The Second Trial (12 page)

He stayed outside until Mom called him for dinner. While Danny ate, Catherine pushed dishes around the cupboards and wiped the already clean sink. Finally, she turned and leaned against the counter, her palms beside her for support.

“I'm sorry, Danny. I'm so sorry.” The corners of her mouth twitched downward as her lips trembled.

He wanted to yell.
Don't cry. Why are you crying! Why is all this
happening to me?
But he could see the pain in her face and he knew it was the same pain he felt.

“Where's Jen?” he asked gruffly, scraping his chair back.

“She's…she's gone downstairs. She's watching a movie,” she replied, not resisting his attempt to keep her from making yet another sad, impossible apology.

Jennifer's plate sat on the downstairs table. She'd eaten her sandwich center and left the crusts. Smudged fingerprints and greasy crumbs clung to the side of the empty milk glass. The TV was playing a Disney movie. Her fingers were corkscrewing a lock of hair.

They needed to talk, but he didn't know how to start. Most of the time, they had nothing much to say to each other. They'd kept their distances, and since December, they'd drifted even further apart. At home he preferred his own company, and at Grandma and Grandpa's he immersed himself in comic books while Jen played hopscotch with the neighborhood kids. He was alternately ashamed of and furious with his parents – how could Dad do that? How could Mom let him? Soon, cold anger surged over shame and drove him into his room with the door slammed shut behind him.

But since the trial, the ground had shifted again. As often as he had been angry, he was also now worried – worried about his dad in jail, worried that his mom wasn't the strong, happy mother he'd always known, and worried about himself, his life and his future. Today in the NIVA conference room, his worry had included Jen. She was embroiled in this mess just as much as he was. And, if they moved, if this
thing
happened to them, what family would he have left?

He slung himself into the armchair. For the first five minutes or so, he said nothing, his eyes on the screen but his mind rehearsing what he was going to say.

“Jen.”

“What?”

“This move…do you wanna move?”

She looked at him. He kept his eyes on the screen.
When
you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are…
Jen had the remote in her hand, but didn't mute the volume.

“No,” she answered.

He paused. “We have to figure out a way to stop it.”

Like a bolt out of the blue, fate steps in and sees you through…

“What're you gonna do?” she asked. “Run away again?”

The words stung and he felt his blood rise to his cheeks as he glared at his sister. “Isn't that what they're saying our whole family should do? What? D'you buy all that stuff they said? You really
believe
that Dad'll kill Mom?”

Jennifer looked at her brother, her face rigid. “Dad's been mean to me, too.”

He jerked back. “Mean? What are you talking about,
mean
?”

“Like Mom said. He'd yell at me. He'd tell me I was an idiot. He never let me play on any teams. He…called me names.”

“You've been talking to Mom.”

“She didn't know. I didn't tell her until after Dad went to jail.”

Danny's eyes narrowed. “So he was mean to you. So he called you names. I bet he never hit you. So what?”

It was her turn to get angry. “How would you know?! It was always
Danny-boy
this!
Danny-boy
that! Sports and fishing and all kinds of stuff, that's what
you
were doing.” She jabbed a finger at her brother. “You didn't even
notice
me, I just got left behind!” Her eyes leaked tears, and she lashed out. “He was even mean to the dog! I saw him! He kicked Buddy for no reason – more than once!” Jennifer leapt from the couch and sobbed her way upstairs.

He sat, stunned and alone
.

Danny turned off the TV and went up to his room. He was overwhelmed and had trouble accepting what he'd just heard and what it meant for him. He closed his eyes. Last night's fragmented sleep in the shelter felt like it had happened in a past life, and he hadn't had any rest since then. He flipped his pillow, searching for a comfortable spot, then shoved it over his head and tried to will himself to sleep.

It didn't work. He lay there, thoughts swirling around in the air, his mind gearing up again, trying to piece together these new bits of information. Jen said that Dad had been mean to her, but he'd never seen it and he hoped it hadn't happened. But now, as he thought back, he could see that maybe she
had
been discouraged, even excluded, while he was busy enjoying, but not sharing, his time with Dad. Dad and Jen weren't together often, but maybe during those times, Dad
had
been mean to her. And Buddy
had
shied away from Dad. Just because you don't see something, doesn't mean it didn't happen.

He stared up at the glow-in-the dark stars glued to his ceiling. They came from the gift shop in the Space Sciences Center. Grandma and Grandpa had taken him and Jen there to see the star show in the planetarium. Back home, they had spread out the star chart on Danny's bed and sticky-tacked the stars to the ceiling. Now that he thought about it, that was around the time they stopped visiting their grandparents so much. He'd wanted to see them more, but Dad always said it interfered with something he had planned. And Dad's promises to get together with Grandma and Grandpa “next weekend” had been easily made and easily forgotten. Somehow, those facts were the same, but their meanings now shifted from ordinary and regular to planned and deliberate, from innocent to sinister. If Dad could beat up Mom and be mean to Jen and kick Buddy, what else might he do?

The stars still clung to the ceiling above him, Polaris centered over his bed, Ursa Minor above and Ursa Major off to the left. And, farther off, his own astrological sign. “You're a Gemini, Danny-boy – the Heavenly Twins. They say it's a good sign for a boy – Pollux and Castor were heroes who went on daring adventures and had the power to calm the seas,” Grandma had said, her fingers stroking under his chin.

And there was Perseus who killed the snake-headed Medusa and rescued Andromeda from the sea monster Cetus. “They're all above you in the night sky,” Grandma said. “Family dramas, great stories of love and loss, honor and betrayal. And a thousand years from now, Orion will still be hunting with his two dogs.”

Grandma and Grandpa. They'd been crying in the backyard. They
knew
. And they weren't crying about the past, they were crying about what was still to come. So they knew. They knew he was going to have a new identity. They knew his family was going to relocate.

And now
Danny
knew that he might never see them again.

Chapter 19

Thursday

A rare summer-morning thunderstorm startled him awake. The smooth sound of rain ceded to the drumming of hail. Danny was disoriented. He looked at his alarm clock – 8:00 a.m. He'd been asleep for hours, yet he still felt groggy, as if his head were wrapped in gauze. His sinuses were congested and the right side of his face was crusty with snot and salt. At some point, he must have cried himself to sleep last night. He grabbed a fistful of bedsheet and wiped his eyes.

His mom knocked on his door and he immediately stopped moving. She opened it a crack and called gently to her son. “It's time to get up.” A little louder. “Danny.”

She stepped inside. “I'm going to open the window, okay?”

He pretended to be asleep. She slid open the window and the fresh smell of ozone flooded the room. She gazed down at him. His entire blanket was tangled around him. The loose limbs of sleep had already tightened, and it was clear he was awake. “Come downstairs when you're dressed,” she said. “We have company.”

Phil was in the kitchen sipping coffee from Dad's favorite mug. His large frame spilled over the sides of the wooden kitchen chair and only one wide finger fit through the mug handle. Danny remained in the doorway even after Phil suggested he sit.

“I'm here to help you sort through some of your things,” he said, as if it were just another routine task. “I'm going to bring the suitcases up from the basement, and then you have to…pack.”

Danny stayed in the doorway.

Phil tilted his head and looked at him. “Would you like me to explain it now…or would you rather talk about it in your room?”

Danny spun on his heel and walked away. The neighbors could have heard his bedroom door slam.

He tumbled onto the bed, clenched his fists, and fixed his eyes on the stars. He was still rigid ten minutes later when Phil came up the stairs.

“Hey, Danny, can I come in?”

When the boy didn't reply, Phil gently turned the knob and entered. He held a suitcase in each hand and placed them beside the desk. “We could pop these on the bed and I could give you a hand.”

Danny didn't move.

“Okay,” Phil said after a pause. He moved a pile of clothes to the desk, and sat on the chair facing the boy.

“Let me tell you how this is going to work. You don't need to say anything, but you do need to listen.”

I wish I were deaf.

“You need to take the things you want for the next few weeks – say, until the end of September. Clothes, books, shoes, your sports equipment, that sort of thing. And any of your personal stuff that doesn't identify you. So,” he said, “you can take pictures, trophies, ribbons and your sports stuff as long as they don't have team names – or your name – on them.

“And – no pictures of your father. You have to leave anything that identifies you, and anything that doesn't fit in these two suitcases. No school books, birthday cards, letters – no diaries, if you ever kept them.”

He cleared his throat. “Dr. Sung and I had a meeting with your grandparents. You're going to see them soon and you can ask questions, but I'll give you an idea about how they're going to help.

“In a week or so after you move out of this house, they're going to come in and sort through everything. They'll organize and box all the things you'll need later – winter clothes, toys, games, souvenirs, your stereo, and some kitchen things – as much as possible, as long as it doesn't identify you. We'll put it in storage, and in a couple of months we‘ll deliver it to your new house – the program has an untraceable way to get it to you. It's important that we prevent your grandparents from being too involved.”

Danny sat up and narrowed his eyes. “And the stuff that
does
identify us? What's going to happen to it?”

“Your sports awards, family photos, scrapbooks, cards, letters, all those sorts of things – your grandma and grandpa will take them and keep them safe.”

“For how long?” Danny challenged.

Phil looked at the floor for a moment. “We can't know the future, Danny.” He stood and pushed the chair under the desk. “I'm going now. Take some time to pack your things. Don't leave it – it'll take longer than you think.” He paused. “Sgt. Sandhu's coming by this afternoon. You've got one more thing to take care of.”

The knock was firm.

“Go away,” Danny said.

“It's me. Open the door,” Sgt Sandhu said.

“Leave me alone.”

“We need to talk.”

How many times have I heard those words in the last week?

“Danny, please. One of the things we need to talk about is… Buddy.”

Buddy?

“Danny. Open up.”

Danny dislodged the chair from its place under the doorknob. When Danny didn't open the door, the police officer turned the handle. Buddy nosed it open and wiggled into the room. He smacked his nose against Danny's legs.

Automatically, the boy reached down to scratch the dog's head. “Hi, Buddy-boy,” he said tenderly.

“Can I come in?”

Danny said nothing. He returned to the bed, the dog contentedly flopping at his feet.

Sgt. Sandhu straddled the chair. “Buddy can go with you to the new place, but we need to take out his microchip. It can be used to identify him and lead to you.”

Danny had never even considered that Buddy was one of the puzzle pieces that might not fit into the new picture. This was getting more and more unreal.

“We've called the vet and she has one appointment open later today. I think you should come.”

“Buddy doesn't like the vet.”

“That's why I said you should come.”

“I don't understand what's happening!” He leapt up and startled the dog.

“It's our only option.”

“But the judge said no one had
proved
that Dad would ever do anything to Mom. You never
proved
it!”

“In our legal system there's a difference between what
is
true and what can be
proven
to be true. We don't have enough hard evidence to satisfy a judge, and judges decide cases based on evidence, not just on the truth.”

“
That's
justice?”

“Well, it may not seem fair to you or to your family, but yes, that's the way our justice system works. There have to be rules and we all have to follow them, even if we don't like them. I'm sorry Danny, I'm not a lawyer, and I can't explain it better. Domestic violence is a very difficult kind of crime, and the criminal law doesn't always deal with it very effectively.”

Danny paced the room. Buddy watched him and whined.

Sgt. Sandhu rose. “It's time. We have to take Buddy to the vet.”

“No.”

“Danny, I'm sorry –”

“How many times am I going to hear ‘I'm sorry'? Sorry doesn't
fix
anything!”

“You're right. It doesn't fix a thing. But it's honest.” He paused. “This relocation has to go ahead.
That's
not a decision you get to make. But you do have a choice to make here, now, about Buddy. Either you come with me to the vet, or I take him on my own, or…he can't go with you.”