Lone Wolf

“My mother’s tied up doing everything in her power to make sure my brother’s not going to be sent to jail. And I wish my father could drive me. But he’s too busy fighting for his life in Beresford Memorial Hospital right now.”

There is a beat of silence. “What’s the address?” he asks.

Joe doesn’t come home that night. It turns out that the only way to keep Edward out of jail is to make sure he’s supervised, and wisely, Joe didn’t think it was a particularly good idea to bring my brother back here in close proximity with me. It’s weird that Joe and my mom wouldn’t just switch places, so that my mom would be living in her old home with Edward, if only for one night. But then again, Joe thinks my mom is the reason the sun comes up in the morning, and he would do anything to make sure she doesn’t have to set foot in that house again, and face all those memories of my father.

It also means that the next morning, when Danny Boyle comes to get me, my mom is down at the end of the block with the twins waiting for their school bus, and completely unaware that the snazzy silver BMW that zips by her and around the corner is about to pull into her very own driveway.

I get into Danny Boyle’s car, and he looks at me. “What the hell are you wearing?”

Immediately, I realize I’ve made a mistake. I wanted to look nice for court-I mean, aren’t you supposed to?-but the fanciest dresses I have are the strapless one I wore to my spring formal and a hot pink, shoulder-padded number I was forced to wear at Joe’s sister’s Bring Back the ’80s theme wedding. My mother had insisted on hemming it to the knee, so that I could wear it again, although the only place I could ever imagine wearing something like that again is at a Saved by the Bell reunion costume party.

“You look like a Pat Benatar fan club refugee,” Danny says.

“Very good guess,” I reply, impressed. I buckle my seat belt and shade my face with my hand as we drive by my mother at the bus stop.

“I take it your mother has no idea you’re doing this today,” Danny says.

My guess is that my mother will be too busy championing my brother, wherever he is, to even notice I’ve left the confines of my room.

“Here’s what you need to understand,” he continues. “You’re the one who wants this to be a murder charge, and that means it has to meet all three criteria. Malice, premeditation, and intent to kill. We don’t have to prove those to a grand jury, but we have to be able to point to the dots so that they can connect them. If you don’t have all three dots, it’s not murder. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

I look at him. It’s not what he’s saying, it’s what he’s not saying that’s important. “I’ll do whatever you need me to do as long as it keeps my father alive.”

He glances at me and nods, satisfied.

“Can I ask you something?” I say. “What made you change your mind?”

“I got a call from my sister yesterday. She was all upset because of something that happened at work.” He flexes his hand on the steering wheel. “Turns out a man went nuts in his dad’s hospital room-the same hospital room where she was stationed at the ventilator.” He glances at me. “She’s the nurse your brother shoved out of the way.”

I guess I’m expecting a richly paneled courtroom, with a high bench that has a white-haired judge presiding. I’m pretty surprised to find out that, instead, a grand jury is a small clot of ordinary people in jeans and sweaters sitting around a table in a room with no windows.

Immediately I try to pull my sweater over my too-fancy pink dress.

There’s a tape recorder on the table, which makes me even more nervous, but I focus on Danny Boyle’s face, just like he told me to do. “This is Cara Warren,” he announces to the little group. “Does anyone know the witness?”

The people clustered around the table shake their heads. One, a woman with a blond pageboy that angles toward her chin, reminds me of one of my teachers. She stands up and holds out a Bible. “Can you raise your right hand…,” she says, before she realizes my right arm is in a sling. There is a bit of uneasy laughter around the table. “Can you raise your left hand and repeat after me…”

This part is just like on television: I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.

“Cara,” Danny says, “state your name and address, please.”

“Cara Warren. Forty-six Statler Hill, Beresford, New Hampshire,” I answer.

“Who do you live with?”

“My dad. Until a week ago.”

The county attorney gestures at me. “We can see that you’ve got your arm in a sling-what happened?”

“My father and I were in a serious car accident a week ago,” I explain. “I broke my scapula. My dad’s been unconscious since then.”

“In a coma?”

“A vegetative state, that’s what the doctors call it.”

“Do you have any other family?”

“My mom-she’s remarried now. And my brother, who I haven’t seen in six years. He lives in Thailand, but when my dad got hurt, my mom called him up and he came back home.”

“What’s your relationship with your brother?” Danny asks.

“What relationship,” I say flatly. “He left and he didn’t want to talk to any of us after that.”

“How long has your father been in the hospital?”

“Eight days.”

“What is the doctors’ prognosis for your father?”

“It’s too early to tell anything,” I say. Because really, isn’t it?

“Have you and your brother discussed your father’s situation?”

All of a sudden my stomach feels as empty as a pocket. “Yes,” I say, and even though I don’t want to, I can feel my eyes welling with tears. “My brother just wants this to be over. He thinks the outcome isn’t going to change. But me, I want to keep my dad alive long enough to prove him wrong.”

“Has your father contacted your brother during the six years he’s been in Thailand?”

“No,” I say.

“Does he ever talk about your brother?”

“No. They had a big fight, which is why my brother left.”

“Have you been in touch with your brother, Cara?” Danny asks.

“No.” I look at one of the members of the jury. She is shaking her head. I wonder if she’s reacting to Edward leaving, or to me not contacting him.

“Now,” the county attorney says, “yesterday you told me about something very upsetting.”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell the ladies and gentlemen of the grand jury what happened?”

Danny and I had practiced this in the car. Sixteen times, actually. “My brother made a decision to terminate my father’s life support-without asking for my opinion. I found out by accident, and ran downstairs to my father’s hospital room.” I can hear, as clearly as if it’s happening now, the alarm that sounded as my brother pulled that plug. “There were doctors and nurses and a lawyer from the hospital and other people I didn’t recognize, all gathered around my father’s bed. My brother was there, too. I yelled at them to stop, to not kill my father-and everyone backed away. Everyone except my brother, anyway. He bent down, pretending like he was catching his breath, and he yanked the plug of the ventilator out of the wall.”

I hesitate, looking around the table. The faces of the jurors might as well be balloons, they are that smooth and unemotional. I suddenly remember what Danny said in the car, about the three criteria of murder. Premeditation, intent to kill, and malice. It’s clear that my brother had planned this, or all those doctors and nurses wouldn’t have been convened. It’s equally clear that he wanted to kill my father. It’s malice that’s the sticking point.

I think about being sworn to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. But then again, it wasn’t like I raised my right hand. I couldn’t, logistically. So maybe the way I was sworn in is the equivalent of crossing your fingers behind your back when you tell your mom a white lie-that you’ve brushed your teeth, that you walked the dog, that you didn’t put the empty milk carton back in the fridge.

It’s not really a lie, is it, if the ends justify the means? If, because of it, my father has a chance to get better? By the time everyone finds out I embellished the truth, I will have bought my father a few more hours, a few more