We Are Not Like Them(91)

“Manslaughter…

It’s all so fast, a jumble, a blur of legalese and formalities and jargon that’s too hard to follow. Only one moment breaks through, like everything else in the room has stopped, when Kevin speaks. Two words, his voice so hoarse the judge has to ask him to repeat himself.

“Not guilty.”

And just like that, it’s over. It hardly seems worth all the bother of leaving Chase, but when Kevin returns to the bench and collapses in my arms as if he’s run a marathon, I’m glad I came. For better or worse.

We all file back out into the hall, unsure how to behave, what to do now.

“I’ve gotta pee.” I’ve been holding it for hours now and rush off to find a bathroom. In the stall I take my time, thumb through pictures of Chase on my phone for a minute to soothe my nerves. I’m still bleeding and I need another pad, but that would involve going to ask Cookie if she has a quarter and then she’ll ask why and it will be mortifying. Someone comes in. Maybe I can borrow some change.

I walk out and nearly turn back into the stall. It’s her, Tamara Dwyer, so close I can smell her perfume. My knees buckle. I didn’t see her in the courtroom, but of course she would be here. I’ve seen her on television and from a distance at Justin’s funeral, but here, under the flickering fluorescent lights that are mandatory in every sorry municipal building in this city, she looks like a ghost. She locks eyes with me right away. We’re alone with three feet of space between us.

“Congratulations,” she says quietly, looking at my swollen stomach.

“Thank you.” A whisper as I take a small step back to the toilet stall.

“You had a boy, right?”

“Yes.” I can’t allow the guilt brought on by that simple fact to drown me. She doesn’t need my guilt. “Mrs. Dwyer, I’m so sorry. My husband is so sorry.”

“I don’t want your apologies.”

“I understand.”

“No, you don’t. What would you do if someone killed your baby?”

I don’t even hesitate, because I’ve thought about this every single day since Chase was born. “I’d kill them with my bare hands.”

“Exactly.” The hard look in Tamara’s eyes tells me that she’s imagined it too.

“But it wouldn’t do anything, would it?” I stutter a little. “Would it make it better?”

She glares at me in the mirror. “Sometimes I think so. A life for a life. But that’s not what I want. I want my son back. I want my baby back. I want to wrap my arms around him and kiss his sweaty head and never let him go back outside into a world where a man like your husband will shoot him in the chest for walking home from school.”

This is what we deserve. My son is alive.

Both her hands grip the edges of the sink, and we’re talking through her reflection in the mirror. I can leave right now, walk away from this woman and her anguish. But I have to face her, face up to her. I risk reaching out to touch her and she jumps away from my hand so violently I pull back like I’ve been burned.

“Don’t touch me.”

“I’m sorry—”

“And don’t say you’re sorry. I don’t want your sorrys.” Her eyes meet mine again, cold pools of anger and grief.

“Chase—my baby, his name is Chase—he came early. I thought I’d lose him. I knew I’d die if that happened.”

“But you wouldn’t die. You’d have to keep going, and that is so much worse.”

She turns and grabs at the door handle, pulling so hard the door flies open and slams into the wall hard enough to startle us both.

“Tell your husband to do the right thing.” She spits the words and then she’s gone. I wait another minute because I’ll crumple if I see her again in the hallway. And I need to try to collect myself anyway.

My wobbly legs barely get me back to the Murphys, to their tight semicircle. Brice is talking, animated, rocking back and forth, heel to toe, explaining this and that to everyone and no one.

“If it gets to it, I like our chances at trial. I like them. That video. That kid is clearly pulling something out of his pocket. The jury only needs to find him a reasonable threat. Everyone wants to believe they wouldn’t shoot,” Brice says. “But no one really knows what they would do in that situation. No juror truly knows.”

Cookie glances at me. “Are you okay? You’re trembling.”

I grab one hand in the other to hold it still. “I’m fine.” She doesn’t look convinced, but we’re all distracted by something else: Sabrina Cowell striding toward us from down the long hall, the enemy approaching, a hyena circling the hippos.

Cookie pinches her lips together so tightly I worry she might swallow her tongue.

“Can I speak to you, Brice?” Sabrina asks. He nods eagerly, like the coach just called him off the bench in the last ten minutes of the game.

As she and Brice walk away, Matt announces he’s going for a smoke. Cookie wants to go to the ladies’ room, and Frank needs to find a place to sit. Kevin and I are alone.

The stone silence is killing me, so I start whistling the first few bars of “Patience.” “?‘You and I got what it takes to make it,’?” I sing softly into Kevin’s ear.

When Brice returns some ten minutes later, we hear his heavy footsteps echoing on the marble floors before we see him. Kevin rushes over to close the distance between them. I waddle behind him as fast as I can. “Well?”