Jury of One

14

It would have been a terrible day, anyway. The nineteenth of February. A day off for Shelly usually, every year. A personal day.

She hadn’t slept after the visit from the intruders. She had called the police and spoken with officers when they arrived, saying nothing of her very real suspicion that it was police officers who had paid her a visit. Her point had simply been to show them-if they were still watching-that she wasn’t afraid to call the authorities. If the burglars were cops, they would be checking the report that was filed. She wanted them to know.

She had to see Alex, as she had every day, first thing in the morning before going to work. She didn’t want to shower, didn’t want to move her eyes off the front door. So she had bathed in the kitchen, taking a bar of soap and running it over her underarms and chest, drying with a towel. She hadn’t washed her hair but pulled it back sharply and pinned it. She could only imagine the impression she made.

She watched the clock as it hit seven-thirty. She inhaled and closed her eyes. On her kitchen table, she lit the sole candle and stared into its flame. She did the same thing she did every year on this day, asked for forgiveness and redemption.

God, of all days.

She drove to the detention center and raced to the check-in. “Michelle Trotter,” she said, “here to see my client, Alex Baniewicz.” She looked at the clock. It was three minutes past eight in the morning. She felt dizzy from sleep deprivation but charged with adrenaline.

“He has a visitor,” said the man behind the glass window.

“Who?” Not having enjoyed her own most recent visitors, her mind raced as to who might be paying a call on Alex.

“Ronald Masters.”

Oh. Okay. Ronnie.

She took a seat and felt exhaustion set in. Lack of sleep, tension, and grief had wiped her out, and her day had hardly started. But she felt some measure of relief being here, even if she hadn’t seen Alex yet.

Time moved slowly as she sat in the waiting room with two other women, each of them younger than she. Each of them African American. Neither of them appeared to be filled with hope or enthusiasm. This was not a happy place. If she were her mother, she would be bouncing off the walls right now. She remembered when her mother’s father-Shelly’s grandfather-had passed, and her mother continued to cook the scrambled eggs after receiving the phone call, because she needed to do something. Shelly didn’t mourn that way. She let it swallow her whole, maybe so it would go away more quickly.

Ronnie Masters emerged from a door. He was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, which struck Shelly as insufficient for the cold weather; his long, dark hair was hanging all over his face. He saw her and nodded. Shelly greeted him, gave him some empty pleasantries.

“Didn’t know you were gonna be here,” he said, as if there were something meaningful about that. He gave her another look. “Have a rough night?”

“Something like that.”

Ronnie kissed Shelly’s cheek. He probably wanted to beg Shelly to save Alex, to spare him from the consequences of his actions. Whether Ronnie was in denial, Shelly did not know. What a “brother” would feel in such a situation was unfathomable. Little escaped Ronnie, and his presence had nothing to do with Alex’s guilt or innocence.

Shelly touched her eyes as Ronnie left. She felt an excruciating weight as she followed the guard into the interview room. Alex, having had a prior visitor, was already seated in the familiar position, hands cuffed before him. His eyes were swollen and red. Shelly had seen it before-little hurt a young man more than seeing the effects of his actions on his family.

Alex seemed surprised to see her. He started to speak but caught himself. He seemed overly aware of a small bag of items sitting on the floor near him. Shelly saw books, three different used paperbacks, inside the bag with a purple, frilly ribbon hanging out. Come to think of it, the bag was a small plastic one, fire-engine red. She could see a card in the bag as well, a long message in a fancy font.

She looked up at Alex. He smiled apologetically.

She pointed at the bag. “Your-is it-”

He swallowed hard. Their eyes locked on each other as she sank to her seat.

“Happy birthday to me,” Alex sang, an attempt at breaking the sudden tension, with a nervous smile that evaporated as soon as it appeared.

“Seventeen,” she said.

He said nothing. She searched his face, which invited her. The longer they stared at each other, the more uncomfortable she became.

“Were you-” She couldn’t get the word out. “You were-”

He nodded. He smiled at her differently than ever before. The sweetness that Shelly had found so compelling for an unrefined kid, his immediate willingness to open himself to her, held a different meaning now.

“Adopted. Yes.” Alex finished her sentence, pausing first, then slowly saying the words.

They stared at each other without words. She could read it on his face but she couldn’t believe it.

“No,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, not even realizing she uttered the words as the realization had crashed down on her.

“I was gonna tell you, Shelly. A bunch of times.”

Shelly stared at this boy as if he were a work of breathtaking art, a magnificent structure to behold. She brought a hand to her mouth, closed her eyes. Her body began to tremble, but she did not cry. A different feeling gathered over her, a feeling that certainly couldn’t prevail, not under the circumstances, but one that could not be denied temporarily.

When she opened her eyes again, the trembling ceased.

Alex smiled at her, clearly more at ease with the information than Shelly. He’d had a year to digest it, after all. “I suppose it’s time we talked about it,” he said.

Shelly held on to the table as if a strong wind threatened to blow her away. Alex hadn’t really needed a lawyer for that initial disciplinary case at school after all.

He’d just wanted to meet his mother.