* * *
A thousand miles from that courthouse, Robin found the yellow flower from a rabbitbrush and brought it back. Duchess helped him flatten it, then pin it to their board, beside Jet. She placed an arm around him, her mind elsewhere. Rick Tide had begun again, trying for a rise, a kid that did not know when to quit. He’d spit on her back, told her that was from Mary Lou. She’d gone to the bathroom and washed her shirt, thought of Walk and how he’d told her to be good.
That evening after they ate Duchess took Robin out to the swing set in the big garden and pushed him before a sun that sat blazing beyond the trees. He squinted and smiled and she told him he was a prince.
Then she helped him ready for bed, brushed his teeth and read him a chapter from a story about a pig named Wilbur and a spider named Charlotte.
“He’s an emotional pig,” Robin said.
“He is.”
That night they said a prayer. Robin looked over to his sister and she made him close his eyes and steeple his fingers.
“Why did we pray tonight?” he asked.
“Just checking in.”
After he fell asleep she crept from the room. She passed the beds, the forgotten children slept, dead to the world for those precious hours when they could forget their place and occupy another.
The room in darkness, just the television glow. She flipped channels till she found the right news station, and watched as reporters gathered outside the courthouse.
She’d called Walk, collect, he sounded beat as he told her the jury would think on it, that they could come back anytime at all. She guessed it was soon.
Her mind ran to her mother, to the past year and all that came with it.
She turned and saw her brother standing in the doorway, his eyes fixed on her.
“You’re not in the bed.”
“Sorry.”
He walked over and sat beside her, and they watched scenes so distant it was hard to believe their connection.
They saw reporters fill, cut to commercials. In silence she sat and wondered what was on her brother’s mind. When they retuned they ran through the trial and detailed things they did and did not know about their mother and about Vincent King.
When the verdict flashed red she sat up, heart beating fast.
“What does it say?”
“They said he didn’t kill Mom.”
She watched, mouth slightly open, as the reporter found a juror. The man looked tired, but still managed a smile. He detailed the testimony of the Cape Haven Chief of Police. How the cop had found a break-in report that showed the suspected murder weapon, a gun once owned by the suspect’s father, could not have been in the possession of Vincent King. The jury had been on the fence, it gave them the out they needed.
She got a pain in her stomach then, so bad she pressed a fist to it. “Walk. What the fuck did you do, Walk?”
Robin nestled close and she kissed his head and questioned everything she thought she knew about the world. It had tilted on her again, the concept of truth, the implausibility of fair.
And then they saw him.
And Robin stood.
On the screen, accompanied by a small woman in a smart suit and Chuck Taylors, was Vincent King.
The room lit with the flash of the city’s camera. An innocent man being led to a waiting car.
“What is it?” she asked her brother.
He shook, his whole body trembled as he struggled for breath.
He began to cry as dark pooled and spread from his pants.
She dropped to her knees. “Robin. Talk to me.”
He shook his head, clenched his eyes closed tight.
“It’s alright. I’m here.”
“It’s him.” Breathless. Crying. “I remember.”
She cupped his face gently. “What do you remember?”
He stared past her, at the screen. “Vincent was in my bedroom. I remember what he said.”
She wiped his tears as he finally met her eye. “He told me he was sorry for what he’d done to Mom. He told me to say nothing or I’d regret it.” He closed his eyes and sobbed. She held him tight.
She led him back to the room, put him in the tub and showered him off, then dressed him in fresh pajamas and tucked him into the bed.
He slept.
And then she packed.
In her bag she found a photo of Star with them, one of so few, in their yard barefoot and laughing. She tacked it to the corkboard, along with a photo of Hal.
She cracked the blind to stars, and then took her seat at the foot of his bed, where she sat for night hours so long and quick as she recounted their time. She thought of his birth, first steps and words. All the ways he made her laugh. His first day of school, how she taught him to toss a football in their small yard.
She stayed till first light, he would not wake alone in the dark.
She pulled her bag to the door and propped it gently open.
Then she returned once more, and she held back her tears till she could no longer breathe, cursed herself and pulled at her hair like the mad girl she was. Had she a knife she would have cut herself
