The Collective(33)

“Sort of. I always thought it was exhaustion.”

“Well, the pastor told us that it’s God. Literally. ‘What you’re feeling is God.’”

I have no idea what to say. “That’s . . . interesting.”

“He also said that God only gives you as much as you can take, and that the Lord bestows the most suffering on His favorite children. Lionel loved all that. I thought it was a load of horseshit.”

I smile.

“I mean, really. I wept more than I ever have when I found out about Nathan. I cried myself hoarse when Richard copped a plea and when the judge gave him a sentence that would have been better suited to a jaywalker. For that year and easily several times a year following, throughout all the years since it happened, after my husband drank himself into a heart attack, during and after all those tours Thomas insisted on going on in Afghanistan, all of them suicide missions and he knew it . . . After all of that suffering, I would come home from this job and cry and cry until I had no tears left. I’ve cried more than any person has a right to, and I have felt a hell of a lot of things while doing it. None of them have been remotely close to God. I’ve walked through fire, Camille.”

I take a sip of my coffee and watch her face, those eyes, flashing. I ask, “Do you feel God now that Shawger is dead?”

“Yes.”

“He saved a life, you know, about five years ago. A little kid.”

She gives me a small, sad smile. “I know. I read about it in the paper. And if all I knew of him was what I read in the paper, or what that judge said about him, I’d think he was quite the little hero.”

“What don’t I know?”

“A lot.”

“Tell me.”

She exhales, condensation floating from her lips. “Nathan was different,” she says. “Sensitive. Artistic.” She gives me a look.

“He was gay?”

“Maybe. We didn’t talk about those things back then. Not in our town. In our church . . .”

“Okay . . .”

“Anyway, even though they were a good deal older than Nathan, Richard Shawger and his friends used to tease him mercilessly. They did since he was a boy. I was shocked when Richard invited him on that hunting trip. I tried to convince him not to go, but Nathan was old enough to make his own decisions, and for whatever reason, he wanted to be their friend. I think he was thrilled to have been included.”

I stare at her.

“I think it was a setup.”

My eyes widen more. “They said it was an accident.”

“I’m not saying Richard Shawger shot Nathan on purpose. He may have just been trying to scare him,” Violet says. “But just as I know that he did not invite my son on that trip in the spirit of friendship, I don’t believe for an instant that he confused him for a deer.”

I close my eyes, remembering it in frames. Harris Blanchard outside the courthouse. His friends and parents embracing him as the photographers snapped away. Lisette taking the microphone. As the mother of an only boy, I feel so very grateful to the jury for seeing the truth.

Violet says, “A few years ago, I bought a gun. I’m not going to tell you how often I drove by that awful store where he worked. I didn’t care if I was caught. But I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t bring myself to . . . I’m too weak. I couldn’t do it alone.”

“I know exactly how you feel.”

“I know you do, Camille. I saw your video.”

I move closer to her, the words rushing out of me. “I used to think, maybe someday, when he’s older, he will understand what he did. If I shout loud enough, he’ll hear me. He’ll really hear me and he’ll see how much he’s hurt me, how he’s destroyed my life, my family. . . .”

Violet sets her coffee down on the bench, places a warm hand over mine. “I used to feel that way, too, my dear. But it’s a pipe dream. Your child’s murderer. Mine. They’re all the same. They believe what their defense lawyers say about them. They need to be punished to feel guilt, and then they’re never punished, so they never do. We suffer and we weep and they don’t care. They never learn. They never understand. Not until . . .”

“Until what?”

“Until their last sentient moments on this earth. Then they get it. All of it.”

“How do you know?”

She squeezes my hand tightly and leans in close, her lips to my ear. “You can see it in their eyes, and all over their faces as they’re begging and pleading,” she whispers. “You can feel it. You can feel it, sister.”


IT’S NEARLY FOUR p.m. by the time I get home. The sky is tinged with coral—the start of sunset, but it feels as though several days of sunsets have passed. I’ve been driving around for hours, a mess of questions in my head, Violet Langford’s voice drowning them all out. They need to be punished to feel guilt, and then they’re never punished, so they never do.

Once I’m in my house, I head upstairs and do something I haven’t done in a while. I find Brayburn College’s public Instagram account on my laptop, and then I find him. He’s in the far right picture in the top row, wearing his navy-blue sports coat and crimson tie, and he’s standing in front of that Brayburn Christmas tree, smiling next to his parents and Dean Waverly, the Martha L. Koch Humanitarian Award clutched in his hands. I read the cheery caption, about how award-recipient Harris Blanchard “took a gap year, but is certainly making up for it!”