PUBLIC DEFENDER ALLARD had demanded Victor and Fran act and say as Allard advised.
But Victor would not do that.
Could not.
He stared at the ceiling. If Fran was still awake upstairs, she made no sound betray it.
Outside, down the street, a dog barked.
What was Victor to do?
Fifty-fifty odds. What was wrong with the world that his innocent son was being charged, let alone facing even odds at being convicted? A father had to do something. A father had to sacrifice for his family.
But am I prepared to do this? Victor thought.
He was a weak man, he knew. Weak and pathetic.
He made his way sleepily up the stairs and slipped into bed beside his wife, with his clothes still on, too tired to take them off.
Outside, the dog barked again.
Fran shifted. “That dog,” she mumbled.
“I wake you?” Victor looked at the clock: 2:47 A.M.
“I was awake. I feel so sick.”
Victor said nothing.
“My heart hurts so much,” his wife said. “It feels like it will cave in.”
She rolled over to face him. She had not lain like this in years. Eye to eye with him. It startled Victor. Early on in their marriage they had faced each other each night before falling asleep. The other’s face was the last thing each saw before the light was turned out, as if each were afraid the other might not be there upon waking. And perhaps they had been afraid. Victor had been. He still was. Afraid of what she might learn. If she ever learned the truth, would she leave him?
Victor shifted and lay on his back, stared at the ceiling. He could see his wife’s face from the corner of his eye. She pressed her hands together as if about to pray, then tucked them between her cheek and her pillow. “I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“He’ll be all right.”
“I don’t know.”
“He will. You have to have faith.”
“You sound so certain.”
“He didn’t do it.”
“I don’t know if it matters.”
“Of course it matters,” Victor said, though he was not sure he believed it.
“Where’s my faith gone?” she said.
“It’s still within you.”
“It just looks so bad.”
“Looks can be deceiving.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do if he goes away.” Her voice splintered.
“He won’t. I promise. Not while I’m alive. Would you forgive me anything?”
She sighed. “You frighten me when you fall into your dark mood. I want Brad freed. Don’t make it worse.”
“Answer me.”
She squeezed his hand. “Yes,” she said. “I’d forgive you anything.” She let go of his hand. “But I don’t know if I could stay with you.”
Victor made to touch her cheek. She shrank away, as if he might strike her. Then relaxed. He was her husband, after all. He put his arms around her and pulled her to him. Her body felt foreign. The last time he’d felt her against him, she’d probably weighed twenty pounds less.
“Okay,” he whispered and cupped her cheeks in his hands.
“You can’t blame this on things you did or didn’t do right as a father,” she said. “You had it hard. With your own father.”
Victor felt ill at the mention of his father. Father: Other than the biological term, the word was too good for that man. That creature.
“I’m going to get Brad out of there,” he said. “I’m going to see Detective North. Tell him some things.” Whatever the sacrifice, he thought.
She kissed his forehead. “This has changed Brad. Even if he’s freed. He’s lost something.”
“His youth,” Victor said. “It only takes a moment, a single act.”
He knew then his instincts about what was happening were right.
“What are you going to tell the detective?” Fran asked.
“The truth.”
She untucked a hand from under the pillow and placed it on his chest beside where she now rested her head. “You’re a good man,” she said.
“No,” he said. “I’m not.”