, Justin’s life.

I kneel on the sidewalk in front of her house, even though this isn’t her house anymore, even though she hasn’t lived here for years. I swallow thickly, my tongue dry and heavy against my gums. The streetlamps burn like candles above me.

She told me once that her greatest fear was forgetting what her son looked like and I can’t help but burst out laughing at the memory, because I see his face every time I blink and I wonder if there’s anything we both wouldn’t give to have each other’s curses.



She got back late, at maybe nine at night, and went straight to work in the kitchen. I didn’t have to ask to know where she’d been all day—it was her son’s birthday after all. I was back in the cinnamon room.

I was so afraid, you know? So damn afraid. Like she’d find out where I’d been. I thought I’d go crazy waiting for her. All day I’d been in that room, smelling nothing but cinnamon until I couldn’t smell anything, not even cinnamon, and I couldn’t take it anymore. The sun had just set. I abandoned my makeshift bed and circulated through the house until I reached the heart. His room was cluttered and messy, except for the bed. It looked like someone still lived there.

By the time I fled back to the cinnamon room, with a metal cross burning a hole in my pocket, all I could hear was this small voice in my head saying:

“Hi, I’m Justin.”

“Hi, I’m Justin.”

“Hi, I’m Justin.”

And I imagined his face, smiling, because we had all been smiling. Because it was fun, wasn’t it? A bunch of seventeen-year-olds partying with friends, drinking like there was no tomorrow and there wasn’t, for him.

“Hi, I’m Justin.”

“Hi, I’m Justin.”

“Hi, I’m Justin.”

And wasn’t it just wild when we decided to go racing on the Pali highway and it was me versus Aja and she said if I won she’d let me kiss her and I was gonna win, god, I was winning. My three best friends, they were in my car too—they must have invited him. They didn’t really know him either but it didn’t matter because we were drunk, and I was busy imagining how Aja’s lips would taste. Like Camel Blue cigarettes and homemade Mai Tais.

And I think he said “Hi, I’m Justin,” but he didn’t, I know he didn’t, because it’s not his voice I hear, it’s mine. I remember asking who is this? who is this? because everyone else was okay other than a few sprains, even the car wasn’t hurt that bad, but he was bleeding from the left side of his head where it slammed into the window and I don’t know if he died instantly or if I was still screaming who is this? who is this? when he died.



Mrs. Uyeno didn’t have the edges my own mother had. My mom was an accountant, working downtown at Deloitte, but Mrs. Uyeno wasn’t so strict or rushed. There was a softness to her, a gracefulness. Her inky black hair faded at the roots into gray strands. It slipped over her thin shoulders in uneven rivulets, and was tucked behind her ear on the right side, looking surprisingly girlish for her age. Her presence was soothing, like floating face-up in a river. She pulled me in like a current, deeper, deeper, until I was completely submerged in her home life. I wanted to understand her.

She sat us down on her couch and rested a thick photo album in my lap. The label on the front simply read: JUSTIN. My fingers were trembling too hard to grasp the cover, but hers were steady when she guided my hand with her own, and unexpectedly firm for all her seeming frailty. Together, we watched Justin grow up, from infancy to photos of him that must have been taken only months before That Night.

Mrs. Uyeno said nothing the whole time except once, when we turned the page to a photo of an eight-year-old Justin laughing in a dripping wet swimsuit, bending his knees in preparation to jump into the community pool, and she whispered that this was her favorite one. I stared at that picture for a long time, picking out every detail, trying to get inside it. This younger Justin had dark brown hair long enough to be tied back into a short ponytail. Some strands had come loose and were plastered to his neck and forehead. I studied the tension in his limbs, the angles of his joints, his posture leaning forward in perpetual imbalance. I drank in his cheeks stretched mid-laugh until I could feel his muscles in my face, his anticipation in my limbs. Until I could feel the heat from the midday sun beating down on my wet skin.

Her hand on mine brought me back to the dusky living room. My eyes struggled to adjust to the dimness as I turned to face her. She was watching me, a look of such complete understanding and kindness on her face that I had to look away. The picture of Justin was distant now. I couldn’t feel his skin in mine.

Mrs. Uyeno didn’t let go of my hand, even as she continued to turn the pages that contained her son. Her grip tightened, flowing through my veins until it felt like she was gripping my heart.



On Justin’s eighteenth birthday, his mother brought me a cake while I was frozen in her living room. She set it down in front of me and lit the candles. They looked like streetlights. Mrs. Uyeno was wearing a white summer dress with a flower pattern. Each blossom outshone the waxy flames. Her eyes looked weighted, like she’d been crying, but her lips creased into a gentle smile. She told me to make a wish, and I know what I should’ve wished for but the first thing that came to my mind was the kiss Aja never gave me even though I was winning.

His mother had made me a haupia cake, coconut shavings clinging to its surface. Eighteen tall candles peppered the top of the cake, striped white and blue, each with its own tiny piece of flickering light. A single breath could put them all out. I knew, like I knew where she’d been, like I’d known who she was when we first met, that this had been her son’s favorite flavor. I saw it as clearly as I saw his blood dripping down his slack face in the backseat of my car.

She said to make a wish and her voice faltered before she said my name, as if another name was pressing at her lips and she had to pause to swallow it down. It made my own throat tighten with all the words I never said. Apologies and excuses and pleas for forgiveness filled my mouth. I clamped my teeth down on them and stayed silent, just like I did in court. Just like I did when she stepped up and spoke on my behalf so that I just had to do community service for a half a year.

She asked me to make a wish and her dark eyes glittered in the firelight. I thought about how she told me last month that once Justin died her husband stopped sending money, and that she wouldn’t be able to afford the house much longer. And so I’d given her everything I had saved up, all the money I would’ve spent on a plane ticket out of here, all the money I was making at Papa John’s who had finally hired me back. She wouldn’t take it at first, until I begged her to. I wanted to give her her life back.

But as she leaned towards me, begging me to make the right wish, her smile looked like so much hope and her gaze became unfocused and I think she was trying to see Justin. Her hand fell onto my shoulder like a dead leaf, and her worn skin turned my bones to ice. She looked at me like she was a mother again, and maybe that’s why I ran, why I yelled at her that I wasn’t her son, that I could never be her son.



I remember the first time Mrs. Uyeno showed me Justin’s room and she sat on his bed holding his pillow because it was the closest thing of his that she could hold. And I just stood in the middle of that room, not wanting to touch anything, feeling like I should sneak out without her noticing and go home to my own mom. But the gleam of something shiny caught my eye and I turned to see a small silver crucifix on a chain hanging from a nail next to the window. Both the nail and the cross were rusted and the chain was jammed into several kinks. The symbol felt foreign to me, having grown up in a household with no religion, and I felt it pushing at me to avert my eyes and retreat. Instead, I asked Mrs. Uyeno if she believed in God.

She kept her gaze on the white pillow in her arms for several minutes, as if it held the answer she sought. Dust motes collected in the air around her, glowing in the afternoon rays of light like tiny pale feathers. They floated on her breaths. I was about to give up and leave when she finally spoke, each word filling my lungs with ocean.

“I believe that a piece of God exists within us all. And when one of us dies, that piece of Him dies too.”



Now and then, when the sunlight is just sinking into the horizon or I’m walking through a house or even if I’m just alone for too long, I think of a room, and a voice that’s beginning to haunt me more than Justin’s death ever did. A door with an old magazine poster of DJ Khaled taped to the outside, edges curling and a white crease down the middle. I remember that on the day I turned eighteen I pushed open that door, and I went inside when Mrs. Uyeno was busy mourning the person that the room belonged to.

The desk had been cluttered with textbooks, papers, and several Deadpool comics. There was an unopened letter on top of his closed laptop, as if he was saving it for later. Or perhaps his mother had put it there. I walked over and picked it up to read who it was from and my stomach dropped. I gently set down the thick envelope from UCLA.

The rest of the room was also fairly messy, even some clothes still hanging out of their drawers; the only thing Mrs. Uyeno had obviously straightened out was his bed. The covers were pulled taut across the mattress, light blue and fresh. But where the pillow should have been there was just air.

The sound of a phone ringing startled me so badly I banged my heel on the frame of the bed from backing up too fast. It seemed to be coming from underneath one of the Deadpool comics. Lifting the comicbook aside, I found an old Nokia flip phone. The caller ID read: MOM.

After five rings, it went to voicemail. I waited until it beeped to signifying the end of a message, and then I opened his phone. There were forty-three unopened messages. I selected the latest one, and tentatively held the phone to my ear.

At first, she didn’t say anything. Her breath glided through the phone and across my face until my skin felt like a thin layer of water rippling in a breeze. I closed my eyes and pretended she was standing next to me. Her voice finally emerged as a whisper, so broken I could hear her age in it. It was a question, like she’d asked it a thousand times and still hoped the answer would be different. I wondered if the other messages were just this, just her wavering voice asking: “Justin?”

My legs backed up until they hit the bed and I slowly sank down into the mattress. Her voice crashed into my eardrums again as I laid my head back onto clean blue sheets: “Justin?”

The next silence was heavy enough to coat me in a film of sweat. Something changed in her breathing, like she was relaxing, like she understood something she hadn’t before. This time it wasn’t a question. And it wasn’t his name.



On the nights I wake up because I feel like I can’t breathe, I take the crucifix I stole from his room out of my bedside drawer. It’s too dull and rusted to shine in the lights from outside. I don’t pray; I don’t know how. I just stare at the metal until I see nothing else, at the places the cross overlaps, at where the rust begins and ends, at the tiny chips and dents. It swallows my vision and I don’t have to think about Justin and the pain he put in my chest, blossoming like tulips. I can forget my name being whispered over a phone instead of his. I can forget the future he took from me, and the future I took from him. I can forget Michelle and Aja and all the other girls we never had the chance to love. And I can forget his mother, Mrs. Uyeno, and that I left her with nothing: no family, and no replacement.