Chapter 9 - Waiting Out The Middle Days
The fluorescent lights of the third-grade classroom hummed with a dry, persistent vibration that settled right behind my eyes. I sat at the second desk in the middle row, my fingers curled tightly around a yellow number two pencil. My hair was braided in two neat pigtails, pulled back firmly enough to make the skin at my temples feel slightly stretched. Around me, the room smelled of old paste, cedar wood shavings from the pencil sharpener, and wet wool from jackets drying on the coat hooks near the door.
Mrs. Gable, the teacher, had given us thirty minutes to complete a worksheet on fractions. I kept my gaze fixed on the paper, filling in small circles with careful, mechanical precision. But the whispers had started right after morning attendance.
Two girls at the table near the windows kept turning around, their heads tilted together behind cupped hands. I didn't need to hear their exact words to know what they were saying. Yesterday morning, the local news affiliate had re-run the clip of the courtroom microphone, my face streaked with tears inside my light pink short-sleeved dress. By last night, every kid with a phone in the county had seen it on their screens.
"Hey," whispered a boy named Tyler as he walked past my desk to drop his completed worksheet into the wire basket. He didn't mean anything cruel by it; his voice just carried that strange, awkward curiosity kids get when someone they know suddenly becomes an image on a television screen. "Is that really you on Channel Four?"
I didn't look up. I kept my pencil moving across the paper, making the denominator for a fraction five. "No," I murmured, the word slipping out flat and quiet.
Mrs. Gable looked up from her grading desk, her glasses sliding slightly down the bridge of her nose. "Tyler, back to your seat, please. Let's keep our voices down."
The rest of the morning dragged on like slow-moving oil. When the bell finally rang for recess, the rest of the class surged toward the door with loud shouts and scraping chair legs. I stayed in my seat, slowly sliding my math book and pencil into the grey plastic desk bin. I waited until the room was nearly empty before I stood up, smoothing the front of my dress with my palms.
When I walked out onto the asphalt schoolyard, the cold autumn wind hit my face immediately. Groups of children ran across the blacktop playing kickball, their voices thin and sharp against the grey sky. I walked over toward the chain-link fence that bordered the staff parking lot, wrapping my arms around my middle to keep the chill away.
A dark sedan was idling near the curb by the main entrance. As I watched, the passenger door pushed open and Sarah stepped out, wearing her dark blazer. She didn't look like the other parents who waited in station wagons and minivans with coffee thermoses and bags of groceries. She looked official, sharp-edged, and completely out of place among the playground equipment.
She spotted me near the fence and walked over, her heels clicking steadily against the pavement.
"How are you holding up inside, sweetheart?" she asked quietly when she reached me, her gloved hands resting briefly on my shoulders. The touch was steady, grounding the nervous flutter in my chest.
"Fine," I said, looking down at my white shoes, which were scuffed with black marks from the gym floor.
Sarah reached into her leather portfolio and pulled out a thick, white envelope sealed with a red sticker from the clerk of courts. She held it out toward me, though she didn't ask me to take it.
"We got the motion approved for the witness summons," she said, her voice low and even so the playground supervisors wouldn't overhear. "Your brother has to be brought down from the county facility to testify at the review tomorrow morning. This is the official copy of the subpoena for his guardian ad litem."
I stared at the thick paper inside the clear plastic cover. The name of the court was printed at the top in heavy black ink. A strange mix of relief and cold dread tightened in my throat. He was going to be there. He would walk through those double wooden doors, and I wouldn't just have to imagine what he looked like sitting in the back row anymore.
"Does he know?" I asked, my voice barely audible over the shouts of a kickball game fifty feet away.
"His caseworker served the papers this morning," Sarah answered gently. "He knows he's coming. He'll be in the building by eight-thirty."
She stayed for a few minutes longer, talking through the schedule for the next morning, making sure I knew exactly what time Martha would be picking me up from the house. When the bell rang to call everyone back inside for afternoon reading, Sarah gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze and turned back toward her car.
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I walked back into the warmth of the school building, the heavy envelope burning like a weight inside my memory, counting down the hours until morning.
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