After (35 page)

Devon shakes her head. “Mom, stop.” She feels a tear form in the corner of her eye.
Can’t you see?
she wants to say.
I couldn’t even tell myself.

Her mom makes a tortured groan, a frightening sound. She drops Devon’s hand then, like it’s burned her, and pulls it back toward herself, rubbing it with the other.

“Am I that huge of a failure? Huh? Did I screw up
that bad
?”

Devon shakes her head again. She feels the one tear slide down her face, from the corner of her eye down to her chin. “Please, Mom. Don’t. . . .”

“I mean, I was
there
. You know? I was right there, Devon! I’ve been pregnant and scared; don’t you think I know all about that? Don’t you think I know how trapped you felt? How afraid?” She pounds the table with her fist. “
Me
, Devon! Me, of all people, would know. Why couldn’t you trust me?”

Devon watches all of this drama unfolding in front of her, the huge dramatic production that is her mom. It always ends the same way for Devon, the clash of conflicted emotions—feelings of guilt and annoyance, anger and sadness. Helplessness.

Devon wants to shake her mom, wants to scream:
Don’t you get it, Mom? For once in your life? This isn’t about you!

An image forms in Devon’s mind then—a pretty blonde girl, the girl her mom had once been, sitting in some dark room, alone. Her arms around her waist, hugging herself. A small bulge under her sweatshirt.

The realization smacks Devon hard. She sucks in her breath.

The small bulge was
her.

That small bulge was Devon.

Devon watches as her mom takes in a wobbly breath, wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “I mean, we have a good relationship. Don’t we, Devon?”

Devon lets her breath out slowly.

“We talk about things. Right? Important things?”

Devon presses her lips together.

“Please tell me that we talk about important things, Devon.
Please
.”

Devon closes her eyes. She wipes away her one tear. “You asked why couldn’t I tell you,” Devon finally whispers. “I don’t know the answer, Mom. I just don’t know.” She opens her eyes, looks at her mom. Devon can feel her lips quiver now. “It wasn’t really you.” She swallows. “It was . . .
me
.”

“Oh, Devon.” Her mom sounds defeated. “What could I have done differently? Huh? I keep asking myself that. Over and over and over.” She rubs at her forehead. “Sitting in the courtroom all morning, listening to everything. And your attorney, that Barcellona woman, pointing out that I . . . because I let that detective into our apartment—” She starts crying again. “You don’t know how hard this is for me. Because it’s my fault that you’re—”

She obviously hadn’t heard anything that Devon said. “Mom, it’s
not
your—”

“No, it is!” Devon’s mom shouts. “Your attorney is right. Because you wouldn’t even
be
here if it wasn’t for me!”

The door opens.

Both Devon and her mom turn toward it.

Dom is standing in the doorway. She quickly surveys the scene before her.

“I knocked,” Dom says. “I guess you didn’t hear it.” She looks closely at Devon, then at Devon’s mom, and back again to Devon. “I’m very sorry to interrupt, but it’s almost time to return to the courtroom. And we really have to—”

“Yes.” Devon’s mom quickly stands. “Yes, of course.” She rummages through the Subway bag for another napkin. Blows her nose. “See you soon, hon.” She tries a smile at Devon. “And eat your sandwich.”

When she’s gone, Dom takes the seat across from Devon. “Everything okay? Things looked pretty intense.”

“Yeah,” Devon says. “They kind of were.”

“Yeah.” Dom rests her chin on her hand, doodles on the tabletop with a fingertip. “Well, I don’t think I’m going to call your mom to testify today, after all.” She pauses. “Not after what I just saw in here. I can’t have her up there crying and saying unpredictable things. This hearing is too important. We can’t risk it, Devon. I’m sorry.”

Devon shrugs, studies the tabletop.

What could I have done differently?
her mom had asked.

Could
her mom have done something differently? Was she capable of being a different sort of person? A sort of person who Devon could talk to about important things, about scary things? Grown-up things, even? A person who Devon could depend upon?

But, more important, what about her? What about Devon? Could she have done something—anything—differently?

“You do understand,” Dom is saying. “Don’t you?”

Knowing about herself then what she knows now, would she have done anything differently?

“Devon?”

Would
she?

“I hope so,” Devon says. She looks up, then. Whispers, “Yes.”

“The defense calls Ms. Henrietta Apodaca.”

Devon watches as Henrietta marches up to the front and raises her right hand, just like all the other witnesses have done today. She nods her head solemnly as she answers Judge Saynisch’s query: Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

“Please state your name for the record,” Dom says when Henrietta is seated on the witness stand.

“Henrietta Fernanda Apodaca.”

“And, Ms. Apodaca, please state your current occupation.”

Devon listens as Henrietta tells the courtroom in her crusty lilting tone all about her role as a detention officer at the Remann Hall Juvenile Detention Facility. That she’s been working on the security side there for twelve years. That she’s been with Unit D, currently the only female unit out of a total of eight, for just over a year. That she mainly works the night shift, but this past week, she’s also worked days. “I sometimes do doubles—okay?—to help pay the bills,” she says.

“Devon has been a resident at Remann Hall for the past eight days, Ms. Apodaca,” Dom says. “During this relatively short time, have you had the opportunity to observe her?”

“Yes, I have. Okay?”

“And what has been your impression of her? Her behavior, her interaction with the other residents?”

“Well, first I want to say”—Henrietta shifts in her seat so that she can maintain direct eye contact with the judge—“that I was asked by that defense attorney over there”—she jerks her head in Dom’s direction—“to write a letter for this hearing, but I refused. And I’ll tell you why, okay? I insisted on coming in here to speak to you in person, okay? I requested it. So, know that this is a voluntary thing with me, okay?”

Henrietta
requested
to come to court and speak? Rather than write a letter? Why?

Henrietta turns back to Dom. “The second thing I want to say is that Devon is a girl who I think should stay in the juvenile system. I’ve been around here a long time, and I’ve seen a lot of different kids come in and out of this place, okay? Some in more than out.”

Devon thinks of Karma then. She’s one of those “in more than out” kids. And not just at Remann Hall, but other places, too. Private inpatient facilities, counseling centers, rich kid rehab ranches, boot camps. Jenevra had cornered Devon on Saturday night when Devon was crossing the common area, coming back from her shower, and told her everything she knew. That Karma’s dad got sick of spending so much money and nothing ever working. So, one day, he just decided to cut Karma off financially, and Karma’s been either on the street or in detention since. Devon wonders if Karma’s dad will just give up on her altogether someday. Devon hopes that he won’t. Her thoughts shift then to the other people who Dom asked to appear today. Soon Devon must watch them take the witness stand. Must look into their faces and hear their voices. Devon takes a breath, lets it out slowly. She hopes that they haven’t given up on her, either.

“Thank you, Ms. Apodaca,” Dom says. “But could you speak specifically about Devon’s behavior since she’s arrived at Remann Hall?”

“Well, she has only been here just over a week, okay? And already the staff decided to bump her up to Honor status. In fact, they decided that this morning, okay? In all my time working here, I can’t remember any resident who has been able to do that, okay?”

As she speaks, Devon notices that Henrietta does her head-bob nod around the courtroom, as if she’s sitting there inspecting the cleanliness of everyone present, and whether they have properly aligned their pencils beside their pads of paper.

“Devon is a special sort of young lady, okay?” Henrietta says.

Someone actually thinks that she’s special? Even after everything that’s happened? Henrietta is a staff here. She must know, at least some of the details. And still?

Devon feels her eyes burning. Somewhere inside herself, maybe it’s inside her heart, she feels a tiny drop of hope take hold.

“Has Devon had any visitors since arriving at Remann Hall?” Dom asks.

“None other than you, her attorney.”

“No family members, Ms. Apodaca?”

“No. None.”

Family members.
No, it’s family
member
, singular. Devon’s one and only, her mom.

Devon thinks about what her mom had just told her in the conference room, that when she took off, she’d gone back to Spokane to see her own mother, Devon’s grandmother. Devon wonders how that scene went down. Did she just walk up the steps to the house where she grew up and knock? Or did she call first? Agree to meet at a neutral place, like the nearest IHOP? When they first saw each other, was the conversation stilted? Or did they just hug each other and cry?

And that visit to Spokane and whatever happened there, is that what had prompted her mom to try to see IT? The . . . baby? Did she feel guilty, was that what inspired her? Because her own mother in Spokane never got the chance to see
her
baby? Never got to see Devon?

Then in Devon’s mind, the dots connect.

You wouldn’t even
be
here if it wasn’t for me!

Her mom had screamed that fact in the conference room. Dom had entered then, disrupting the trajectory, and Devon hadn’t had the chance to fully digest it.

Her mom had meant to lift some of Devon’s culpability, that’s why she’d said it.

You wouldn’t even
be
here if it wasn’t for me!

Devon wouldn’t
be
here. In a rush, she grasps the significance.

Her mom intended to take some of the blame, but what she’d done instead was add to it.

Not “here” as in the courtroom, but
here.
Period.

Devon covers her mouth with her hand. Bites down. If she doesn’t, she might scream.

Dom is still up there, questioning Henrietta. They’re discussing the self-paced program the staff would like to implement for Devon, so she won’t fall behind in her academics.

Dom wouldn’t be happy, seeing Devon like this. She’d expect her to stay composed.

Devon tries to shove the distracting thoughts away, but they stubbornly remain.

For so long, Devon realizes, she had lived trying not to be her mom. Anytime she would recognize some “Mom” trait in her own life, Devon would immediately squelch it. But as immature and insecure, as man-crazy and self-centered as her mom could be, she had at least kept Devon. She’d run away from Spokane and the life she knew, but at least she’d changed Devon’s diapers, had fed her bottles. Zipped her into pajamas at night, woke in the wee hours when Devon had cried and maybe even tried to comfort her, sing her back to sleep. Her mom would have had to, or Devon would never have survived.

Her mom had left Devon sometimes, frightened and alone in the apartment, while she’d partied or hooked up with some loser guy. But her mom hadn’t scooped Devon into a trash bag and dumped her in a container full of garbage. She hadn’t wished that Devon was dead.

Is that what Devon had wanted? For the baby that came out of her to die?

The picture comes back—the round little face, blood sprinkled. The opened mouth, screaming. The flailing arms and legs. The billowing black trash bag.

Devon turns around, looks behind her at the gallery. Scans the row of people. Finally, she finds her, there on the end near the exit to the courtroom. She’s examining the nails of her left hand. With the other, she’s twirling a strand of blonde hair.

Her mom. She should’ve told her, Devon knows this now. Her mom is imperfect and mostly ridiculous and totally self-absorbed, but she’s the only mom Devon has. Dom was so right; Devon never once gave her mom the chance to step up, to finally be the sort of person she always should’ve been.

When Devon turns back around, Dom’s walking back to their table. An expression of concern crosses Dom’s face, an eyebrow raised in question.

Devon quickly pulls her hand from her mouth, shakily places it in her lap. How could she have blown it so badly?

Dom whispers, “What’s wrong?” as she slips into her chair.

Devon shakes her head. “Nothing.”

“Okay,” Dom whispers back. “Stay focused. I’m counting on you.”

Mr. Floyd is telling the judge that he has no questions for the witness.

Devon pulls her yellow legal pad toward herself. Writes,
Just thinking about my mom.
Slides it over to Dom. Waits while she reads it.

Think about your mom later
, is Dom’s response.

“The defense calls Mr. Mark Dougherty.”

Devon stares down at the tabletop while her coach moves to the front of the courtroom and raises his right hand. Sweat pricks down her spine, under her arms. She can feel his eyes on her, that sensation of being watched. She can’t raise her eyes though, can’t muster up the courage to look at him.

When
was
the last time that she’d seen him? She closes her eyes, thinks back.

It was a day shortly after the opening weekend of State Cup, Devon remembers. Her team had lost one of the three games in pool play and so probably wouldn’t make it to the quarter finals, a huge disappointment, considering they’d played in the finals just last year, losing only 0-1. The goal scored against Devon had been a fluke, hitting her net in the last minutes of the game.