Conviction (20 page)

“Seminary, huh.” Trey leans back in his chair and looks over at Kevin behind Jenna, who’s sitting between them with Ellie on her lap. “You didn’t tell
me.”

Kevin glances at Jenna. “I still have to accept the offer.”

“Oh, but of course you will.” Mrs. Cortland smiles at me. “You’re the first to hear the news, Braden, so please keep it hush-hush for now.”

“Well.” Trey has that same overly polite tone of voice he used with Mr. Buchwald. “Congratulations, Kevin. Everything’s really falling into place for you, isn’t
it?”

Jenna, I notice, barely eats; Mrs. Cortland keeps offering her serving spoons, and each time, Jenna takes some food and then just pushes it around on her plate, or puts it on Kevin’s. She
mostly just focuses on Ellie, and sometimes strokes Kevin’s hand and props her hand on her chin and smiles at what everyone’s saying.

Pastor Stan asks Trey about his restaurant and what he’s been doing since they last saw him at Kevin’s wedding. Mrs. Cortland asks meaningfully if there are any young ladies in his
life and Trey says no, that Kevin has all the luck. “We’ll have to pray for that, then,” Mrs. Cortland says, and under the table, a foot nudges mine; when I look up, Kevin’s
got his gaze trained on me, a smile tucked away.

“Speaking of young ladies,” he says, “isn’t prom coming up soon?”

“Ah—it might be.”

“And might you have any plans to go with a certain young lady I’ve been seeing you with?”

“Ah—” I’m not at all in the mood to talk about that in front of everyone. But Pastor Stan chuckles and then—sensing my discomfort, maybe—he changes the
subject, asking Trey what he thinks of New York. Trey kind of shrugs and says there are things he likes and things he doesn’t, and I’d like to hear more about the things he
doesn’t, but he doesn’t elaborate.

“It’s probably nowhere near as exciting as what you’re used to, having grown up here,” Mrs. Cortland teases. “I can’t imagine how you manage to fill your
time. So little to do in that town. Did you know we were in New York a few years ago? After I finished my treatment and got the all-clear from my doctors, we took a week there before driving up to
see the fall colors in New England.”

Trey reaches out his arms to Ellie. She lights up, clambering across Jenna’s lap and onto his. To Mrs. Cortland, he says, “That sounds nice.”

“Oh, it was. It was just what I needed. All through that awful treatment, I felt the Lord holding me up, telling me he was going to carry me through this, and one day he brought me a
vision of Stan and me in Times Square, and I just held on tight to that. I thought,
This will all be over and we’ll go on a marvelous trip
, and God was faithful to his promise.”
She laughs and takes a sip of her wine. “And you will never guess where we stayed. Stan kept telling me, ‘Linda, just relax, I’ll take care of everything, you just pack your bags
and
relax
,’ and then we show up and—surprise! We could’ve just left our bags on the plane.”

Pastor Stan makes a good-natured grumbling noise. “Linda, they don’t need to hear—”

“It was a
clothing optional
hotel,” she says, lowering her voice to an exaggerated whisper. “
Very
optional.”

Kevin’s eyebrows shoot up, and he turns to Pastor Stan, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Don’t remember you putting that on the postcard, Dad.”

Pastor Stan sighs. “I can’t imagine how it slipped my mind.”

“Oh, you should have
seen
the look on his face. He could barely talk to the concierge, he was trying so hard to keep his eyes down and not see anything. Delightful people, though,
it turned out. We met a lovely nudist couple in the elevator, and we all went to see
Jersey Boys
together that night. And we left our Bibles in the room for the next guests when we checked
out.”

She pats Pastor Stan’s hand, her eyes twinkling. “It was a wonderful trip, though. Oh, such a beautiful city. We got to stand where the First Congress adopted the Bill of
Rights—it was absolutely breathtaking. And we went to the most amazing restaurants, and to two Broadway shows and a comedy show—our daughter Samantha was taking an improv comedy class
and said, ‘Oh, Mom, you have to go see this man whose tapes I’ve been watching.’ It turned out to be a little PG-thirteen, but we thought it was quite funny. But then Sam’s
class put on a show at the end of her class and we thought, ‘Well, it’ll be like what we saw in New York—we enjoyed that,’ but, oh, it was just awful. It was just so
unfunny
. After the third dreadful routine, Stan turned to me and said, ‘Honey, do you think God is thinking right this second,
Whatever possessed me to send my beloved son to that
planet to save
them
?
’”

Trey laughs, a real laugh, and Ellie cackles an echo. Mrs. Cortland says, “Oh dear.” She points at Kevin. “I am still your mother, so you listen to me when I tell you not to
breathe a word of that to Sam. She will go to her grave believing we were in stitches the entire night.”

“It’s tempting to hold on to that as blackmail, actually,” Kevin says, and Mrs. Cortland shakes her finger at him.

“Oh, you watch your mouth. Everyone needs a mother to cheer them on no matter what. You ask your wife.” She gives Jenna a kind smile, and her tone softens. “Ellie is such a
lucky girl. Too many children these days grow up always playing second fiddle to their mothers’ careers, raised by nannies, practically motherless.” Then she looks at me, stricken, and
puts a hand over her mouth, like I’ve let something show in my expression. “Oh, Braden—I’m so sorry. Both of you boys. Oh, listen to me. How insensitive.” She waves
her hand in front of her face, and her cheeks turn red. “Why on earth did you all let me prattle on like that? Someone else talk now.”

Pastor Stan squeezes her hand, looking maybe a little uncomfortable, and, before either Trey or I have to answer, says, “Trey, what a blessing that you get this season in your life to
spend with Braden. He’s sure done well for himself, hasn’t he?” And then he spends the next five minutes trying to talk to me about baseball even though he obviously knows almost
nothing about it, which feels like a kindness—a sort of clumsy grace.

It’s actually worse that I can tell how hard they’re trying. I don’t think I can take a lifetime of putting on a polite smile like this, pretending nothing’s wrong and
secretly resenting good people for somehow not being what I need. I don’t even know how I’ll take another few weeks.

I’m more than ready to go home, and I’m relieved when we finish dessert. But then Mrs. Cortland starts making coffee, and Pastor Stan brings out Catch Phrase, and obviously I’m
stuck. There’s so much yelling and it goes so fast, it’s about the last game you want to play when you’d rather just be at home.

I’m on Mrs. Cortland’s team. She draws her word and purses her lips, then says, “Oh,” drumming both her hands on the table, spinning one finger in a circle like she
thinks it’ll make me guess faster, “Oh, Braden, it’s big and you drive it! It has a steering wheel! It goes on roads!”

I say
car
, obviously, and she beams and gives me an incredibly enthusiastic high five—she’s breathless—and then nearly drops the buzzer handing it off to Kevin while for
no good reason at all, I’m stuck paralyzed in my seat. Mrs. Cortland looks closely at me. She leans over and puts her arm around me and murmurs in my ear, “God will get you through all
this, honey. He’s with you.”

I last two more turns. Then I mumble something about needing to go to the bathroom and push my chair back so fast I almost knock it over. I hurry down the hallway, and then I shut the door
behind me and sink against the floor and bury my head in my arms. Something’s constricting around my rib cage, making it hard to breathe.

This is why I hate when people tell me
I don’t know how you’re surviving
—because that implies you get a choice. What do they think, you’re actually going to die?
Because that’s not how it works. You don’t get an escape into nothing; you get a brother who half the time acts like he can’t stand you anymore and you get a seashell-themed
bathroom in your pastor’s house to escape to because a nice dinner with people who believe what you wish you could about God is more than you can take.

I breathe and breathe and breathe until I feel light-headed and then I cup my hands and breathe into them so I can feel the air going in and out. My phone beeps. When I pull it out of my pocket,
my hands are shaking. I hope it’s Maddie, even though I also hope it isn’t, because I feel fragile enough I might crack open and let slip things I can’t tell her, or anyone, ever.
But instead, it’s a text from Trey:
You fall in or something? Get your ass back out here.
I don’t answer it, and soon there’s a rap on the door, and then when I don’t
answer he lets himself in.

“You’ve been gone like twenty minutes, Braden.” He’s frowning. “It’s rude to—”

“Sorry,” I manage. “I’m sorry. Just please don’t yell at me.”

“I wasn’t even close to yelling. What are you doing? They’re getting all worried. Mrs. Cortland thinks she hurt your feelings.”

“It’s not that. I just—I’m sort of—”

“Okay, well, then, get back out there.”

“Trey, I’m—I’m really not feeling that great.”

“You’re in someone else’s house. So show some manners, would you?”

No matter what, the last thing I want to do right now is upset him. I make myself nod and make myself smile. He watches me a second, then, unexpectedly, his face softens. “You want like a
code word or something?”

“What?”

“We’ll pick a word and you find a way to work it into a sentence if you really need to bail, and that’ll be my signal you’re done.”

“Like what word?”

“How about
fuck
.” He hides a smile at my expression. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding. But, Braden, look—sometimes you just have to pull yourself together and
fake it, but I know things aren’t the greatest right now, all right? I’ve been there, too, and I know it sucks, so you tell me if you need to go and we’ll go. I’ll cover for
you.”

I pull the air into my rib cage. I’m pushing my luck, but I have to ask. “Hey, Trey?”

“Yeah.”

“I know you don’t want to, but—can you go with me to court when I have to go? You could just sit in back and you wouldn’t have to talk to anyone, just—if
there’s any way—”

His expression closes off again. “That’s your thing, Braden, not mine.”

“I know, but—”

“You can take the car. Or I’ll call you a cab if you want. But that one’s yours.”

I thought he might change his mind; if it was going to happen, tonight would’ve been the night. “Then will you at least come when I have to play La Abra?”

He runs a hand over his head, then lets it drop heavily against his side. “Sure. You really want me there, I’ll go.”

“You swear?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there. And in the meantime”—he deepens his voice the way he used to when he was trying to get a smile out of me when I was a kid—“how
about you get it together and come play Catch Phrase like a man.”

I
didn’t recognize the name Curt Molson, but when I watch Laila call him to the stand I recognize him right away as the other officer who was
there the night I came back from LA. When he walks past where I know my dad is sitting, his face contorts in hatred, but when he steps behind the witness stand his entire expression changes like a
shape-shifter from a superhero movie and his voice sounds artificially soft, especially when he says “Frankie.” Laila spends the first five minutes tossing him lob questions to make him
look good, and he tells the jury about having served the community for decades and says Reyes was a dedicated, upstanding officer (of course he does) who was given an Excellence in Service award
three years ago for antiviolence work he did with youth.

“Frankie cared so much about his job. He cared about the job and he cared about this city. He never got to have a family of his own, you know, so it mattered to him a lot. Went away to
college and got a degree, then came back to join us. Six years he’s been with us. Volunteers with at-risk teenagers, too.”

“Had he—”

“At least he used to before he got killed by that man over there.”

Mr. Buchwald objects. Judge Scherr orders the comment stricken from the record, not that it matters since the jury already heard.

Laila pulls at a thread on her jacket sleeve, then flicks it on the floor. “Would you describe Officer Reyes as a conscientious public servant?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am.”

“Officer Molson, what would the procedure have been the night Officer Reyes pulled over the suspect?”

“Standard procedure, ma’am. He would’ve figured out the situation and maybe done a field sobriety test if he suspected a DUI. Run the paperwork. Unless the suspect was making
some kind of threat, there’s no reason Frankie would’ve ever engaged a weapon or anything of the sort.”

“Can you describe physically where Officer Reyes would have been during the traffic stop?”

He pushes his sleeves up his arms to his elbows. The shirt’s baggy on him; since the last time I saw him I think he’s lost a bunch of weight. “Well, he’d pull up behind
the car. He’d go around to the passenger side to talk to the driver so he didn’t get hit by anything. You don’t stand on the driver’s side unless you want to get hit by a
truck or something. So if you got hit by a driver trying to make a break for it, it means the driver drove away from the road instead of back on it. You can’t do that on accident. Driving
into
the shoulder? If all you really want is to make a getaway? I can’t picture that happening any more than I can picture Frankie pulling a gun during a traffic stop.”