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Honey. The endearment and the tenderness in his voice are so foreign to me that my eyes mist. I swallow the emotion down. “Yeah, Dad, you guys go. There’s no point in all of us sitting here. I’m just gonna hang out.”
“All right.” He’s got his coat on in seconds flat. “I’ll ride with Christian.” Handing me his car keys, he leans down and kisses my forehead as I fight back the urge to weep. “You call me if you need me.”
Chapter Five
Simon
Her mother is dead.
Her mother? I sift through my memories of those days, but can’t picture a woman sitting behind that smug piece of shit in the courtroom. I always assumed he didn’t have a mother, as only someone who’d never experienced a mother’s love could carry himself the way he did.
Christian Mason sat there for alltwodays of his sham trial, dressed in a tailored suit next to his slick attorney, smirking like the conceited, entitled asshole that he is. His father sat behind him, first row in the gallery. He never looked our way. We sat first row too, right behind the assistant district attorney who interviewed one witness after another without a trace of enthusiasm—none whatsoever. It was clear that each and every person who took the stand was in the Masons’ back pocket. No one saw anything. Couldn’t be certain who it was they saw swinging the bat. Even the woman who’d dialed 911 as they were beating my brother to a bloody pulp was suddenly plagued by amnesia. And the prosecutor asked no hard questions. There was nothing akin to an interrogation and he didn’t question anyone’s integrity. It was nothing like thoseLaw and Orderreruns I used to watch, I’ll tell you that.
I heard about it on Tuesday, listening in as Sienna and the girls discussed taking up a collection to send flowers. The funeral was the next morning and they were asking permission from the principal to attend.
For a split second I was relieved to hear the news. I’d nearly driven by her house after school on Monday, out of my head with worry. Two days of not showing up to the diner and then no sign of her at school. I looked out for her in the morning and then took a casual stroll through the cafeteria during her lunch period. I didn’t see her or her friend. I was beating myself up for the way I acted on Friday night. Maybe if I’d been a little nicer she would have accepted my offer for a ride home. But I was being stupid. In this county, two rich girls gone missing would’ve been top news. Search parties would have been combing the foothills by now and they would have dragged our stretch of the Monongahela River.
Over the past three days I’ve had plenty of time to reflect. I’ve reluctantly admitted to myself that I feel something for this girl. In the end, though, none of it matters. Even if she does have an interest in me—and there’s really not so much as one iota of evidence to prove that theory—nothing will come of it. I’m leaving, that’s certain, and her family’s hatred for me and mine is matched only by my hatred for them. Hell, even if I did want to offer her my condolences, there’s no way I’d be welcome within a mile of that church tomorrow.
And I have other things to focus on.
Last week I nailed down my scholarship to Northwestern. With the help of Mr. Vargas, my honors program advisor, I’d put together a kick-ass application. His connections also got me an interview with a wealthy benefactor, a lawyer who seemed sympathetic to my plight and impressed with my drive to improve the lives of others.
I wasn’t looking to pimp out my brother’s life story for my own benefit, but in a way I suppose I had done just that. But it was necessary, a means to an end. Something clicked the day I sat in that courtroom and heard the judge proclaim there was no evidence to proceed with a trial for Christian Mason. That old saying,Money talks, shit walks? Truer words were never spoken. I believed Christian could have bashed my brother’s skull in right then and there, right in front of the jury box, and he still wouldn’t have been convicted. While not one year later, my brother would stand trial and be convicted for possession with intent to distribute, the very same painkillers he was prescribed and became addicted to after he was nearly killed at the hands of the Masons.
With his court appointed attorney, he sat there and listened to his doomed fate in a threadbare second-hand suit that hung off his thin, wasted frame. So fucking unfair.
The only thing that gives me peace is to believe that someday I’ll be sitting next to someone wrongly accused, fighting on their behalf. Or even better, that I’ll be wearing the black robe and pounding the gavel, making sure people like the Masons don’t get a free pass just because they have money and privilege on their side.
Charlotte seems like a sweet girl despite her last name, and I feel bad knowing she’s hurting, I guess, but she’ll survive. And like I said, I have more important things to worry about.
The drive over to Somerset takes just under an hour. My mother and I make the trip once a month. Occasionally my mother’s boyfriend comes along for the ride, but typically it’s just the two of us. It used to be a sad occasion, these monthly visits, but like everything else in this life, good and bad, you adapt.
He got five years when he was convicted. If he would have just towed the line, Timmy probably would have been out by now, but drugs are as readily available inside prison as they are out here. He had a year tacked onto his sentence for dealing inside, and now he’ll be serving that full term, screwing himself out of any chance for an early parole.
Three down, three to go.
He’s been telling us he’s clean, and for the past few months, he looks it. Even earned his GED and started taking community college classes this year, so I’m hopeful.
“You’re looking good, little brother.”
“So are you, Timmy. How’s it going?”
I don’t say it, but looking around the visiting room, I see an increased guard presence, and the people, both the inmates and their visitors, are more street than I’ve noticed in the past. I mean, this is a prison, those of us who have loved ones in here don’t typically hail from the upper echelons of society and all, but still, I don’t like the energy coming off some of these people.
“Keeping my head low, staying out of trouble.” Timmy looks up to see my mother still busy getting snacks from the vending machine before continuing. “As you’ve noticed, the clientele is changing around here.”
“Yeah, and what’s with all the guards? Gotta be twice as many keeping watch in here than usual.”
“Getting the overflow from Lewisburg and those boys don’t play. A lot more gang bullshit in here now. The guards are so tight lately, they’ll shackle you and throw you in solitary just for looking at them sideways.”
“Assholes.”
“I don’t know, Simon,” he says, shaking his head. “They’re just people, people who took a real shit job…Maybe the worst job on the planet. They’re taking care of their families, trying to do right, I guess. And some of the bullshit they have to deal with in here?” He offers me a tired smile. “It’d turn the Dalai Lama into a hateful man.”
My mother approaches, her hands full with cans of soda and these cheese cracker snacks that my brother used to eat when he lived at home. She gets them every time we’re here. Before she sits, I ask him, “So you’re just keeping your head down?”
“Yeah. I’m working in the library now and spending my free time doing those online classes.”
