Chương 13
Hale’s attorney returned to his table without asking another question.
The jury deliberated for three days.
On the second evening, Chloe asked Gavin what would happen if Hale was acquitted.
They sat at his kitchen table with the blue music box between them. Gavin had replaced the spring, but the spindle still caught after half a turn.
“Hale going free wouldn’t make me guilty again,” he said.
“Would you be mad?”
“Yes.”
“Would you do something?”
“What kind of something?”
“I don’t know. A bad something.”
Gavin set down the screwdriver.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve spent too much time letting fear decide what happens next.”
“That doesn’t mean you stopped.”
He looked at her.
“No,” he said. “It doesn’t.”
Chloe turned the tiny brass key over in her fingers. The state had returned it after the hearings. A piece of clear evidence tape remained near the teeth.
“I keep it in my backpack.”
“That seems risky.”
“You kept a crime book in a wall.”
“Fair point.”
“Can I wear it on a necklace?”
“It might get lost.”
“Everything gets lost.”
Gavin had no response.
The next morning, the jury found Owen Hale guilty of murdering Eli Mercer, tampering with evidence and arranging false testimony.
Hale remained expressionless while the verdicts were read.
Then he turned toward Gavin.
For five years Gavin had imagined that moment. In some versions Hale looked afraid. In others he apologized, confessed or collapsed beneath the weight of being seen.
Instead he looked tired.
Gavin felt no triumph. He felt the old pull toward a simpler story: Hale as monster, Gavin as victim, the verdict as balance.
Janice reached for Gavin’s hand.
Her fingers were cold.
“That’s it?” she whispered.
The question contained no relief.
Gavin squeezed her hand once.
“No,” he said.
After the sentencing, Janice invited Gavin and Chloe to Eli’s grave.
They went on a windy Sunday afternoon. Chloe carried grocery-store flowers. Gavin carried nothing.
Janice knelt to clear leaves from the marker.
“He hated cut flowers,” she said. “Said they were plants with a deadline.”
Chloe looked at the bouquet. “Should I take them back?”
“No. He also complained when people didn’t bring any.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“That was Eli.”
Gavin stood with his hands in his coat pockets.
The cemetery overlooked a six-lane road. Traffic hissed beyond the trees. Someone nearby operated a leaf blower despite the wind.
Janice placed the flowers against the stone.
“You should tell him,” she said.
Gavin knew what she meant.
He stepped closer.
“I’m sorry” had been rehearsed so many times in prison that it no longer belonged to the moment. He looked at Eli’s name, the dates, the narrow line between them.
“I should have gone with you Monday morning,” he said. “I should have told the truth while you were alive to hear it.”
Wind lifted Chloe’s hair across her face.
Gavin continued. “I kept the company. I kept the ledger. I kept my reputation for about two more days. That’s what I traded you for.”
Janice turned away.
Chloe put the brass key on top of the marker.
Gavin noticed only when they reached the car.
“Your key.”
“I left it.”
“You said you wanted it on a necklace.”
“I changed my mind.”
“It belongs to the box.”
“The box opens without it now.”
Gavin had replaced the old lock while repairing the mechanism. The key was no longer necessary.
Still, he looked back toward the grave.
“Are you sure?”
Chloe climbed into the car.
“Yes.”
He did not retrieve it.
Two years after the execution morning, Gavin received primary custody.
There was no celebration outside the family court. Elena handed him a folder of school records, medical forms and instructions about an orthodontist appointment. Nora cried in the parking garage, then told Gavin she was not crying and demanded that Chloe call every night.
Gavin’s apartment was still too small.
Chloe’s books occupied the hallway. Her shoes appeared under chairs as if they were moving around on their own. She disliked the dinner Gavin cooked on Tuesdays and ate it anyway when he stopped asking whether she liked it.
Some nights he checked the door lock six times.
Some nights Chloe woke from the empty-phone dream.
They did not always tell each other.
The blue music box sat on a shelf above the kitchen table. Gavin had repaired the spring, replaced the missing dancer with a small brass bird and polished the chipped enamel only enough to remove the sharp edges.
The melody still wavered on the final note.
One evening Chloe wound it while doing math homework.
“You fixed it wrong,” she said.
“I fixed it mostly.”
“The last note is flat.”
“The last note has character.”
“It’s flat.”
Gavin stood at the stove heating tomato soup. He had worked late replacing a burst pipe and still wore his gray maintenance shirt.
“Your mother would have said the same thing.”
“That it had character?”
“That I fixed it wrong.”
Chloe looked at the turning brass bird.
“Do you miss her?”
“Yes.”
“Even when you’re mad?”
“Yes.”
“I’m still mad too.”
Gavin stirred the soup.
“Good.”
She frowned. “Good?”
“You don’t have to stop being mad to prove you loved her.”
The music slowed.
Chloe reached to wind it again, then changed her mind.
A car passed outside. Upstairs, a child ran across the floor while someone called for him to put on pajamas. The soup began bubbling along the edge of the pot.
“Dad?”
Gavin turned down the burner.
“What?”
“Leave the hall light on tonight.”
“You’ve got school in the morning.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
He looked toward the narrow hallway leading to her room.
“All night?”
“Yes.”
“It wastes electricity.”
“I know.”
He carried two bowls to the table and switched on the hall light.
Chloe watched him do it.
The music box reached its uneven final note and stopped. Neither of them wound it again.
May you like
After dinner, Gavin washed the bowls while Chloe complained about fractions. The hall light remained on behind them, casting a warm rectangle across the floor, and when Gavin checked the lock before bed, he checked it only once.
:::
