“You’ll have to speak up,” the judge says, leaning over her desk. You can tell she’s not mad, though. “We can’t record gestures,” she explains. “Answer the question with words, please.” She leans back in her big chair and waits for words.
“Sorry,” I say, making sure not to look at my brother again. “Jeremy’s always been different. I guess, like Raymond says, ‘wrong.’ ”
I try to remember the way Raymond and I rehearsed this part of the testimony. This is not how it went. I remember that much.
I have a good memory, but it doesn’t work with words. Just pictures. Like I can picture Raymond sitting at our sticky kitchen table, a pile of papers and a yellow pad in front of him. A full glass of Rita’s too-sweet ice tea is sweating a water ring to the side of Raymond’s notebook. Raymond’s trying to tell me how to support his strategy, which is to convince the jury that Jeremy’s too crazy to be killed by the State of Ohio just because he murdered Mr. Johnson. Raymond wants to make sure we understand that Ohio can give the death penalty to anybody eighteen or over, unless they’re really, really out of it.
I can picture Raymond, Rita, and me at that table as if we were still there. Jeremy’s the same way. He notices details. He can tell when I’m getting a migraine headache even before I feel it, just by seeing the lines on my forehead change. Jeremy used to say God wired us alike, loaded us with the same film. That was before he stopped talking. Jeremy, I mean. But God too, I guess. At least to me.
Raymond’s frowning at me, waiting for me to say what we practiced. I notice the shiny lining of his suit and his skinny black belt. I glimpse Jeremy swaying at his table, his skin drawn too tight over the angles and bones of his face. Two rows back sit three of my teachers from high school, not together but in a blur of other town faces, including T.J., a guy in my class and about the only friend I’ve got in this town. Behind T.J. a row of reporters lean into each other.
And I see Chase, Sheriff Wells’s son, who stands out in this crowd, in any crowd. Even here, with life and death dangling from the courtroom rafters, his face-I notice every line in that face-makes it real hard for me to look back at Raymond.
Raymond clears his throat and glances at the jury, then at me again. “Would you mind giving us an example of how your brother is different?”
I do mind. I know exactly what Raymond wants me to say. He wants me to tell the jury about something that happened when Jeremy was ten. That’s what we rehearsed. Only I don’t want to tell this story. I know it will hurt Jer.
But if I don’t tell it, Rita will. And she’ll get it all wrong, and Jeremy will hate that worse than having me tell it right.
Besides, it’s important to tell it right. Because if I don’t, if the jury doesn’t understand Jeremy, then the State of Ohio will give my brother a shot that will put him to sleep forever. And even if they don’t do that, they’ll put him in a prison with grown men who will crush all the Jeremy out of him, or kill him trying.
3
“Hope, will you tell us about an incident that took place in Chicago when Jeremy was ten?” Raymond Attorney for the Defense asks. It’s the exact question he made me answer half a dozen times at the kitchen table.
“I was eight, and Jeremy was ten,” I begin. I close my eyes and remember. I can see Rita’s hand reaching for something. I know it’s her hand because she’s wearing the big green ring she used to have. Jeremy’s behind her, and I’m behind Jer. I have straggly blond hair and big blue ghost eyes, and I’m bundled into a quilted ski jacket a size too small. Steam rises from a loaf of bread. Plastic forks are piled at one end of a long, skinny table with a yellow-and-green-checked tablecloth.
“It was our first night in Chicago,” I continue. “Rita decided we needed a change of scenery from Minneapolis, although the snow looked the same to me. She told us she’d always wanted to see the Windy City. Plus, there was this guy named Slater who was looking for us, and Rita didn’t want him to find us. I kept thinking how Windy City was a real good name for this place because we could see snow blowing everywhere, like it wanted to get out of town fast as it could.
“Jeremy and I held hands and trailed behind Rita.” I can see her in her pale pink wool coat and red high heels, but I don’t bother telling the jury that. “We’d ridden all night on a bus from Minneapolis. Rita had struck up a conversation with a man who said he was a salesman.”
Raymond steps in closer to the witness box. He glances at the clock, then at the judge, and finally back to me. “Get to the part where the police were called in.”
That makes the prosecutor bounce up again. “Your Honor! He’s leading the witness.”
I can’t imagine Raymond leading anybody, but the judge nods, agreeing with Mr. Keller. “Sustained.” She turns to Raymond. “Just ask your question, Mr. Munroe.”
I feel kind of sorry for Raymond because he looks like a kid who got his hand slapped for reaching where he shouldn’t have.
“Would you tell us what happened when you arrived at the shelter?” Raymond asks.
I tell myself I need to cut to the chase. But thinking this reminds me that Chase, the Chase, is sitting in this very room, listening to and watching… me. And I have to talk about going to a shelter to get a meal.
I clear my throat. “There was a long line of people waiting to get their dinner for free. It was a good dinner too, with fresh bread and everything. Rita gave us plates and told us to fill them up. She and the salesman did the same thing. I think I forgot to tell that part, that the salesman came with us from the bus station. He was the one who knew about the free-dinner place.”
My mind is jumping ahead, and I see Jeremy’s hand reaching for that bread. I remember being glad about that because my brother had started looking skinny as a shoelace.
“Please go on,” Raymond urges.
I take in a deep breath and let out the rest of the story without taking in another. “Jeremy kept piling bread onto his plate, even when Rita tossed him a dirty look not to. And there were drumsticks too, and he piled those up. Then, instead of eating his own food, like he should have done, he walked around that room and handed it out.”
“Handed it out?” Raymond repeats.
I nod, then remember about using words instead. “Yeah. He gave drumsticks to old men and little boys and other kids’ mothers. And he gave bread to people right off his own plate, even if they already had some. When his plate was empty, he went back and filled it up again and then handed out the food all over again. It was like he couldn’t stop giving it away.”
“How did people react?” Raymond asks, right on cue.
“At first, people took the food without saying anything, just giving him a funny look. Then they got into it. They hollered, ‘Over here! I can use some of that!’ And Jeremy kept it up until there wasn’t anything more to give out.”
“And then what?” Raymond asks.
“And then he took off his shoes.”
“His shoes?” Raymond looks all surprised when he turns to the jury. But he knows what’s coming, which is why he wanted me to tell this story.
“He took off his brand-new snow boots, and he gave them to a kid who wore beat-up tennis shoes. Then he took off his socks, and he gave those away too.”
“Where was your mother during all this?” Raymond asks. As if he doesn’t know.
“Rita was yelling at him to stop. She kept saying she paid good money for those boots, although it was really Slater who did, and I’m not so sure the money was all that good.”
“And what did your brother do when your mother yelled for him to stop?” Raymond asks.
I answer just like we practiced. “It was like Jeremy didn’t hear her. He gave his coat to a red-haired girl with a long braid down her back. He unbuttoned his shirt. Rita took hold of his hand, but he kept going, unbuttoning with his other hand. So she smacked him.”