Chasing Forgiveness

by Neal Shusterman

  “The best one they make,” he tells me. “You can ride it all around town—show off to your friends at school. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds great!”

  “Maybe I’ll get one, too,” he says. He looks through the glass, but he doesn’t seem to see me. It’s as if the glass is a window into some other time—years from now maybe. Open fields and dirt bikes. Him riding with me. Best friends, like we used to be. “Wouldn’t that be something?” he says.

  “Yeah, it would be.”

  He puts up his hand to the glass and presses his fingers against it. It’s kind of silly, but it’s better than nothing. It’s the closest thing to a hug we can get. I wonder who needs the hug more, him or me. I put my hand against his on the glass, holding it there like a high five, but I take my hand away before he does.

  “When I get out, we can do stuff like that, Preston.”

  But that’s only if he gets out. For all I know, putting my hand against the glass is the closest I’ll ever come to hugging him again.

  “How soon could you get out?”

  He takes his time answering. “It depends on the trial,” he says, and we both know what that means. It means he may never get out. The Talberts—Russ’s parents—are testifying against him. Even though they told my grandparents to their faces that they love my dad, they’re testifying against him, telling how Dad tricked Mr. Talbert into lending him the gun.

  Grandma and Grandpa are testifying for my dad. Dad’s lawyer thinks that if they testify, explaining how they’ve known him since he was fifteen and know he’s a good person—how they felt that both he and Mom were terribly disturbed, and that they still love him—then maybe a jury would let him off easy. But as much as I like the idea of Dad getting off, it still bothers me.

  Just because he was disturbed and people still love him doesn’t necessarily mean it’s right for him to get out of jail. I’m sure lots of people in prison for life, or even on death row, were disturbed when they committed their crimes. I’m sure that most of them have people who love them, too. And the only difference is that this one happens to be my dad.

  Tyler impatiently reaches up to grab the phone from me. He uses the p word, so I have to give it to him.

  “I love you, Preston,” says my father before I hand over the phone.

  “Yeah, Dad,” I say. “I love you, too.”

  January

  My secret room has no windows, so I don’t know if it’s dark yet. They say the days have started to get longer now that it’s January, but I haven’t seen it. The sun still sets by five. The days are getting colder—not cold enough for snow, but cold enough to make you wish you didn’t have to get out of bed. It’s probably about five now. I study science while Jason organizes my entire baseball-card collection in some mysterious but brilliant filing system. Jason never seems to study. We’re both good students, but he’s a good student by nature. I, on the other hand, have to study my butt off. We sort of have a competition going—you know?—who can pull in higher grades. He always wins, but not by much.

  Today science seems to bypass my brain completely. I sigh and slam down the textbook.

  “What’s your problem?” asks Jason.

  “I’ve just been wondering something,” I tell him.

  “About science?”

  “No, about life, and God and stuff.”

  “Oh, one of those questions,” he says rolling his eyes. “You think about God and stuff more than anyone I know our age.”

  He’s right about that, and I’m kind of glad about it. I guess it’s because my grandparents are really strict about going to church and things like that. That must be the reason.

  “I’m just wondering,” I tell him, “if someone helps a murderer get out of prison, do you think they’re damned?”

  Jason takes the question very seriously. He thinks about it, then answers me. He doesn’t answer the question I actually asked—but instead answers the question I was afraid to ask.

  “I don’t think you’ll be damned if you testify for your father, Preston,” he says. “I don’t see how you could be.”

  Grandma doesn’t want me to testify; she thinks it’ll be too traumatic. Maybe it will be, but Dad’s lawyer thinks I should because if Dad’s found guilty of first-degree murder, “the judge will have no mercy.” He could be in prison for life, or worse.

  “Preston’s testimony,” the lawyer said, “could make all the difference in the world.” I haven’t told Dad that I might testify. I don’t have the guts to tell him that the rest of his life rests on my shoulders. But I think he already knows.

  “If all you’re doing,” says Jason, “is telling the truth, then I don’t see how you could be damned.”

  “But what if my dad doesn’t deserve to go free?” I say.

  “But what if he planned what he did ahead of time?”

  “What if he was nuts when he did it?”

  “But what if he knew exactly what he was doing?”

  “But what if he really can’t remember doing it, like he says?”

  I give up. Jason plays Ping-Pong with words much better than I play Ping-Pong with paddles—and while I could always whip Russ Talbert on a table, Jason wins with words every time.

  “Listen,” says Jason, “you know your dad; I don’t. I mean, do you really think he’d ever kill anyone in cold blood?”

  “No . . . but he did.”

  Jason has no answer to that one. For once, I really wish he did.

  “Maybe it wasn’t really in cold blood,” I offer. “Maybe it was just in warm blood.”

  “Maybe.”

  I open my science book to an impossibly confused diagram of the insides of a frog. Tomorrow we dissect. I try to figure which is harder to understand: the impossible insides of a frog, or my father.

  “Listen, the way I figure it, it’s a coin toss,” says Jason. “Heads: your dad was nuts, is better now, and deserves a second chance. Or tails: he knew what he was doing, did it anyway, and deserves the worst. And since you really don’t know whether it’s heads or tails, you might as well testify, because all you’ll be telling is the truth.”

  “But he killed someone,” I say, slamming my book on the impossible frog. “What happens if he’s set free because I testify?”

  “Yeah,” says Jason, “but what happens if he gets the electric chair because you don’t?”

  Just the thought of it puts me in my own little electric chair for a split second, stopping my heart and starting it with a bang that pushes out on the insides of my chest. But hearing Jason put it so clearly, as he tends to do, makes my own choice very clear. It makes me realize that I have no choice. I have to testify.

  “Mom must hate me by now,” I say, but Jason says nothing. Maybe he didn’t hear me. Or maybe he just agrees.

  Thursday, January 24

  The courtroom is not what I imagined. It doesn’t look as clean as I thought it would. It doesn’t look as old.

  The room is empty as the bailiff leads me and my grandma down the aisle toward the judge. She has already testified. So has Grandpa. I’m the only one left. It’s as if I’m walking into the middle of someone else’s nightmare. I don’t know what went on before I got here; I don’t know what happens after I leave. It’s been going on for weeks and may go on for weeks more. I try to tell myself that my tiny time on the stand is only a small, unimportant part of the whole trial, but as I walk into the courtroom, I can’t help but feel that my tiny time on the stand is the whole trial.

  The jury isn’t here. Neither are the Talberts or anyone else.

  Dad isn’t here either. I asked for that. I couldn’t testify in front of him. I can’t even mention Mom in front of him. If he were here, I would just die right there on the witness stand. And so it’s just me and the judge and Grandma.

  But it’s not, is it?

  I know God is there, too. I know Mom is there. And I’m scared.

  “Preston,” says the judge. “I want you to listen to each question car
efully and answer to the best of your ability. Take as much time as you need—don’t let anyone make you feel rushed.”

  I nod my head quickly, like a scared rabbit. I’m glad no one else is here—I probably look real stupid. They’d probably laugh. All my friends would laugh. They’d laugh because I’m shaking. They’d laugh because my grandmother is on the other side of me holding my hand. The funny thing is, I need her to be there. I’d probably pass out or something if she wasn’t. Does that make me a wimp?

  I try to calm myself by thinking of good things. Football. My MVP trophy. I stood up there real proud and strong when I accepted that trophy. Why can’t I do that now? Why? “This is for my mom,” I said when I got the trophy. It made Grandma and Grandpa cry. Why can’t I stop shaking?

  “Okay, Preston,” says Mr. Hendricks, Dad’s lawyer, as he begins his questioning. I know what he’s going to ask—we went over it before.

  “Nothing to it,” Mr. Hendricks said when he was at our house the other day. “It’s just like taking a test when you’ve been given all the answers.”

  The trick, Mr. Hendricks explained, was to be sure of my answers and never go back on anything that I say. So we talked, and I thought back to everything that happened those weeks before Dad did what he did. I thought back, and I remembered a lot more than I thought I did. I remembered that day Dad and I rented the house by the beach—the one we never got to move into. How we visited the school I never got to go to. How he bought me that wetsuit I never got to wear. I returned the wetsuit to the store after Mom died. I went to return the key to the owner of the house.

  I remembered their last fight. Money. Mom buys too many clothes. We can’t make the house payments. Dad only makes a few thousand dollars a month. Sounds like a lot to me, but compared to Aunt Jackie’s ex-husband, it’s nothing.

  I remembered Mom yelling to Dad about me—how she just didn’t have the patience for me anymore.

  I remembered how she bragged about Weavin’ Warren Sharp to my father, knowing that Dad was super-jealous and would make more of the whole thing than it probably was.

  I remembered Dad talking to Mr. Talbert about his gun. That was even months before it happened—Dad wanted to buy a gun for Mom’s protection when he wasn’t home. He wanted the same gun Mr. Talbert had, and Dad went out shopping with him.

  But Mom didn’t want one. She was afraid of guns, so Dad never bought it.

  And so, as I sit up on the witness stand, Mr. Hendricks asks me all the questions he said he would, and I answer them as best I can, even though I shake and even though my tongue doesn’t want to move in my mouth.

  If this is the easy stuff, I can’t wait till the hard stuff.

  “The district attorney,” said Mr. Hendricks the other day, “will question you after I do—almost the same questions, but he’ll try to confuse you and frighten you. Remember to stick to what you know, and don’t let him rattle you.” But that’s only if Mr. Hendricks ever finishes questioning me, and he seems to be taking forever. Finally he begins to wind down.

  “One more question,” says Mr. Hendricks before he backs away. He hesitates and looks me straight in the eye.

  “Do you want your father back, Preston?”

  He keeps looking right into my eyes. The judge waits for me to answer. He didn’t tell me he’d ask this one! He didn’t warn me! My eyes start to fill with tears. No fair! I want to yell. No fair!

  Do I want my father back? Dad did something horrible. Something that no father should ever do for any reason. He shot my mom in the back of the head. That should matter—it has to matter, but somehow it doesn’t. He’s my dad. My only dad. And even if Mom hates me for it, I can’t lie, I just can’t. Do I want my father back?

  “Yes,” I say, losing control. “I want him back. I want him to come home.” Sobbing, I turn my eyes away from Mr. Hendricks and the judge. He tricked me! He wasn’t supposed to make me do this. He wasn’t!

  I close my eyes tight and try to stop the tears, but they don’t stop. Grandma squeezes my hand tightly.

  “Your witness,” says Mr. Hendricks to the mean-looking district attorney, who stands there waiting for me to stop crying.

  12

  BETWEEN THE LINES

  March—One Year Later

  Twenty-four pictures that Grandpa took sit on my desk. I look at each one of them. Me running down the field. Me catching a pass. Me being lifted up by my teammates. One of Tyler, quietly watching on the sidelines with Grandma.

  Football season’s been over for months now, but the pictures have been on a shelf all this time.

  And Dad’s in prison.

  I grab a piece of paper from the drawer and begin writing.

  Dear Dad,

  And then I stop. What do you say to your dad in a letter? When he was in jail, we visited him almost every Sunday, so I never had to write, but now he’s farther away. We only get to visit once a month or so.

  Dear Dad,

  Hi. How are you?

  He’s looking much better these days. He’s finally putting back on some of the weight he lost. His eyes aren’t so sunken in. He smiles every once in a while, and sometimes it even seems like he’s not forcing it. “His countenance is pleasant,” as my grandmother would say. Prison’s a lot better for him than jail was. It’s better for us, too. It’s bigger—there’s more open space. There’s a big yard there, with a high fence, and guard towers, but you can walk in there, and run and exercise.

  Most important, there’s no glass between us. When we visit, I get to hug my dad now.

  We’re all fine. Well, actually Tyler has a cold and I caught it from him but don’t worry, it’s not too bad. Grandma gives us soup and tea all the time. I’m sick of soup and tea.

  Dad was never convicted. The jury found him innocent of both first-degree murder and second-degree murder, and they were hung on the manslaughter charge. They just couldn’t make up their minds.

  The district attorney could have charged him again for manslaughter, and Dad would have gone to trial again, with a new jury, but instead he cut a deal with Dad’s lawyer. Dad goes to prison for five years. That’s a lot better than life. It’s a lot better than death row.

  Bet you’re already counting the days till you get out. I know I am. Anyway, five years isn’t that long.

  But it is long. It’s sixty months. It’s 1,825 days—26 if you count leap year. It’s 43,824 hours. I know all this because I figured it out. I know it down to the seconds. Five years means we’ll have a new president. It means I’ll be graduating high school. It means a whole lifetime, to me. Even if they count the time he’s already spent in jail, which I think they might, it will still seem like forever.

  You’re probably better off anyway—most kids hate their parents when they’re like fourteen and fifteen, right? But you won’t be around for me to hate, so you’ll miss all that bad stuff.

  Grandma keeps reminding me that there are lots of people who do fine without their parents, and aren’t I lucky that so many people love me? There are lots of people who aren’t loved at all. Street people. Abandoned kids. There are babies in Ethiopia covered with flies and starving to death. There was World War II. Whole families were wiped out because of what they believed. There was Vietnam. Boys just a few years older than me got blown away, halfway around the world in a war they didn’t even want to fight.

  On the one-to-ten scale of lousiness, I would say what happened to me ranks only about a five. I shouldn’t complain, but I do.

  Maybe you can get out early for good behavior. So you’d better behave!

  Uncle Steve complains more than I do. He doesn’t say it very loud, but he says it. He feels it. We don’t see him much anymore, and I don’t know whether that’s our fault or his. We all know that he would have testified against my dad if he had something to say and if he didn’t respect my grandparents so much. He thinks we’re all crazy for even talking to Dad after what he did.

  Take good care of yourself, Dad. Don’t get into prison riot
s or anything . . . and remember to eat all of your vegetables (ha-ha).

  Maybe we are crazy, but I don’t care.

  We all miss you. We all can’t wait to see you again.

  Love, your son, Preston

  One thing gets stuck in my head, though. It was what the district attorney said. The D.A. was an evil little man, filled with hate, and when the verdict came down “not guilty,” he pulled my grandmother aside and looked her in the eye.

  “I hope you know that because of what you’ve done,” he said to her, “your daughter is rolling over in her grave.”

  Grandma’s face must have become hard and cold. Grandpa should have slugged him, but he didn’t.

  “You didn’t even know our daughter,” Grandpa said, returning the evil man’s evil gaze. “You don’t know Danny, either.” And he led Grandma out of the courthouse.

  Rolling over in her grave.

  When I heard about it I got nightmares again. The closet. Other ones I’m too afraid to remember. Maybe ones I’m not supposed to remember.

  “Grandma,” I asked the next day, “if we forgive Dad, do you think Mom has forgiven Dad, too?”

  She stopped playing the piano for a moment and looked at me as if she were amazed that such a thought could come from me.

  “Yes, Preston,” she finally said. “Of course she forgives him.” Then she returned to playing.

  The answer made me mad. It was the only time I can remember being mad at Grandma Lorraine. Not because of what she said, but because of the way she said it. As if she talked with Mom regularly by phone.

  “But how do you know?” I asked her.

  Still playing the piano, she answered calmly. “Because she’s with God, Preston, and God is forgiveness. Forgiveness and love.”

  “But how can you be sure about it?”

  She missed a note and pounded her hands on the keys in frustration. The grand piano let out a groan that lingered in the air.

  “Stop asking that, Preston,” she said, her infinite patience suddenly not as infinite as I’d thought. “Just stop asking that. There’s no reason to. No reason at all!”