I open her bedroom door and start to go in when I realize I’m about to wake up my mother for a mother-daughter talk. It’s ridiculous. I can’t explain why I want to talk to Rita after so many years of not talking to her.
I shake off the notion, step back out of her room, and close the door. I need sleep. So does she. I want her to be the best witness for Jeremy she can be tomorrow.
In the morning, Rita tries on every outfit in her closet as if she’s going for an audition. She settles on a peach blouse and a straight black skirt that’s a little small for her, but not too bad. This is definitely the most courtworthy outfit in her closet. After trying her hair up, then down, she compromises, pulling the top part back and letting the rest hang in bright yellow waves. She looks pretty good… until she adds giant hoop earrings I can’t talk her out of wearing.
“How about you let me wear one of those necklaces you used to make?” Rita asks. “The ones with those little stones from the lake?”
I’m amazed she even knows about my mermaid tears. “Sure, Rita. Hang on.” I find a necklace with a piece of sea glass a little darker than Rita’s blouse, and I put it on her.
Rita fingers the necklace. “That’s real nice. Real nice, Hope.”
I ride with her to the courthouse. She checks herself out in the rearview mirror at least a dozen times, nearly ramming into the back of a police car at the courthouse intersection. “Good luck, Rita,” I tell her as she steps out of the car.
“Don’t you worry none, Hopeless. Rita has everything under control.”
Chase is already there. I slide in next to him, in the seat I’ve sat in ever since I testified. I can’t believe it could all be over today, except for the closing arguments from the lawyers. Rita takes a seat in the first row, behind the defense table. Jeremy is already restless, his hands flying over the table’s imaginary keyboard. It’s too early for him to be this nervous.
I watch as Jeremy takes something from his pocket. The aspirin bottle? I can’t believe they let him keep it. But it’s not the same bottle I gave him. It’s bigger, a different shape. Somebody has given my brother an empty bottle. I’m so grateful that I thank God for every drop of kindness left in the world, this being one of those drops.
Rita swears on the Bible, her voice loud and dramatic, like she’s kicking off her audition. She takes her seat and crosses her legs.
Jerking his tie to one side, Raymond gets up from his seat behind the defense table. He walks right up to the witness box. “Good morning, Mrs. Long,” Raymond says.
Rita gives him her biggest, fakest smile, but maybe the jury won’t know it’s fake. “Good morning, Mr. Munroe,” she says.
Raymond starts out kind of slow… and dull and boring. He walks Rita through her life, or parts of it, growing up in Grain and then moving back here with me and Jeremy three years ago. She tells the court about her parents being dead and about how she works at the Colonial Cafe. To hear Rita tell this, you’d think she was one of those heroic and stoic single mothers who fight off the world in order to raise their children.
Then Raymond zeroes in on Jeremy.
R AYMOND: When did you first notice there was something, well, wrong with your son?
R ITA: I knew right away. A mother knows these things. He just wasn’t right, that’s all.
R AYMOND: Go on.
R ITA: Well, the older he got, the more insane-like he got. When he went to school, them teachers didn’t know what to do with him. I’d get these phone calls from the principal that Jeremy wasn’t paying attention. He didn’t talk. He didn’t get on with the other kids. Well, it hasn’t been easy raising two kids anyhow, all by myself. And then I get this one, who’s messed up in his head.
R AYMOND: How old was Jeremy when he quit talking?
R ITA: Six or seven, I guess. Or maybe more like nine. I’m not sure. But that ought to tell you all you need to know about Jeremy. The boy can talk-all the doctors agree on that one. He just won’t talk.
I want to stand up and scream at both of them. Raymond and I agreed to stop making my brother out as insane and start showing he wasn’t the only one who could have killed Coach. Raymond is supposed to be creating doubt, the reasonable kind of doubt, like that Caroline Johnson might have done it.
Clearly, Raymond and Rita have been plotting strategy without me. They’ve shut me out, just like before. And it’s not fair. Rita conspires with Bob, with Coach Johnson, with Raymond-with everybody except me.
Furious, I whisper to Chase, “Why are they doing this? They’re trying to make Jeremy look crazy again.”
He whispers back, “I think they have to, Hope. Raymond probably didn’t like Caroline Johnson’s testimony. Maybe he’s afraid she made Jeremy look too guilty. I think he’s just covering all his bases.”
I don’t want Chase to be right.
I listen to a couple more Crazy Jeremy stories that I can tell Rita and Raymond have cooked up together. And then Rita, sounding too confident, launches off on her own. I cringe when I hear her start the next story, and I’m pretty sure Raymond has no idea what’s coming.
R ITA: Okay. Here’s another one. Jeremy has always been real big on God and church-not that that makes you crazy necessarily, if you know what I mean. Even as a baby, he loved those hymns and them big brick churches.
R AYMOND: Uh-huh.
R ITA: I’ve never been much of a churchgoer, so the church bus would come by for the kids on a Sunday morning. This was when we were living in Chicago, I think. Yeah, that’s it. Well, anyways, Jeremy came home from one of those Sunday school meetings all excited. He still wouldn’t talk, but he wrote in great big letters on his notebook paper: “How did you and God meet?” “What?” I asked him. He wrote again: “How did you and God meet and fall in love?” Well, come to find out, their lesson that day was on God the Father. Some teacher had told him God was his father. I’ve always told the boy he don’t have no father. Well, it’s easier that way for him. So that kid was all excited thinking he’d found out who his father was. God! And he wanted to know how I met his father. That boy. Another time, he-
R AYMOND: Mrs. Long, let’s get back to Jeremy and the deceased. Did Jeremy like John Johnson?
R ITA: He liked him fine. He loved going to ball games. He even loved shoveling sh-uh, manure out of them stalls. You’d have thought he had the most important job in the world.
R AYMOND: And you can’t think of a single logical reason why Jeremy would want John Johnson dead?
R ITA: Of course not.
R AYMOND: Thank you.
Rita starts to get up, but Prosecutor Keller is on his feet and heading straight for her. I shiver remembering the look on Keller’s face the second I realized he’d led me right into his trap. I pray Rita doesn’t have a trap waiting for her.
K ELLER: Good day, Ms. Long. I won’t keep you, I promise. Just a few questions to clear up a couple of matters.
R ITA: You go right ahead.
K ELLER: Let me see if I have this straight. You told your son that he didn’t have a father?
R ITA: It was easier than going through the whole story with him, you know? He wouldn’t have understood.
K ELLER: But, of course, Jeremy does have a father?
R ITA: Sure. I’m no Virgin Mary, if that’s what you mean. But he might as well not have had one, for all the good it did him.
K ELLER: I’d like to explore that a bit. Tell me about Jeremy’s father, if you-
R AYMOND: I object! Jeremy’s heritage is irrelevant and immaterial.
J UDGE: Mr. Keller?
K ELLER: I believe I can prove it is highly relevant, Your Honor. If you’ll allow me to make the connection, I’m confident the court will agree. Besides, the witness has opened the door. She brought up the subject of Jeremy’s father.
R ITA: I did no such thing!
J UDGE: The witness will refrain from comments unless directed to answer. Mr. Munroe, I’m afraid Mr. Keller has a point. Your witness opened the door. But, Mr. Keller, make your point quickly and move along, understood? Now, Mrs. Long, please answer the question.