TEST AND CLAUDE lay in bed, each eating from their own pint of ice cream: vanilla for Test, Chubby Hubby for Claude.
Test sighed.
“You need to let things go,” Claude said.
“I just wonder,” Test said.
“Don’t.” Claude dug his spoon into his ice cream, pried loose a chunk of chocolate. It popped out onto the bedspread. He plucked it up and slipped it in his mouth. Licked his fingers.
“No wonder our kids have such refined manners,” Test said and slipped a spoon of vanilla ice cream into her mouth. She sighed again. “It’s just . . .”
“Just what?” Claude said. He offered her a bite of his ice cream. She refused it.
“Brad. He never once broke. Never once has he admitted guilt. It’s not normal for a kid his age not to break. He’s not some hardened criminal. Usually the guilt of something like that destroys a person and forces them to confess. He was convicted on circumstantial evidence.”
Claude scooped out a piece of chocolate and tipped the spoon to her lips.
She waved him off. “And Brad’s mother, she seemed so certain he didn’t do it.”
“That kid threw his life away,” Claude said. “That’s his fault. People throw their lives away every day. No one can stop them. He got what he deserved. We all do. Plus, she’s his mother. She has to believe in him, even when no one else does, against all evidence. The mind can convince itself of anything.”
“But the heart,” Test said. “A mother knows her child’s heart. Doesn’t she? Don’t I know my children’s hearts.”
“Maybe. All the things I kept from my parents. My mother would roll over in her grave.” Claude wedged a scoop of ice cream free. Offered it to her. “Almost gone.”
She waved him off. He ate it, slipped the spoon around the edge of the bottom of the pint, getting every last bit of ice cream.
“Last bite,” he said.
“You eat it.”
“It’s yours. Open wide.”
Test surrendered. She licked the ice cream off the spoon, smiling. “Mmmm. That is good.”
“Told you,” Claude said. He pulled her close so she rested her head on his shoulder. He rested his hand on her belly. “I’m sorry nothing’s taken,” he said.
She nodded, though her mind was still on the verdict.
“Would you like to try?” Claude said, his voice tender.
“No,” Test said, “I just want to lie here with you.”
From her bedroom down the hall, Elizabeth cried out in her sleep. “Mama. Mama!”
Then she quieted.
In the new silence, Test felt the tears come; tears that had nothing to do with the ugliness and meanness in the world, and everything to do with the kindness and hope she had the good fortune to have in her life.