Hush

Evie Thomas (Toswiah Green) confides in the reader that she cannot tell the truth about her life; if she did, it could kill her father. She can, however, write fiction, about two sisters named “Evie” and “Anna.” Evie reflects on how everything, except one’s soul, can be taken from them. She remembers how she used to live in Denver, when her name was Toswiah; now, she and her family live in an empty apartment building in an unnamed state. Federal agents have relocated them here. Everything about their old life has been erased, from clothes to pictures to even their names. All Evie’s father does these days is sit and stare out the window.

Evie remembers her best friend back in Denver, Lulu, and all the times they spent together. She remembers picking her current name, “Evie,” after spending the day with Lulu. They had played jump rope and eaten ice cream sandwiches; jumping rope had involved chanting a song, which started with the words “Evie Ivie Over” (14). That same evening, Jonathan had told the family that he was going to testify, which would mean having to erase their old lives.

Evie remembers how Shirley would sometimes say she wished she weren’t married to a police officer, albeit with a tinge of pride in her voice. Over the years, Evie would catch her mother glancing out the window in worry on evenings in which Jonathan was late.

Following Jonathan’s decision, Evie and her family leave Denver in the middle of the night with just a few of their belongings. A few days earlier, they had bid goodbye to Evie’s grandmother, as she is too old to accompany them. This farewell was the only time Evie saw her grandmother close to tears.

The morning of the family’s departure, two Jehovah’s Witnesses rang their bell, and Shirley uncharacteristically bought scriptures from them. She now believes that the lies the family is forced to tell are “God’s will,” and that He sent the Witnesses to their door to help them. Evie’s sister Anna sees their mother’s newfound faith as a way to believe their lives will get better.

Evie walks the reader through her old home in Denver, and the things that were left behind: family pictures; the gray stairs atop which their cat, Matt Cat, used to sleep; her room with birthday cards, toys, and a stack of journals that will later be destroyed. One of the entries details an overheard conversation in which her parents discussed how Jonathan witnessed two policemen kill a Black boy. Jonathan wants to testify, breaking the “Blue Wall of Silence” (24).

Across Evie’s old room is Cameron’s (Anna’s), covered in pink, with a painted red heart in the corner of a window and the letters “C & J Joseph” in black marker—the name of a boy Cameron used to love. The house is eventually scrubbed clean of all paint and history. Toswiah is now “Evie,” a girl who grew up in San Francisco frequenting the Golden Gate Park, shopping at Haight, and eating sourdough and clam chowder.

Evie is reading on the couch on a Saturday; her father Jonathan sits by the window, whispering the Miranda rights to himself. Denver is a largely white town, and Jonathan used to be the only Black police officer in his precinct. Race wasn’t framed as an issue back then, as police were assumed to be a family on the same side of the law. These days, Jonathan’s eyes are empty, leading Anna to distance herself and Shirley to turn to the Bible, while Evie doesn’t know where to look.

Evie wonders who she is now. She remembers her father picking her and Cameron up after school one day, in his patrol car. That day, she had been asked to describe herself in class; she had responded with her name, her favorite color, and the name of her best friend, asserting that “These are the facts […] The facts speak for themselves” (30). Back then, she had believed that being Toswiah Green was an inalterable fact.

In the fifth grade, when asked to write about the most wonderful thing she’d ever seen, Toswiah writes an essay about her father, Jonathan, winning the police department’s Medal of Bravery for rescuing a mother and her baby from a hostage situation. The day he received his award was the first time she and her sister had seen him dressed in policeman regalia. Upon hearing the lieutenant talk about Jonathan’s courage, Toswiah believed her family was truly special.

Evie now believes this day to have been the beginning of the end for the Greens. She believes her father saw his family in the audience as he received his medal, and that this reinforced his faith in the police system, in justice.

Following the night of the shooting (which Jonathan testifies against), Toswiah begins to spend time alone with her father, while everyone else is sleep. Over the course of many nights, Jonathan eventually reveals the truth of the shooting to Toswiah. The boy who had been shot, Raymond Taylor, was an only child of a single mother, an honor student who’d already received offers from colleges. The two policemen who killed Raymond—Officer Randall, whose son was the boy whom Cameron loved (Joseph), and Officer Dennis—claimed they thought he had been reaching for a gun, but Jonathan knows this isn’t true.

Jonathan remembers Raymond standing with his hands up, even as the two officers fired three shots at him, killing him. The officers asserted that Raymond had startled them and seemed to be reaching for a gun. Jonathan’s response, that Raymond had just been standing there, caused the policemen’s tone to shift menacingly, as they reasserted their claim.

When Jonathan asks Toswiah what she would do, she questions what the right thing to do would be; Jonathan frowns and responds, “Both choices seem so damn wrong” (36). Toswiah considers how she and Raymond might have met one day, and perhaps even been friends, had he not been shot. She also considers the two officers, men whom she had known her whole life but are now unrecognizable.

After the shooting, the Greens start receiving anonymous phone calls, threatening to kill Jonathan if he says anything. Despite the fact that Cameron had once gone out with Officer Randall’s son, Joseph, and even kissed him, he starts rumors at school that Jonathan is a liar, leading everyone to behave strangely around Cameron. The fact that people immediately believe Joseph leads Toswiah to confront the reality of the racist conditioning still present in her world. She reflects on the “Blue Wall of Silence” (42), the unspoken norm which expects police officers to support each other no matter what.

Six days after the shooting, Inspector Albert Oliver visits the Greens. He warns Jonathan about speaking up against Officers Randall and Dennis. He neither accepts nor denies that the men shot Raymond without reason; rather, he shares the officers’ claim that they had suspected gang involvement on Raymond’s part. Inspector Oliver ultimately believes speaking against Randall and Dennis could be dangerous for Jonathan. He also mentions that the men’s families have been policemen for generations and testifying against them would mean taking away their dreams.

However, Jonathan insists on speaking up. He refutes Officers Randall and Dennis’s claim that Raymond had been reaching for a gun, recounting how he had been standing with his arms up when he was shot. He also points out that the Black population in Denver is too low to even constitute a gang, contrary to Randall and Dennis’s claim of gang involvement. Furthermore, the law runs in Jonathan’s family, too, with his father having been a lawyer, and his grandfather a judge. Finally, being a Black man with two children, Jonathan knows it could have easily been Toswiah or Cameron in Raymond’s place, shot dead because the police saw someone Black and felt threatened. He believes that if Raymond had been white, he would still be alive—and as such, goes through with his testimony.