Conviction (12 page)

“You don’t have to get home?”

I wasn’t exactly looking forward to going back and sitting around alone all night trying not to think about the hearing tomorrow. “Nah, I’m fine a little while.”

“I think my parents would kill me if I rode alone in a car with a guy they’ve never met. But I feel bad asking Jenna, and—a bike’s different, right?”

“I mean, I don’t want to get you in trouble or anything if—”

“I think it’s okay. Unless you don’t want to, or—”

“I don’t mind,” I say, maybe too quickly. “Where do you live?”

She lives over by the Safeway, about a mile and a half from church. I shoulder her guitar with the strap across my chest and wad up my jacket for her to sit on, then straddle my bike. She
arranges her dress carefully and then perches gingerly on the handlebars, wobbling. “Is this safe?”

“Just don’t let go of the handlebars. You can—” I clear my throat, hoping no one’s watching us. My face feels warm. “You can lean back against my
arms.”

It’s harder riding with the extra weight, and the wind is freezing against my bare arms. Her hands are touching mine on the handlebars and she feels warm and close and solid, pressed
carefully back against me like maybe she’s not convinced this is that safe after all. I pedal a bit slower so the wind’s not too strong for her, and as we cross the parking lot and head
onto Wisteria, I say, “So what do you think of living here? You like it?”

“Yeah, it’s nice,” she says. “It’s pretty here. It feels like we drove a U-Haul into a postcard.”

I laugh. “You miss where you’re from?”

“Bakersfield? I miss my friends a lot.”

“You’ve got a lot of friends here, it seems like.”

“Yeah, I guess so. But it’s just—it’s different sometimes. Some days it’s fine, and some days I realize I still don’t actually know anybody all that well. I
guess I just miss being around people I’ve known since we were little kids.”

I get that; we all have somewhere we belong. “Do you go back very much?”

“Sometimes. I try to stay in touch with people, but I guess everyone’s pretty busy. It’s okay, though.” I feel her take a long breath. “I was on the prom planning
committee there and Junior Ball was last weekend, and I was really sad I wasn’t there. And then—it’s stupid, but my friends were going to call and put me on speakerphone at least
for the limo ride, but then we got disconnected and no one noticed in time to call back, so I missed it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, well.” Her tone shifts into something lighter, almost airy. “It’s really not a big deal. But thanks.”

Maybe I’m not one of those friends from childhood she misses, but all the same I don’t think she’s someone who usually gives herself away too easily. And I’m pretty sure
that in telling me this, she’s testing me—seeing whether I’m the kind of person who can’t be trusted with knowing she’s someone whose friends didn’t notice when
she wasn’t there, or whether I’m the kind of person who’ll offer her something worth having in return.

I think that’s pretty brave of her. Especially because I’m not even sure myself.

It’s late enough that even though we’re going through a neighborhood I know—Colin lives around here; his mom used to do a
Día de los Muertos
party every year and
we’d run around the neighborhood chucking sugar skulls at each other—it feels a little bit like the parts I recognize were packed up and dropped off somewhere a little ways away.
It’s a clear night, though, starry, and from the hill we’re riding on, you can look out and see all the lights of the town twinkling back at you, and even with everything going on, even
with how on edge I am about tomorrow, I get that embarrassing kind of swell in my heart I get sometimes seeing my hometown all arranged out there like that, thinking how steady it’s always
held. A place can become a sort of family to you, if you let it.

“Hey, Maddie,” I say. “You know that one song from tonight, ‘Let Us Love and Sing and Wonder’? Something about the way you sang it—I haven’t really said
this to anyone, but lately I’m maybe…Things haven’t been great with God, and that was the first time in a while when I kind of felt like even just for a few minutes things were
okay.”

She lets herself relax against me, just the slightest bit, but I catch it. “You mean because of what happened to your dad?”

I should keep quiet, maybe; it would be easy to say too much. “Yeah, and also, I don’t know, I guess—I always thought if I did what I was supposed to—or like, a couple
years ago I was at this baseball party and everyone else was drinking and I didn’t, and the next day I was crossing the street and I felt this, like, voice telling me to stop, and right at
that second, this Ram truck came barreling around the corner, and if I hadn’t stopped it would’ve flattened me. Stuff like that, you know? That’s how I always thought it was
supposed to go with God, like you knew where you stood with him and you could trust him to take care of you, but now there’s all this—and I know it’s like the oldest story in the
book that the second things get rough, I’m all like,
Where is God now?
But I guess I’m just scared of how he’s testing me.”

“Testing you how?”

“I don’t know, I guess like—seeing how far I’ll actually follow him. Every time I think about going to church, I get all scared that he’s going to speak to me there
or something, and ask me to do something I could never do.”

“Like what?”

“Ah—” I’ve said too much already. Besides that, I tell myself, so far I’ve done everything I promised God, and the Brantley game is coming up. God’s given me
signs before when I asked him to, and so, no matter what happens tomorrow, I should hold fast and be faithful and trust that God will give me what I need from him this time, too. “I
don’t know. Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“You trust God, right?”

She says yes. I knew that already, though—I could sense it from how she played tonight, that God felt real to her, that she felt safe with him. I envy that. I say, “If your real
parents—you know—I mean, your biological parents—” She takes a deeper breath, and it probably means I should shut up, but I say, “If you couldn’t trust your own
parents with everything, how can you trust God?”

She stiffens, and I regret it instantly. “I’m sorry,” I say quickly. God, what is
wrong
with me? “Crap, Maddie, I’m sorry. That was such a dick thing to say.
I’m really sorry. Are you mad?”

“No,” she says, “just—surprised. Everyone else always tells me I should be so grateful for the way God worked everything out and that he had a plan for me. Or they think
just because I was too young to remember I have no right to ever be sad.”

“What? That’s dumb. Just because you don’t remember doesn’t mean you can’t feel sad about it now.”

“I know. But, I mean, I
should
be grateful. Right? When I was younger, I told my mom I wanted to go back to China someday to find my mother and it made my mom cry. Sometimes I still
see her face in that moment I said that to her, and every time I hate myself a little bit.”

“So you think about your…other mom still?”

“I think about them all the time. They’re always there.” She lets go of the handlebars then and lets her hand rest on mine, so briefly I might’ve just imagined it.
“Your mom died, right? When you were born?”

Maddie’s close enough that I can feel the warmth of her skin, can imagine sliding my hand around the curve of her waist and losing myself with her for a little while. I wish that someday I
could tell her I’ve never lied to her, but my dad’s been saying that on the radio all my life about my mom, so I say, “Yeah.”

“Sometimes I kind of hope my parents are dead.”

“You don’t know?”

“No. And when I think about them out there without me, or I think about them
deciding
to get rid of me—sometimes it’s just easier to think it wasn’t their
choice.” She lifts her hand off the handlebars again, this time to point across the street. “That one’s my house there.”

It’s a ranch-style house with a long front and lots of glass. I stop shy of the driveway so her parents won’t see me through the windows just in case they’d be mad, which maybe
I shouldn’t feel too great about, and slow to a stop. When I help her off the bike, she says, “You probably think I’m awful for saying that about my birth parents.”

“No, I don’t think that. I just—well—I understand, I guess.”

She smiles in a way that makes it look like she doesn’t believe me. I mean it, though—even if I can’t say so, I understand.

Maddie says, “Thanks for the ride.”

“Anytime.” I hand back her guitar. She takes it, glancing toward the front door.

“Also, Braden,” she says, “if you ever need to talk about things—or maybe if you don’t like talking about it but you still want company, or whatever, I’m
around.” And there’s something in her expression, something about the way the quiet, steady dark makes the night feel spread before us like a blanket, that makes me think that maybe if
I did something right now—if I took her hand or leaned closer—that it might go somewhere. Like it might shift the course not just of the night, but of whatever else comes, too.

I take a step backward. I say, “Well, I’ll see you at school.”

She steps back, too, her face shifting. I don’t know what her expression means, but I hope it’s not pity. “I’ll be praying for your dad.”

I wait on the sidewalk until she’s safely in her house. It’s not until I start biking home that the rest of the world comes sinking back down around me again.

When your dad’s in jail waiting for strangers to decide his fate, you don’t go after a girl; I know that. It makes you look completely disloyal, and it probably makes God quit
listening to whatever else you might’ve prayed for because he thinks you have your priorities completely skewed. And anyway, all the other reasons I never dated anyone are still true: I
don’t want to lose focus pitching. I don’t want to get tempted to do anything stupid I can’t take back or that’ll put me in a bad place with God. I don’t like leaving
my dad alone, even if it’s just in spirit; I know it would really hurt him if I was off going on dates or whatever while he was in there by himself. And besides, I can’t think of
anything much worse than carving out a part of yourself for someone else you trust and then having them toss it away and leave you.

All the same, though, it was nice for a little while there to feel like not everything in the world is completely wrecked around me, that there are still parts left that are hopeful and good,
and I wish I could hold on to this feeling a long time.

T
he next day, at one forty-five in the afternoon while I sit through Kevin’s lesson on civic responsibility, trying to look like a functional
human being and sending frantic half-thought-out prayers pretty much on a constant loop, Deputy District Attorney Laila Shah presents the case she’s been building against my dad.

Mr. Buchwald comes by the house again that night. Sitting across from me in the living room, he reminds me of when something burned in the microwave and it’s lingering: he seems to take up
the whole room. I know even before he says it that Judge Scherr must have ruled there’s enough evidence for a case and that he wouldn’t set bail, because otherwise they would’ve
let my dad out and he would have called me right away. So Mr. Buchwald was right about that, but it turns out he was wrong about the plea bargain: the prosecutor refused to consider anything less
than life in prison, so the case is going to a trial.

I thought I was prepared for this. I kept telling myself to prepare for the worst. But I guess you always tell yourself there’s still a chance; you always think things will right
themselves again and go the way they should, the way they always have. I feel like someone tossed a net over me and cinched it up. I can barely move.

There were small victories, Mr. Buchwald tells me, and I struggle to pay attention. The judge struck down four of Laila’s motions: one to allow the trial to be moved to another county, one
to have the jury sequestered, one to ensure a mixed-race jury, and one to exclude evidence of prior police conduct. But, he says, to avoid any concerns about persuading a witness, my dad’s
denied bail.

“So I can’t see him at all?” I say. “He can’t even call me?”

“Until you testify, no.” He shuffles through some papers. “And I know you had some concerns about your portion of the testimony, but I’ll make sure you’re utterly
prepared. Do you have a DVD player?”

“Yeah, but—”

“Excellent. I’ll be providing footage so you can keep abreast. I’m sure for an athlete like yourself it helps to see exactly what you’re up against.” He pauses.
“And, Braden—it’s imperative that you keep this to yourself.”

“Would I get in trouble for—”

“You have nothing to worry about, but your discretion is, of course, appreciated.” He stands, snapping his briefcase shut. “Now, if you have no further questions…”

I go into the kitchen when the lawyer leaves. Trey’s pounding at a cut of meat with a mallet, hammering it into almost nothing. There’s blood specks spattered across his cutting
board and the white towel he’s got tucked into the waistband of his gym shorts. I say, “It’s going to a trial.”