Mad Honey: A Novel (34 page)

Asher is lying on his side on the floor, wrapped tight in a rust-colored afghan my mother crocheted sometime in the 1970s. His bright hair sticks out from the very top, like the tip of a paintbrush. “Asher?” I say quietly. I put my hand on his shoulder.

He doesn’t turn.

“It’s time to get ready for court.”

Slowly, like a man four times his age, Asher sits up. The afghan is caught around his shoulders. I reach for it, thinking to fold it and put it aside, but he turns ferally, grabbing at the wool. “Stop,” he snarls, and I am so surprised that the afghan drops between us.

On his knees now, he gathers it like an armful of flowers. He buries his face in the mess of it. “It still smells like her,” Asher says.

With the light drizzle outside striking the corrugated metal roof and the leaves of the trees, it feels like the whole world is weeping.

“You should leave it here,” I tell him. “It’s raining.” What I mean
to say is: if that’s all you have left of Lily, do not expose it to the elements. Keep it safe, keep it hidden.

“I’ll wait at the bottom of the ladder,” I add. As I make my way down, Asher tenderly doubles up the afghan, a captain folding a flag for the family of a fallen soldier.

I HAVEN’T SEEN
Maya Banerjee since Lily’s funeral, but I can tell as soon as she takes the stand that she is a nervous wreck. On the one hand, Lily was her best friend, and she wants to honor her memory by helping the prosecution. On the other hand, doing so means dragging her
oldest
friend through the mud.

As soon as she sits down, she locks eyes with Asher.
Hi,
I see her mouth.

I feel hope flutter in my chest. Maybe this will not be the slam dunk the prosecution thinks it will be.

Somewhere behind me are Maya’s moms, here to lend her emotional support as she testifies. Neither came up to me before court was called into session. Deepa looked at me, whispered something to her wife, and when I returned their gazes they both found something on the floor to stare at that must have been utterly fascinating.

Maya is wearing a blue blouse and a pleated skirt. She looks young and conservative, a parochial school girl. I wonder what the jury would think if they knew that as a sixth grader, she coated a lab table with hairspray and tried to light it on fire with a Zippo. “Were you a friend of Lily Campanello?” Gina asks.

Maya nods.

“You’re going to have to speak up,” the prosecutor coaches.

“Oh,” Maya squeaks. “Yes.”

“But you’re also a friend of the defendant, right?”

Maya takes a deep, shuddering breath. “Yes,” she says.

“I imagine this is scary for you, Maya,” the prosecutor says, “but it’s really important.”

Scary for
Maya? I think.

“I know,” Maya. “I just want to help.”

“That’s good,” Gina says. “Why don’t you tell us how you met the defendant?”

“Asher and I were in school together. From second grade on. We’ve been friends ever since.”

“Did the two of you ever have a romantic relationship?”

Maya shakes her head. “Asher says I’m the sister he never had.”

“How and when did you meet Lily?”

“She was a new student at school this year,” Maya says. “We met at orchestra practice. She was smart and funny and into the same things I was; we were friends right off the bat.”

“How did Lily meet Asher?”

Maya’s mouth twists. “It was the first week of school, after orchestra. I was hanging around waiting for Asher, because he was giving me a ride home. Dirk—he’s a hockey player, like Asher—started hitting on Lily. She wasn’t into it at all, but Dirk wasn’t getting the hint, and then Asher showed up. He took one look at what was going on and said that he’d already asked Lily out so Dirk would get lost. It was a lie—Asher hadn’t even met Lily yet—but then they actually went out, and from then on, they were exclusive.”

“Their dating relationship from September to December…was it copacetic?”

Maya blinks at the prosecutor.

“Was it problem-free?” Gina corrects.

“Oh,” Maya says. “Mostly? I mean, they fought sometimes. And there were other times that one of them wasn’t speaking to the other.”

“Were there any particular instances where you thought maybe their relationship wasn’t a healthy one?”

Maya looks at Asher and bites her lip. “This one time, we were at a sleepover at Lily’s. She was changing into a T-shirt to sleep in, and I saw bruises all over her arms.”

My throat goes dry.

The prosecutor lifts an enlarged photograph from her table. “I’m
showing you State’s Exhibit Seven. Can you tell me what this is, Maya?”

“A selfie we took that night. Me and Lily. You can see what I mean about the bruises.”

They are dotted up Lily’s left arm, four on one side, one on the other. The exact sort of marks you get when someone grabs you hard and shakes you.

I would know.

“Maya, did you ever see the defendant being physically aggressive toward Lily?”

Jordan is out of his seat like a rocket. “Your Honor, there has been no evidence to suggest that the defendant is responsible for those bruises, and the prosecutor is asking that question as if to draw a direct line.”

Judge Byers flicks her eyes toward him. “Overruled.”

How different would my life have been if someone—my mother, Jordan, Selena—had seen the handprints that Braden left on
my
shoulders,
my
throat? If instead of just believing what he wanted them to see, they’d looked a little closer?

Had Lily been wearing long sleeves because she was hiding the scars from her suicide attempt, or was it to hide the evidence of violence? Was she protecting Asher like I used to protect Braden?

Like I’m trying to protect Asher now?

“I saw Asher grab Lily by the arm once. They were having an argument because she was talking to another guy at a fencing match. She tried to walk away from Asher, but he wouldn’t let her leave. And she told him to stop because he was hurting her.”

Suddenly Asher leaps to his feet. “That is not,” he seethes, “what happened.”

The jury swivels in unison toward him. Jordan grabs his suit jacket and yanks him back down to his seat.

“Maya,” Asher cries. “What the fuck are you
doing
?”

Jordan grits out, “Quiet,” as Maya looks at Asher, tears filling her eyes.

But Asher is like a volcano that has been stewing at the core, and now that fire is unstoppable. He jerks himself free of Jordan, his words tumbling fierce and hot. “That’s not what happened. She’s lying—”

“
Shut. Up,
” Jordan snaps, squeezing his arm.

“Please control your client, Mr. McAfee,” the judge says, “or I will have the bailiff do it for you.”

Once, Braden called me into the kitchen, fuming. The dishwasher was open midcycle, water pooling on the floor.
I told you this is not how you load a dishwasher,
he said, gesturing to the white china on the rack, which was arranged at odd angles.
But you never listen.
In fact, we had never discussed how to load the dishwasher. Before I could say anything, he picked up a plate and—holding my gaze—dropped it so it shattered on the floor. I jumped out of the way, but Braden grabbed another one, and another, until I stopped flinching when they dropped and all our dinnerware was in shards at my feet.
What a mess,
he said, as if he hadn’t been the one to make it.

A slow, satisfied smile unfurls across Gina’s mouth. “Mr. McAfee,” she asks, “do you need a few minutes to calm your client down?”

“We’re good,” Jordan says tightly, and that’s how I realize that Maya’s testimony was not about Lily, or friendship, or bruises. It was about getting Asher to explode, while the jury watched.

WHEN ASHER AND
Maya were in second grade together, they were classroom reading buddies, T-ball teammates, and best friends. I remember their teacher telling me during a conference that Asher and Maya were inseparable. That at recess, they had to be reminded to let other kids play with them. It seemed like Asher was always at Maya’s house or vice versa. Sharon and Deepa and I used to joke about planning their wedding. About Romeo and Juliet endings, minus the double suicide.

I bet Shakespeare wouldn’t have seen this one coming.

After Gina Jewett takes her seat again, the judge turns to Jordan and offers him the floor. He sits at the table next to Asher for a
moment, tapping his fingers against the surface, as if he’s trying to wrap his head around the right line of questioning. “Hi, Maya,” he says finally, offering her a smile. “You’re doing great.”

She returns the smile. “Thanks?” she says nervously.

“You’ve known Asher for almost your whole life, right?”

“Since he moved here when we were six.”

“When was the last time you saw him?” Jordan asks.

“At Lily’s funeral.”

“I bet that was really hard for both of you.”

“Yeah,” Maya says.

“Did Asher seem upset that day, to you?”

“He seemed…numb,” Maya recounts, and then she squares her shoulders, as if she is defending her own statement. “But he gets like that sometimes.”

“Like what?”

“When he’s really emotional…he kind of turns inside himself, instead of letting it show on the outside.”

“This must seem surreal to you,” Jordan says. “That we’re in this courtroom. That Asher’s on trial. I mean, you’re one of Asher’s best friends, aren’t you?”

Maya stiffens. “I was Lily’s best friend, too.”

“Hm. And as Lily’s best friend, she told you things she didn’t tell anyone else, right?”

“Yes.”

“So you knew she tried to commit suicide before moving here, I assume?”

“Wait,” Maya says. “What?”

Jordan’s brows rise. “Oh, she didn’t tell you that?”

“No.” Emotions chase across Maya’s face: surprise, hurt, betrayal.

“She didn’t tell you she was transgender, either, did she?”

“No.”

“Because she didn’t really want anyone to know, right?”

“Objection!” Gina says.

“Withdrawn,” Jordan replies. “Nothing further.”

Maya looks stricken as she steps out of the witness box. She turns
to Asher at the last moment, guilt written all over her features. Behind me I hear the rustle of Sharon and Deepa as they exit the gallery to get their daughter.

Gina rises partly out of her seat. “Your Honor,” she says, “the prosecution rests.”

THE BAILIFF TAKES
the jury out, and I watch Asher’s hands tighten into fists beneath the table. I wonder if he thought, like I did, that the State’s evidence would go on for days, weeks. If he is nervous, now, about what Jordan will do next.

“Judge,” Jordan says, “I move to strike the evidence as insufficient to support a verdict.”

“Thank you, Mr. McAfee,” Judge Byers says. “Ms. Jewett?”

“Your Honor, the State’s case has sufficiently proven every element of the crime of murder. And in fact, now we’ve even thrown in a motive.”

“Thank you for that…embellished argument,” the judge says drily. “The defendant’s motion is overruled. There is sufficient evidence to proceed with the trial, and we will return tomorrow at nine
a.m
. with the defendant’s evidence, if they so choose to present any.” She bangs the gavel, and the hum of noise in the gallery increases as reporters crowd one another at the doorway to file their stories and to get into position to ambush us as we exit the courthouse.

Like yesterday, however, Jordan draws us back into the conference room. “What was that?” I ask. “Did she really do a shoddy job presenting her case?”

Jordan shrugs. “Oh, no. She’s got plenty. That’s just what the defense
always
does at this point—try to discredit the State’s evidence. I mean, there’s always a chance a judge will fall for it.” He sits down at the table across from Asher and me. “Gina’s connected all the dots for the jury: Asher killed Lily in a fit of trans panic after she told him the truth. Maya gave proof of earlier violence—”

“I never hurt Lily—” Asher interrupts, but Jordan talks right over him.

“—and finally, thanks to Asher’s little outburst in court, the jury got to witness firsthand what it looks like when Asher flies into a humiliated rage.”

Once, when Asher was little, we had chickens. I came out of the coop to find him holding a chick headfirst in its water bowl.
It’s thirsty,
he said. I took it out of his hand, this tiny, lifeless thing.
Why isn’t it moving, Mommy?
he asked.

It drank so much,
I told him,
it needs a nap
.

I’m not sure which one of us I was shielding—him, for making an honest mistake; or me, for wondering how he could not have felt the struggle of those tiny bones, that gasping beak, and not let go.

“Clearly,” Jordan is saying, when my attention drifts back to him, “we’re not putting Asher on the stand…especially now.”

Asher’s head snaps up. “Wait. I never get to tell the truth?”

“No,” Jordan says. “You don’t get to say anything. You let me do the talking.”

Asher’s face reddens. “But all I did was
find
her. I showed up when she was already dead. Why can’t I just
say
that?”

“Because the State is going to twist your words. Just like they manipulated you today, when you
weren’t
on the stand, to grace the jury with an Oscar-worthy performance of frustrated fury. Except if you’re a witness, it’s a thousand times worse. Once you’re in that box, I can’t prevent the prosecution from asking all kinds of questions you do not want to answer.”

I can practically feel the steam rising between them, so I intercede. “If Asher can’t speak up for himself, who will?”

“Selena is at this very moment picking up from the airport the doctor who performed Lily’s gender affirmation surgery,” Jordan says.

“How does that help Asher?”

“I don’t know, yet,” he admits. “But I think the more educated the jury is, the more chance we have of them believing Asher’s innocent. We’ll put Coach Lacroix on the stand. And you.” He meets my gaze. “Who else is better qualified to vouch for his character than his own mother?”