by Alana Terry
Noah’s dad was dead. Their house burned. Carl and Sandy’s too. Woong could have been killed. How could there be a resolution to this entire convoluted debate if either side resorted to arson and murder? Where was the justice? The compassion? Kennedy’s roommate Willow had sent her a petition last semester. Some group in Africa was gang-raping lesbians in order to “cure” them. Of course, Kennedy had signed the appeal. At the time, that sort of abuse had felt so foreign. So far from her little Harvard bubble. Did things like that truly happen in the US? Could they?
And those weren’t the only questions vying for her mental focus. Who had set the fire that killed Wayne Abernathy? And where was his son? Why was he hiding?
Nick’s phone beeped, and he slowed the bus to turn down a residential side street. He leaned over to read the addresses better before pulling into a modest-sized home with a small picket fence lining the walkway up to the porch.
“Here we are. Let’s go see how Jodie’s doing.”
CHAPTER 14
Jodie looked tired and even more timid than normal when she opened the door for Kennedy and Nick. She put her finger to her lips. “My grandma is trying to get Charlie to sleep.”
As far as she could remember, Kennedy had never met Charlie, the Abernathys’ nephew they adopted last fall.
Kennedy slipped her shoes off while Nick gave Jodie a big hug. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
And that’s when Jodie started to cry. Huge drops that seemed to defy just about every law of gravity and physics slid slowly down her cheeks, dissolving into the yellow and brown shag carpet of her grandmother’s house.
“I’m sorry,” Nick repeated.
Kennedy was always at a loss in situations like these, always felt as clumsy as a court jester when she tried offering comfort to someone. She looked around. Maybe there was some Kleenex she could pass on to Jodie. It beat standing around staring while she cried.
“Want to sit down and talk?” Nick gestured to the couch.
Jodie followed him, her head bent low. She had always been a petite and demure little thing. Now, she looked as pathetic as a puppy caught out in a rainstorm. She couldn’t catch her breath between her sobs. The sound of her gasping cries seized Kennedy’s lungs up as well.
Take every thought captive.
She wasn’t a slave to anxiety anymore. Her deliverance hadn’t come through some miraculous, dramatic event. Some healings took longer than others, she had come to realize. Jesus healed the leper with a single touch. He was healing her PTSD, by contrast, in small steps at a time, so that she had to measure her progress in months instead of days or even weeks.
God has not given us a spirit that makes us a slave again to fear.
She had the power of the Holy Spirit in her. That didn’t mean she could cast out her anxiety like an unruly demon, but it did mean she could turn her thoughts toward Jesus. Ask him to carry her through this trial. Show himself real and present to her in the midst of the difficult times.
Kennedy focused on her breathing but then stopped herself. What was she doing? It was Jodie’s father who’d been murdered, not hers. It was Jodie who was hyperventilating on the couch. And Kennedy was standing there worrying only about herself. What was a little tightness in your chest compared to the grief of losing your father?
When had she grown to be so selfish?
She sat down on the other side of Jodie and took her hand. “I’m sorry.” It sounded so much lamer coming out of her mouth than Nick’s. What was it he had that made him so present, so accessible to these teens when they needed him? It was a good thing he was the youth pastor, not her.
“Have you heard anything from your mom?” Nick asked.
Jodie sniffed loudly, and Kennedy glanced around once more looking for tissue.
“No, she’s been talking with this detective all night. They say that ...” Her voice caught. She wiped her nose with her sleeve and tried again. “They say that ...” She rolled her eyes up toward the ceiling as if the words might be written up there. “The detective thinks my dad was murdered.”
“It can take a few days for them to find out if something like this is arson or just an accident.” Kennedy was glad for all those crime scene novels she liked to read in high school. At least she could offer something more useful than an awkward apology. “It’s probably too soon for them to know anything now. They must just be talking with your mom in case ...”
“It wasn’t the fire that killed him.”
Kennedy caught Nick’s eye. He looked as surprised as she was.
“What do you mean?” she asked at the same time Nick said, “Maybe we don’t need to talk about that right now.”
Kennedy shut her mouth.
“I just can’t believe any of this is real.” Jodie was leaning her head against Nick’s chest. Kennedy understood why he hadn’t wanted to come here alone.
He rested his cheek on the top of her head. “I know, kiddo. These things always seem to take a lot of time to sink in.”
Kennedy wondered if Nick knew that from firsthand experience, or if it was something he read in one of his many youth ministry books.
“I keep thinking it’s a bad dream.”
Kennedy had heard people say things like that in novels, and it had always sounded so cliché to her. Maybe the authors actually got it right.
“That’s normal. Sometimes it won’t feel real for days.” Nick spoke slowly. Kennedy realized how relaxing his voice could be if he weren’t fumbling over his words or getting so worked up about political controversies. “That’s the thing about grief.”
“That’s right.” Kennedy patted Jodie’s hand, wondering why that was such a common physical response. It’s not like Jodie was a kitten or a puppy in need of attention. “Scientists think that maybe it’s the brain’s defense mechanism so that you don’t have to ...” She stopped herself. Why was she giving the poor girl a psychology lesson? Maybe she should have read some of Nick’s books herself. Or gotten lessons in grief counseling. Some people were just so much better at this sort of situation. Like Sandy. She always knew what to say when people were hurting. It was as if the Holy Spirit just opened her mouth and out poured words of comfort and love, as if she knew the very message the listener needed to hear. Kennedy tried to imagine what Sandy would say if she were here, but all she could think about was how tired she had looked when she headed to Nick’s bedroom to sleep with Woong. Kennedy just hoped Jodie and Nick were too distracted to realize how horribly she was botching this conversation.
Jodie shook her head. “I can’t figure out who would do this to him. He’s the nicest guy I know. The best ...” She stopped herself again. A little moan escaped.
Nick patted her on the back. “For now, try not to worry about the investigation or anything like that. It could have been a bad accident. We don’t know ...”
“It was the golf club.” Jodie wasn’t making any sense. Kennedy wondered if maybe she was delirious. Grief could do that, couldn’t it?
For once Nick didn’t seem to know what to say, either. They both waited while Jodie caught her breath.
“The golf club,” she repeated. “Someone hit him on the head. Cracked open his skull. The detective said he was dead before the fire even started.”
CHAPTER 15
As much as Kennedy would have liked to get more information from Jodie about the fire, she knew better than to press for details. Nick seemed to be doing a perfectly fine job offering all the comfort and support he could, so Kennedy let him do his work without trying to force herself into a conversation she obviously wasn’t qualified to handle. Give her a spectrophotometer and a cuvette full of solution, and she could calculate the absorbance of just about anything. Give her a crying girl and a murdered politician, and she was about as useful as Friar Laurence was in keeping Romeo and Juliet alive.
For lack of anything better to do, Kennedy spent her time observing Nick, making mental notes about the way he handled things. Maybe it would help her in the f
uture. If it had been Kennedy leading the conversation, she would have tried to fill in every single silence with some kind of clichéd word of encouragement. Nick, by contrast, seemed perfectly content with long spells of quiet. That was lesson number one.
He listened while Jodie talked about the fire, how she’d heard the alarms and hurried to get Charlie out of his toddler bed. “He was crying. Like he already knew something was wrong.”
Jodie talked about how she ran with him downstairs to the mailbox, which is where their family had agreed to meet in emergencies. Up until that point, Kennedy thought her dad was the only one who came up with fire escape plans. She wondered if Wayne had grilled his family about safety measures in the event of earthquakes, tornados, and tsunamis, too.
During a long pause, Nick stood and got Jodie a glass of water from the kitchen. Lesson number two. Why hadn’t Kennedy thought of that? She hated feeling so useless. At least when she became a doctor, she’d have plenty of things to do to keep her hands busy so she wouldn’t feel so awkward and superfluous in the midst of a crisis. Still, it was a long time before she got her MD.
Jodie took a sip of water. Her hand wasn’t shaky. Kennedy was jealous. Nick was doing such a good job calming her down, they couldn’t even hear Jodie’s choppy breathing anymore.
“So how long did you and Charlie wait alone at the mailbox?” he asked.
“My mom got there a minute later. She was calling 911. She asked me where Dad was, so I said I hadn’t seen him yet. I’d only thought to grab Charlie and ...”
Nick didn’t say anything. Kennedy wondered how much practice it took to get yourself comfortable with such silence.
“My mom went back in, and I was really scared for her. I thought maybe she’d get stuck in there, you know? Like in the movies when the door’s on fire or something so you can’t go out. Then I thought I’m glad she’s so brave because my dad’s been real busy lately with this bill thing he’s working on, and so maybe he slept through the alarm. But then I saw my mom was in her pajamas, so wouldn’t she have known if dad was sleeping or not ’cause she would have seen him in bed? So that meant he must be awake, but if he was awake, he would have heard the alarm and gotten us all out. So it was real confusing.”
Kennedy tried to remember if she’d ever heard Jodie use that many words in a single sitting before. There must be something she could say in reply. A Bible verse, maybe? Tell Jodie that God works all things together for good? How does that comfort a girl whose father’s been murdered?
Jodie’s grandmother stepped into the living room and cleared her throat.
Nick jumped to his feet. “Hi, Mrs. Olinstein. I hope we aren’t bothering you. Jodie said we could stop by for a minute. We didn’t mean to ...”
“It’s fine.” She cut him off with a curt nod. Jodie’s grandmother was a frail, somewhat haggard-looking woman, about how Kennedy imagined Vivian Abernathy would appear in thirty years if she were to forgo hair dye, wrinkle cream, and Botox. “Did you get her to tell you where her brother is?”
Nick looked at Kennedy as if she might decipher the old woman’s words.
“No, we just got here a few minutes ago. We ...” He didn’t finish his sentence.
Jodie’s grandmother offered no smile. “I told her she had to tell what she knew or the police would be after her next.”
Kennedy tried to think of some protest. Mrs. Olinstein must not know what she was saying. Maybe she suffered from dementia. Maybe she was an Alzheimer’s patient who lacked a filter between her brain’s thought and language center.
“I told you I don’t know where he is.” Jodie crossed her arms. Kennedy wouldn’t imagine her taking that tone with her parents. Maybe there was more to Jodie than she’d seen before.
Mrs. Olinstein stared right at Nick with a smile that was anything but warm. “She’s never been a good liar, that one. It’s strange. You’d think her dad would have taught her. Heaven knows he’s got the experience.”
Nick fidgeted with the fringe on a brown and orange afghan thrown across the back of the couch. “Maybe now’s not the best time to talk about the senator like that.”
Mrs. Olinstein’s long, beaded earrings dangled against each other as she cocked her head to the side. “Why not?” Her voice was grating. “Bad form to speak ill of the dead? I didn’t realize. Well, you’ll have to forgive me. Let’s change the subject, shall we? We can talk about why Noah killed his father and burned his house to the ground.”
“Noah didn’t do any of that.” Hot anger radiated from Jodie’s small frame.
“How would you know?” her grandma asked. “You don’t even know where he’s been all night.” She smiled haughtily.
“He was with Marcos, ok? I heard them on the phone before the fire started. He went over to see Marcos.”
Jodie’s grandmother straightened her back and gave Nick a sickeningly sweet smile. “There now. See? I told you she’d been lying.”
CHAPTER 16
Nobody said anything. Kennedy kept waiting for Nick or Jodie to break the silence.
Nothing.
Finally, Jodie’s grandmother spoke. “All right, then. I see that she doesn’t want to say anything else in front of me. Probably thinks that if she talks to you, she’ll be protected under whatever pastor confidentiality laws she’s read about on the internet. Fine by me, little missy. You just remember that whatever you tell your so-called pastor here, the lawyers are going to ask you at your brother’s trial when they prove he’s the one who murdered your father. Now don’t let me interrupt your little heart-to-heart anymore,” she added before anybody could protest. “I’ll just check on the kid. Make sure he’s nice and comfy. Would have been thoughtful if your mother brought me a crib or something else he can sleep in before dumping him off here. He’s probably going to leak right through his diaper and spoil my mattress. Oh, well. That’s what happens when Vivian adopts someone else’s needy orphan against her better judgment. No, don’t bother getting up for me.” She waved her hand in the air in a gesture of dismissal. “I’ll put myself to bed when I’m done, and I’ll trust you to lock up after yourselves when you’re through in my home.”
She went down the hall and disappeared, leaving nothing but an angry afterglow that settled around the room like a gray New England smog.
“All right,” Nick said after another long silence. “Who’s this Marcos? And how do you know that’s where your brother is, or are you just guessing?”
Jodie looked at Kennedy as if she were asking for support, but Kennedy was more confused than a seventh grader picking up Romeo and Juliet for the first time without any footnotes.
“Who’s Marcos?” Nick repeated in a softer tone. “Is he Noah’s friend from school?”
“I don’t know.” Jodie’s voice was small. Timid. It reminded Kennedy of the very first time they talked over the phone almost a full year ago.
“Well, how do you know that’s where Noah is?”
“They talk. Late at night. Our rooms are right next to each other, so sometimes he thinks I’m asleep, but I can hear.”
“Is it his boyfriend?”
“I don’t think so. I’m not sure.”
Kennedy decided if she ever had a daughter of her own, she’d teach her to speak up loud and clear. Life lesson number one: No demure mumbling. It wasn’t feminine. It wasn’t cute. It was annoying, and that was about all.
“What do they talk about?”
Kennedy wasn’t sure she’d be pressing so hard if she were in Nick’s position. Hadn’t Noah been through enough? Didn’t he deserve at least some small shred of privacy? Then again, if he was still a suspect in his father’s murder ...
It couldn’t really be. Could it?
“They talk about boys.” Jodie’s voice was even softer. Maybe she didn’t want her grandma to overhear. Unfortunately, with as public a life as Wayne Abernathy led, there was no way any of these details would stay secret for long.
“So, you mean like boys at school?” Nick
gave Kennedy a questioning look. Apparently, he was as lost as she was.
“No, they talk about Noah. About how he likes boys. And they pray.”
“Pray?” Nick repeated.
Jodie nodded. “He asks God to fix him. You know. So he likes girls and stuff.”
Anger flashed through Nick’s eyes. Unfiltered, unmistakable anger. He composed himself after a few seconds. “So this Marcos, he’s like a counselor or something?” His voice was soft, but his whole body remained completely rigid.
“Yeah, maybe something like that.”
“Is he older, then? An adult, I mean?”
“Maybe.” Jodie shrugged. “I never met him.”
“So how do you know Nick was going to meet with this Marcos guy?”
“I heard them talking on the phone. Noah was mad. Said it was all Marcos’s fault, and then he said something like, Fine. You can show me when I get there. I didn’t pay all that much attention. It was late, and I was trying to sleep.”
Nick adjusted one of his dreadlocks that had fallen in front of his face. “Ok, well, we should probably call the detective. They’re looking for him, you know.”
For the first time, Kennedy felt like she could add something useful to the conversation. “If they find Noah, and this Marcos person can prove he was at his house tonight, it could help show your brother’s innocent.”
Nick shot her a warning look. What did it mean? Nick didn’t really think Noah could have ...
“He wouldn’t want me to tell.”
Kennedy had to lean forward to hear Jodie better.
“He’d be embarrassed,” she explained. “You know. Because of what they say.”
Nick patted her knee. “You know when the media gets wind of this, they’ll probably all be gossiping about it soon enough. I just want you to be ready for that. It’s probably not gonna be very nice things they have to say about it.”
“I don’t want Noah to be embarrassed.” There was something endearing and sweet about her gentle insistence.