“And then what does he do? Jeremy Long does the only thing that’s ever put order in his world. He takes out his last jar, writes the date and time on the bottom: June 11, 8:01 a.m. And he captures this air.” I open the jar and think I feel a rush of stale air, scented with blood and death. Behind me, Jeremy moans as the death air mixes with the Father’s Day air, with the air of game day, with Chase running, and with a father’s breath leaving his body. Then I pull out the slip of paper tucked away inside the lid, and I read it: Air of blood and my dead father.
I’m not the only one crying in this room. I hear sniffles from the spectators. In a blur, I see T.J., and he’s standing up, crying. And Rita, in the very back row. Sobbing.
But I have to finish. I don’t want to. But it’s the only way left. “Poor Jeremy. There he is-no father. Only a mother, a mother he last saw arguing with the man lying on the ground. A mother Jeremy loves, no matter what she’s done. He has to protect her. He stands up, grabs the bloody bat, and races home, where he’ll try to hide the bat… to save his mother.”
These are the words I rehearsed all night. I couldn’t let myself think of what might happen to Rita because of them, because of my words. I believed those words. I’m not sure Raymond did, but I did.
Only now, they don’t sound right. They don’t ring true in this courtroom. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
I have to keep going. “My brother didn’t kill John Johnson. He was protecting someone he thought did, someone he loves.” As I say this, I’m meaning for them to understand that Rita did it, that Jeremy didn’t. This is what I’ve rehearsed, what I’ve believed. And yet, something nags at me inside. The air I’m breathing swirls in my head, making me dizzy-death, fathers, sons, baseball, and Chase running. Why was he running toward the sun, away from the barn? He said he hadn’t gone near the barn that morning. Why would he lie?
“She’s right!” Rita stands up at the back of the courtroom. “I did it. It was me!”
37
The courtroom goes crazy. The judge bangs her gavel and tries to get order.
I stare back at Rita, and I know that this is the best thing she’s ever done. And in that same instant, I also know she’s not telling the truth. Rita’s best moment, and it’s a lie.
Because of Chase. Because he lied about being there.
Because I keep seeing Chase’s name crossed out. Because I can’t get the crime scene photos out of my head. A crumpled long strip of paper beside the body in at least one crime photo. I’ve seen those long, narrow papers before. And then I see them again, in my mind, on Coach’s desk, in his drawer. Rosters. And I see the name crossed off: Chase Wells.
Not wanting to see the truth I know I’ll see, I turn and look at Chase. He’s staring back this time, and the truth is all there on his face, his gorgeous face, and in those eyes. “Why?” I whisper it, but it feels louder than the commotion going on all around me. I think everybody in the courtroom may be going crazy, declared insane, everybody except Jeremy.
But it feels like Chase and I are the only ones here. We’re three feet apart, separated by a table, a railing, and people passing between us. But all I see is Chase. Chase and the dozens of images in my head of us together.
“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I never meant for Jeremy to be blamed.”
Behind us, Sheriff Wells’s booming voice rises over the courtroom. “You better adjourn this trial, Judge! This whole thing’s out of order. You want me to take the kid’s mother into custody?”
“Hope,” Chase continues, as if I’m the only one here, “you have to know I wouldn’t have let Jeremy go to prison. I’d have-”
The sheriff wheels around and is on Chase in two strides. “Shut up! Don’t say another word!”
Chase flinches as if he’s been slapped. “You knew, didn’t you?”
I don’t know which face shows more pain, Chase’s or his father’s.
“That’s why you tried to scare Hope off the case, to keep us apart.” Without taking his gaze from his dad’s face, Chase says, “You knew all along that Jeremy didn’t kill Coach… and that I did.”
His words take away what’s left of my breath.
“I said, shut up!” Sheriff Wells cries. His face is cartoon red, like faces in those animated shows Jeremy loves to watch. “I told you not to try to dig up trouble, but you wouldn’t listen. Everything would have been okay if you’d just listened to me! I had it all under control.”
Crime scene photos are flashing through my brain. I knew all along something was wrong with them. And now I see it. The photos of Coach with the stuff from his pockets spread out on the ground-the picture I saw in the sheriff’s crime scene file had a long strip of paper that wasn’t in Raymond’s photo. I didn’t know what the paper was then, but I do now. The roster. Probably the roster Coach had posted at the ballpark that day… with Chase’s name crossed out, just like it had been on Coach’s copy, the one he kept on his desk. That roster wasn’t in the photo they gave Raymond… because Sheriff Wells took it away. He must have seen it and figured out everything right then and there.
Chase turns his back on his dad and stares at me. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I didn’t-please, Hope?”
I don’t know what he wants from me. Arguments leap like flames around us, but they don’t reach me. My head shakes back and forth as I stare at Chase, my Chase. I’m piecing together the lies. I still feel the air, full around us, slicing apart, then coming together, like air through vents. “I don’t understand.”
“We’re not saying another word!” Sheriff Wells shouts.
“ I am.” Keeping his gaze on me, Chase grips the rail and gets to his feet. His voice is loud enough for the judge and everyone else to hear him. The crowd quiets as if their volume has been turned off, like the night crickets Chase and I listened to a million years ago.
Still looking only at me, he says, “I didn’t mean to do it. You have to believe me. And I didn’t plan for Jeremy to get arrested for the murder. I wouldn’t have let them send Jeremy to prison. I just thought-or at least I convinced myself at first-he’d be better off wherever they put mental patients, and I wouldn’t have to go to jail for something I didn’t mean to do.”
I hurt inside, in places I didn’t know I had. I’m aware of people moving around Chase, talking to him. I think they’re reading him his rights, like on television. Somebody’s handcuffing the sheriff, then Chase. The judge is talking to Chase, and he’s listening to her. T.J. has pushed his way in closer, and his lips are moving. But the words are floating over me, like this air, circling above me but not letting me breathe it in.
“I didn’t plan it, not any of it,” Chase continues. “I think, with time, I could have convinced myself I didn’t really do it, not even the murder-if I hadn’t spent time with you, Hope, if I hadn’t gotten to know Jeremy through you.”
“Why?” I can’t ask the things I really want to ask. Was it all a lie? Was I totally and completely fooled? Were you spying on me the whole time? Did you ever care about me? Is everything hope-less?
Chase takes in a big breath of air, Jeremy’s air. “I went out for my jog, like I always do… even on game days.” He looks down before admitting, “I always check the roster on game day. Only I couldn’t believe it. Coach had scratched out my name and put T.J. in as starting pitcher. I wasn’t even on the roster. I’d told Dad I was starting pitcher. He’d rounded up his buddies to come and watch me pitch. He’d bought fireworks. I’d never seen him so proud of me. For weeks, it was all he could talk about-his son was going to pitch in the biggest game in all Ohio, to hear him tell it. Coach Johnson had promised me I could pitch. And I wasn’t even going to play?”