My father’s verdict came on a Tuesday. I’d just come into the teachers’ lounge for lunch. Mike, who taught math in the classroom next to mine, had his tablet open. A quick glance told me he was watching the news. Another glance told me it was news of my father’s case. No one else paid any attention. It was just another cop accused of a violent crime against a person of color. They’d played the footage from that night again and again until it felt as if I’d been there myself. I had, in a way. He’d been committing similar acts of degradation and physical intimidation to me all my life.
“A verdict’s come in on the Hanes case,” Mike said. He wore his straw-colored hair long but pulled into a bun on top of his head. Fixated on social justice, skiing, and craft beer in equal measures, Mike followed stories like this one and anything else that supported what he thought was the truth. As we all did, I supposed. No one ever changed their mind about something political by reading someone’s post on social media.
By now, the rest of the table had looked over at him. There were six of us who regularly ate our lunches at this time. Fifth period, as the kids call it, started at forty-five minutes after eleven. We had exactly thirty minutes to eat and relax before heading back into the thick of things. I had a hard job. But for some reason unknown to most, I loved every minute of it. High school students were sweet and confused with hormones that ruled most of their actions. Sometimes, I could get through the walls of insecurities and bravado to reach the child inside. Those were the good days.
At the far end of the table, two older women who had taught at Quinn Cooper High School for thirty years, Mrs. Rigby and Mrs. Sloane, rarely spoke to anyone but each other. From my assessment, they seemed interested in counting the days until they could retire and nothing else. They seemed to dislike our kids immensely. I could have been wrong, of course. I didn’t know them well. Other than a few snide remarks during lunch, they kept to themselves, as if afraid I’d corner them and start asking questions about how to survive teaching high school for three decades.
The principal’s secretary, Ms. Breen, was there as well. Rumors swirled that she was having an affair with our very married counselor, Mr. Knight, who was also present at the table. I wasn’t one for rumors and usually shut them down when I heard the kids talking about them. However, they were sitting close to each other. Did they play footsie or stroke each other’s thighs, thinking that no one could see, that no one suspected?
The room smelled of Mrs. Sloane’s fish sticks. They were strong enough to almost take away the scent of burned popcorn that seemed to permanently live in the small microwave. Sloane kept a box of what passed as fish in our community freezer and microwaved it for her lunch. I had no idea who burned the popcorn or even the frequency. For all I knew, it had been years and only the smell lingered. Anyway, I’d gotten used to it. Nose blindness is a real thing. My first month had been rough, though.
I sat down at the end of the table and braced myself for what was coming. It was a difficult act, this balance between pretending I had no personal investment in my father’s trial and maintaining the illusion that I was as interested as the rest of the country. No one knew who I was. Or where I’d come from. I’d taken my dead mother’s last name when I’d started college ten years ago. After the night my father almost killed me, I left and never looked back. Until now. I’d learned of my father’s crime the same way as everyone else. On television.
And God help me, they’d played that footage from the body camera over and over. Not that I needed a reminder. After seeing the tape the first time, I couldn’t stop seeing what he did, even when I closed my eyes. He would not be able to walk away from his destruction this time. The complaints—and I knew there had been many over the years against my father—could no longer be dismissed because of the cameras. Now the whole world knew the truth about Benji Hanes. I was of his flesh and bone. How could it be that I could not kill a spider while he loved to unleash power and violence on whomever he deemed worthless or weak?
I opened my plastic lunch box and waited, holding my breath, for news of my father’s fate.
“They found him guilty,” Mike said. “Sentencing will be later.”
My stomach seemed to fall hard and fast, like a runaway elevator, followed by tingling in my hands and feet. I’d expected it, but the flood of shame and anger was swift and harsh. Why? Why had he been this way? His father had been the same way. He’d learned how to hate from him.
I’d been spared. I took after my mother. She’d loved books and teaching school. All children and animals loved her, attracted to her gentleness and the way she would listen with her whole body to whoever was speaking to her. “Do no harm,” she used to say to me. After her death when I was ten, I’d learned to silently chant it as I became the target of my father’s rage. Without her to punch and kick, he’d turned to me.
A memory came out of nowhere. I’d been about fifteen and come home from a late-night soccer game to find him in the kitchen. His face had been red from drinking and his eyes fixed on me like a rabid dog. No, I told myself now. I would not think of him. I’d gotten away from him. I was safe.
“He’ll go to prison,” Ms. Breen said. She was a skinny woman in her forties. For lunch, she had what appeared to be a bag of lettuce with some shreds of carrots. Obviously, she liked the way she looked, but to me, she seemed artificially thin with skin that seemed stretched too tightly over her bones. Defying the laws of nature.
“I wonder what the sentence will be?” Knight shuddered. He wore his thinning hair cropped close. I was pretty sure he regularly spray-tanned. His skin was a shade lighter than rust. A color never seen in nature on a white guy. “A cop in prison. That’s not going to be pretty.”
I wanted to run away and not think of any of this. My father was sixty years old. I could see from the footage I’d accidentally caught that he’d aged much since his arrest and trial: sloped shoulders, pot belly, large bags under his eyes, and a puffy face. All that drinking and lack of sleep, I figured.
He seemed old and vulnerable.
No, don’t feel sorry for him, I ordered myself. He doesn’t deserve your pity.
“These idiots need to remember they’re on camera now,” Sloane said before biting into one of her fish sticks. Her black hair was streaked with white, reminding me of a skunk.
“How about they stop committing hate crimes instead?” Mike asked. His man-bun wobbled. Mike was passionate about social justice. He never let anyone forget it, either. Although I understood his feelings and beliefs, sometimes I wished he were less heavy-handed and self-righteous. Perhaps people would be able to take in what he said if he presented things with less rancor. Instead, he made people bristle with his didactic tone.
Should I pull out my own phone and look for the coverage? Did I want to see him that way? Led out of a courtroom in handcuffs to a jail cell? He deserved it, I reminded myself. For the crimes against Russel Johnson and the others he hadn’t had to answer for. And for me too, maybe. Without realizing I’d been doing it, I realized I was touching the scar on my neck. The one he’d given to me on the night of my high school graduation. The last one had been the worst.
Mrs. Rigby sniffed and looked over her skinny reading glasses at Mike. “Most cops are good. This isn’t a reason to hate them all.”
“I don’t hate anyone,” Mike said. “But I’m not sure I agree with you about most cops. Isn’t it the criminal-minded, the power-hungry, who decide to be cops? Men who crave violence?”
No one answered him. I suspected no one agreed with him, either. His venom for my father and what he’d done was obvious.
“Again, I don’t hate anyone,” Mike said. “But it’s a good day when justice is finally served.”
As for me, I did hate someone. My father. He’d taught me how to hate him with every punch and shove. Every time he locked me in my room and refused to feed me. But as any child raised by an abusive parent knows, it’s not that simple. The line between love and hate was always being tested. Flexed to see where the breaking point was.
I knew only that I was broken. In my brokenness, I’d found purpose. Every day was a chance to make a mark on the world through my students. I could see the ones in trouble. I couldn’t always save them, but I could try. Some of these kids had no one.
“You’re quiet, Darby,” Ms. Breene said. “What do you think?”
I scrambled to come up with an answer that wouldn’t give away how I trembled and my heart seemed to pump in my brain instead of my chest. How I wished I could be alone so I could cry for my father and for me and for the man he’d killed with his cruelty.
In the end, I chose to stick to the facts and leave all emotion out of my answer. “I think the case went to trial and twelve jurors believed he was guilty and now he’ll have to pay for what he did.”
“There’s no disputing it,” Knight said. “It was all in black and white, so to speak.”
Ms. Breene nodded with enthusiasm. “I agree one hundred percent. He was caught on tape. How would they have been able to find him not guilty?”
“They have before,” Mike said. “Many times.”
“Well, they didn’t this time,” I said, more dismissive than I meant. I reached into my lunch box and took out my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Not that I could eat. I’d be lucky not to throw up.
“I, for one, can’t wait to discuss this with my students,” Mike said.
“You teach math,” Mrs. Rigby said. “How is this relevant?”
“It’s my duty to teach them how to think, across disciplines.” Mike looked over at me as if to get support.
I studied my sandwich instead. Peanut butter and jelly reminded me of my mother. An image played before me. The sun had come in through the windows, warming my shoulders and the top of my head and bringing out the streaks of blond in her brown hair. She’d set a plate with a sandwich on the table before me. The crusts had been cut off, and she’d spread one of the pieces with strawberry preserves. My favorite. Then she’d brushed her cool, dry knuckles against my cheek, her eyes so filled with love that a lump had risen in my throat. “Eat up, young man. You need to grow up strong and tough.” A bruise the size of my father’s fist covered her forearm. Perhaps guessing where my gaze had gone, she snatched her arm away.
The others continued discussing the case, ultimately getting into a heated argument with Knight and Mike on one side and the older women on the other. Ms. Breene seemed to have given up on the conversation and picked at her lettuce.
The pounding between my ears went on, relentless. I forced myself to eat a few bites of the sandwich and then packed the remnants back inside my lunch box. Maybe I’d be hungry later. I didn’t bother to say anything to my companions. They didn’t seem to notice me slipping away, or if they did, they couldn’t care less. A good political fight was more interesting.
* * *
Here’s the thing about only revealing half of your life to people. It’s hard to keep the truths from tumbling out. Any time you let your guard down and forget for a moment that you’re unlike any of your friends, you’re jeopardizing the life you’ve carefully crafted. My friends knew I was raised by a single father in LA but nothing else. They didn’t know he was a cop. Or that he made my life a living hell until I got away and went to college. And no one knew that my father was one of the most hated men in America.
Now he was going to prison.
After work that afternoon, I put on my running clothes and drove down to the riverside park. A nice, mostly smooth running or walking trail that ran up one side of the river, starting at the park and ending out by the old mill, now a museum. As I locked my old beater of a car, I admired Jamie’s new inn, just on the other side of the grassy park, looking crisp and quaint with its white exterior and black shutters. After losing her newly renovated Annabelle Higgins mansion to the forest fire that swept through much of our community, she was open for business once again. I’d been happy to be invited to the opening ceremony and had gone to give her my support. It was no longer awkward between us. Enough time had passed since our one-night stand and subsequent surprise to find each other in Emerson Pass. We’d met in Cliffside Bay and had enjoyed a no-strings-attached night together. Since moving here, we ran in the same circle. Our mutual friends often threw us together for one occasion or another. So we’d had to get over our awkwardness and move on. Not that there was anything to move on from. It had been one reckless night, never to be repeated again.
One hot reckless night.
I hadn’t brought a ball cap, and the sun was still bright in the valley between our two mountains. Instead, I put on my sunglasses. I had my contacts in so I’d be able to see. My vision was terrible without them. This early in September, the afternoons were mostly warm and sunny. They were numbered, which meant I needed to take advantage of them all. Running this trail was my therapy. And I needed it today.
I set out on a leisurely pace, needing a few minutes to warm up. The river was low this time of year but still clear. Water bugs made ripples for the ducks who floated near the water’s edge, looking for their dinner in the reeds and grasses. Above us, a flock of geese headed south. The path, which started out as cement, changed to dirt about a half mile from the park. All in all, it was only a four-mile run, perfect for me. I’d been an athlete back in school and missed the camaraderie of team sports. Now I kept in shape not to play sports but for health and vanity. Plus, exercise warded off any gloominess. Or at the very least, dwelling in it for long, anyway.
Soon, the mountains would be covered in snow, and the skiers would come. For now, we had the town mostly to ourselves. Summer visitors were gone after Labor Day. Winter enthusiasts wouldn’t be here until after the ski mountains opened. Locals enjoyed our peaceful months when the river park and trails were all ours.
I didn’t meet a single soul all the way to the museum. Breaking for a moment to drink water from the fountain outside the front door, I turned back around to head in the other direction. I’d quickened my pace by then and somehow missed a tree trunk, tripping and falling. My head smacked into the hard ground. Sunglasses went flying. I sat up, dizzy. My pride was hurt more than my head. Or at least I thought so until I tried to get up and felt like I was drunk. I reached up to touch a sore spot on my forehead and felt dampness. Blood? Great, I’d cut open my head. What an idiot.
Not the first time I’d split my head. My father had slammed me against a coat hook in the hall. Was it the same spot?
I brought my knees close and rested my forehead on them. A rustling in the grass revealed a squirrel. He sat for a moment, his little cheeks full of nuts and his mouth twitching, just watching me. What creature is this, he might have thought, fallen and bleeding?
The day’s news had cut me off at the knees as surely as the root had.
I looked up when I heard footsteps coming toward me. Oh great, it was Jamie on a run of her own. Here to see my humiliation.
She stopped when she saw it was me. Alarm widened her eyes. She snatched her earbuds from her ears and stuffed them into the side pocket of her tight running shorts. They left nothing to the imagination, I noted. Her thigh muscles were taut and muscular. As was her stomach, flat under a spandex top. Apparently, I could still see. The bump on my head couldn’t be that bad.
“Darby, are you all right?” She fell to her knees beside me. Her scent, perhaps heightened from sweat, wafted over me. Jasmine and vanilla and something else. Blue eyes peered at me with concern from a face bare of makeup. Her dark blond hair was tied back in a ponytail.
“You should wear sunscreen,” I said, even though her skin was a golden tan. A California-looking girl, I’d thought the first time I met her.
She touched her forehead as if reminding herself of the last application. “Yes, yes, I am. I always do.”
“It doesn’t look like it.” Why had I said that? She looked flushed from her run but not sunburned. Is that what I meant? Good Lord, maybe I’d really hurt my head.
“What? Why are you asking about that?” Pursing her lips, Jamie scrutinized me as I did with my students when I suspected them of mischief. As if I were hiding something, like drugs in my backpack. “Do you have a concussion?” She pushed my hair away from my sticky forehead. “Should I call an ambulance?”
I reached for her hand before she could take out her cell phone, which was nestled in a side pocket of her running shorts. Genius. And lucky phone. I’d never been jealous of an inanimate object before. “No, no, I’m fine.”
“There’s blood on your hand.” She spoke with considerable alarm. Her concern touched me. She was adorable. As always. “Darby, do you see the blood? Is that from your head?”
I looked down and sure enough, she was right. “It’s just a little cut.”
She placed her hands on the sides of my head, inspecting me. Her ample cleavage was on display inches from my mouth. The sports bra had a nice way of pushing them together. I shut my eyes, not wanting to be disrespectful. Although truth told, I’d already had a nice long look at every part of her. What a night that had been.
I yelped when her fingers found the cut. She scooted around the back of me to get a better look at it. With gentle fingers, she lifted my hair near the wound. “Okay, it’s not that bad. Just a little cut. No brains spilling out or anything.”
“Brains spilling out?” I felt suddenly faint.
“Here, let’s get you more comfortable.” She adjusted herself next to me. “Come here. Put your head on my lap.” Perhaps the brain injury had me loopy, but I didn’t hesitate to follow her instructions.
She sat with her back against a tree and patted her thighs. Staring up at the tree, I rested my bloody noggin with its intact brain on her lap. She had her legs stretched out, and her firm thigh muscles made a nice pillow.
“I’m not sure what to do with you,” she said, playing with the front of my hair and brushing her fingers across my forehead in equal measure but almost absentmindedly, as if her mind was elsewhere. Regardless, her fingers felt cool and silky on my warm skin.
“Your eyes match the sky,” I said. “I can see it through the branches of this tree. But you probably know that.”
“I guess so.”
“Don’t say it like that,” I said. She should own her beauty.
“Like what?
“Like you don’t know how pretty you are.”
“Oh, well, thank you. That’s very sweet. However, I am still worried you have a concussion.”
A spattering of freckles decorated her slightly turned-up nose. “I love freckles.”
Her hands went still. Above us, an orange aspen leaf floated lazily on its way toward us. “Whoa, you are acting a little weird. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“A lot of people like freckles,” I said. “You should embrace them.”
“I’m not worried about my freckles right now.” Her teeth were all white and shiny and even. “Do you know who the president is?” Beads of sweat moistened her forehead.
I blinked, unsure for a second. Then I remembered and told her.
“Okay, that’s good,” Jamie said.
“Why did you ask me about the president? Did you forget?” I wanted to laugh at my little joke but only managed a raspy guffaw.
“They always ask who the president is in movies and stuff to make sure the person doesn’t have any brain damage.”
“Again with the brains,” I said, quite content to sit like this forever.
“I think you’re fine, but maybe we should take you to urgent care?”
“No. No doctors. I can’t afford it.”
“Can you walk?” Jamie asked.
“I’m a little dizzy, if you must know.” I spoke in a posh accent, hoping to make her laugh.
She didn’t. “I’m texting Breck,” Jamie said, tugging her phone from that lucky pocket. “I want him to come look at you.”
“He’s a vet. An animal doctor.” I floated, suddenly tired. Was it my head or this pretty woman stroking my cheek? She smelled delicious, I thought again. I could spend all day taking in her scent and be a happy man. “I’m an animal, I guess, so that might be all right.”
“He’ll know if it’s okay for you to walk out of here or not,” Jamie said.
“Good thinking.” I continued to stare up at her. The day’s event pushed into my mind. My dad. Going to prison. A cop in prison. Why did I care? I didn’t want to. “It’s been a very terrible day. If you can believe it, falling and subsequently being found by you is a big step up.”
“I’m sorry.” She clucked her tongue in a way that seemed too matronly for her. “You were trying to run it out, right?”
“Exactly. But that root bit me.”
She smiled. “I think you’re fine if you’re cracking jokes.” She picked up her phone. “Breck hasn’t texted me back. He might be with one of his furry patients.”
“Good. No Breck then? He’ll give me so much crap for this.”
“Can you stand?”
“Do I have to?” I asked, only half joking. It was quite pleasant there in her lap.
“Unless you want to stay out here all night, yeah.”
I reluctantly rose to my feet. The gash in my head stung, but I no longer felt as if I were drunk. “I’m good.”
“Well, let’s go back together, okay? That way I can keep an eye on you,” Jamie said.
“You’d be a good nurse,” I said as we started walking down the trail arm in arm.
“Only if she were naughty.” She winked at me, her ponytail bouncing sassily to and fro.
I’m pretty sure she winked anyway. I wanted her to have winked at me, I realized. However, the knot on my head may have affected my vision.
I almost tripped again.