WHEN I ARRIVE AT the courthouse the next morning, Caroline is waiting for me outside. “Still no snow,” she says. In her gloved hands she holds out a book. “Here, I brought this for you.”
I look at the cover as I take it from her; it has shades of sky blue with a series of white snowflakes printed in rows: Snow Crystals. “You brought this for me? To keep?”
She nods. “To keep, yes.”
“Why?”
“Well, your birthday’s coming up, isn’t it?”
I nod, wondering how much she really knows about us all—clearly more than we know about her.
“There you go. My father gave it to me for my tenth birthday. That edition’s from the sixties, but it was first published in 1931. Bentley,” she says, pointing to the name on the cover. “Snowflake Bentley, you ever heard of him?”
I shake my head and open the book—in the upper right-hand corner of the first page, in the kind of precise, neat, loopy cursive they used back then, blurred blue ink spells out: This book belongs to Caroline.
“He was a strange person—dedicated his whole life to photographing snowflakes. They’re in there, thousands of them. When I was ten, I wanted to grow up to be just like him. Life doesn’t always go as planned, though, does it?” she asks, but before I’ve had a chance to respond, she adds, “Well, shall we?”
We take our seats in the back row; this time we sit next to each other. We wait, our own silence drowning in the chatter that surrounds us. The air feels thicker today, denser, less open space for hope to breathe.
“Thank you,” I finally say, holding the book on my lap.
“You’re welcome.” It scares me that I’m starting to get used to the sound of her voice, her different facial expressions, that I could close my eyes right now and clearly picture what her face looks like when it’s smiling. Or maybe the scariest part is that I already can’t do that with Dad. It gets harder to remember his face every day.
Like yesterday, the guards bring Mom into the courtroom. She gives Aaron a small, sad smile. Mr. Clarence pulls out her chair again. But as she moves around to the other side of the table, she raises her head. She looks directly at me, then to my right, at Caroline. She freezes. Her face blanches. Her jaw drops open for a moment, then clenches tight. She feels her way into the chair, not taking her eyes off me until she’s seated.
She leans in toward Mr. Clarence. I see her mouth move—what the words are, I can’t tell—but she’s talking fast and gesturing with her hands. He turns and looks in my direction. Followed by Aaron and Jackie and Ray and Tony. They all stare at me—I’m not supposed to be here. I’m trespassing again. I’m tempted to stand up and shout out, I’m sorry. Only I’m not sorry. Not this time.
Mr. Clarence turns back toward her and talks with his mouth close to her ear. She’s shaking her head no, no, no. He whispers something to his assistant. Now Mom spins around and reaches out across the bar that separates the courtroom—the lawyers and my mom and the judge—from the regular people. She grabs Aaron’s hand, holding on so tight; she doesn’t say anything to him—she only nods. Then she looks at me once more, and even though her chin trembles and her mouth collapses, there’s something in her eyes—some new strength. Resolve, maybe. The guard is walking over to stop her from touching Aaron. But just then the judge comes in and everyone has to stand, then sit back down.
I hear Mr. Clarence’s voice: “Your Honor,” he says, “permission to approach the bench?”
Both Mr. Clarence and the prosecutor walk across the room to where the judge sits. The three of them talk in hushed tones. Then the judge steps down from behind the platform and enters a door in the back wall, Mr. Clarence and the other lawyer buttoning their jackets and following behind.
“What’s happening?” I say to no one in particular.
“I don’t know,” Caroline whispers back.
Aaron looks over his shoulder at me, an expression on his face I cannot name. I hold my hands up, palms facing the ceiling. What? I silently ask. He shakes his head: Don’t know. Next to me, Caroline fidgets, tapping the tip of her thumb against the tip of her ring finger, over and over.
“What’s happening?” I ask again. Except she doesn’t answer this time.
The buzz of whispers—of everyone asking everyone else what’s going on, why they went into the judge’s chambers—is deafening. I keep thinking the door is opening, but it isn’t. It’s my mind playing tricks. I close my eyes, trying to keep the hammers in my head from taking over completely. In my mind I try to recite things. True things. Facts that can’t be distorted the way my mind likes to distort things sometimes, especially things that shouldn’t change, like memories, like the truth, like time.
The state capitals—I go in geographic order, starting in the northeast and fanning out from there, but I get lost somewhere in the Midwest. Next I try the elements of the periodic table; I remember a song we learned in middle school: There’s hydrogen and helium . . . then lithium, beryllium . . . boron, carbon everywhere, nitrogen all through the air. But all that comes to a screeching halt because my eyes open. Caroline has her hand on my shoulder. Everyone is standing all around me.
“What—what’s happening? Is it over?” I ask.
“They’re clearing the courtroom. They’re asking everyone to leave. We have to go,” she tells me, standing and folding her big coat over her arm.
“But—” I begin.
“I know, but we have to do what they say right now.”
We file out of the room. I look back and I see Aaron and Jackie and Ray standing up as well. I try to see my mom, but everyone’s in the way. I struggle to find her face. I can only catch glimpses. It feels like she’s slipping away, being carried out by a high tide, only I’m the one who’s moving.
The hallway is packed with people, both sides of the room suddenly all mixed together, but then they disperse, thinning out gradually, breaking off into smaller groups. It reminds me of fire drills at school—there’s this panic and excitement and confusion in the air. I stand here with Caroline and wait for Aaron to find me. Finally I see him, walking toward me, finding breaks in the wall of bodies standing around, wagering guesses.
“Aaron, what’s happening?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not sure. I couldn’t hear everything she said.” He pauses and nods, an acknowledgment of Caroline’s presence.
Jackie and Ray find their way to us now. And suddenly it feels like it’s me and Caroline against the three of them. I feel like I’ve been caught consorting with the enemy. I take a small step away from her and she notices.
“I think . . .” Aaron stops himself, as if saying it will make it true. “I think she wants to change her plea.”
“Oh Lord.” Caroline breathes through the words, and I start to worry she might pass out, because she wobbles and puts her hand to her forehead. Jackie helps her over to one of the marble benches that line the hallway. As they sit there next to each other, Jackie puts her arm around Caroline, and though I can’t hear what she says, it seems like she’s trying to comfort her, like she’s forgiven whatever transgressions Caroline might have committed in the past.
We stand there in the middle of the hallway, me and Aaron, staring at our shoes. I would say something, but there are no words left, no more questions to ask, nothing else to know.