Conviction (32 page)

I stiffen. Trey says, “Different bad?”

“Just different.”

“Was it the texture? The flavor? What?”

“I have no idea, Trey. Are you going to come join us?”

“In a little bit. Here.” He takes our plates and comes back in holding bowls of the soup.

“Watch out,” he says. “They’re full. I made enough for twice as many people, so.”

I say, “Thanks, Trey, that looks really good,” at the same time Kevin says tightly, “Can you give it a rest already?”

“Sure, whatever you say. I just think ditching your wife on Easter seems like a strange move for someone who’s so big on doing everything his family expects him to. Seminary, even.
Your family’s lifelong dream.” His voice disappears as he walks away.

Kevin’s jaw twitches, and I get the feeling Trey’s made his feelings about seminary clear before. Over my rising discomfort, I say, “So what made you decide to go back to
seminary, anyway?”

“Ah—some reevaluation I’ve been prompted toward. For a long time now, I’ve given God less than my best, and I’d like to rectify that.”

I wish I could ask what he means by that. Or maybe I don’t; maybe the answer would be something like he thinks he should be reading his Bible even more, and that would just make me feel
even worse by comparison. “I think you’d make a good pastor.”

“That’s very kind of you to say.” Kevin pushes at his spoon, then lets it drop so it splashes drops of broth onto the table. “You know what I dislike about elaborate
meals like this? There’s a premium placed on all that solitary time locked away from the world preparing. It enables escapism.”

I think of Trey preparing, how hopeful he was. “Yeah, maybe.” And then I think of him waiting for Kevin to say what he thought of Trey’s food, and, impulsively, I make a quick,
maybe bad decision. “Hey, Kevin, could I ask you something?”

“What’s that?”

“Do you think there’s any way I could get Trey to come with me Thursday when I have to go in to testify at the trial?”

His eyebrows shoot up. “What do you mean, get him to come with you? He’s not
going
? He’s making you go by yourself?”

I was right, then: it’s not something Trey told Kevin. “Do you think you could try to talk him into going? Even if he just goes and sits in back or something,
I’d—”

Trey comes back in then, this time with plates of the cooked bird. He raises his eyebrows when he sees we haven’t touched the soup yet. “Getting cold.”

Kevin smiles in a way that doesn’t seem like he means it at all. “Are you going to join us, Trey? Because if I wanted a waiter, then you know what? I would’ve just gone out
with my wife.”

Trey sets the plates down so hard the silverware clatters. “If I were Jenna, I’d sit when you said to, wouldn’t I?”

“Enough.”

Trey looks away first. “Pheasant with fried arugula,” he says quietly. He sets down the plates and slides out the chair across from me and sits. “I hope you like it.”

It’s smoky-tasting, the part I’m assuming is arugula crunchy on top. Kevin takes exactly one bite. Then he puts down his fork and says, “I hear you aren’t going with
Braden on Thursday.”

“Oh, you heard that, did you?”

“You know—” Kevin pauses, choosing his words. “I’m really disappointed.”

I wanted this, didn’t I? I had a feeling Trey would listen to him. But when he says it, I feel like I just knocked something breakable off a shelf. The look Trey gives me makes it clear
that I betrayed him. To Kevin, he says, “You know how I feel about him.”

By
him
I know he means my dad. Kevin says, “Yes. I know how you feel about him.”

“And—”

“And
what
? There’s no
and
. Maybe instead of concerning yourself with my marriage you should think more about where you’re actually needed.”

“I just don’t think you’ve been fair to her.”

“Is that so? You don’t think
I’ve
been fair to her?” Kevin’s voice is ice. “You know what, Trey, drowning yourself in guilt cancels
nothing
out.”

I have no idea how we got here. In fact, I have no idea where we are. But when Kevin says that, a look I’ve never seen goes across Trey’s face and there’s a certain familiar
way his shoulders square off, and it’s an old feeling suddenly, this kind of triangle I feel caught in, and before I actually mean to do it I shove back my chair and stand up and they both
turn like they just remembered I was there.

“Trey, I’m pretty full. I think I’ll just go upstairs and—”

“Sure.” His voice booms through the room. “Yep. Sure.” He reaches across the table and picks up my plate and dumps everything into the still-full bowl of soup.

“Or—I can stay, if you want,” I say quickly. My heart is pounding. I pull out my chair. “Everything’s really good. I’ll just—”

“How
loyal
, Braden.” His eyes are hard. “Don’t worry about it. Go.”

“No, no, I’m sorry, I’ll stay, and—”

“No, you know what, Braden? You got what you wanted, so don’t bother. I’ll go with you on Thursday, all right? It’s not like you’re already the whole reason
I’m stuck here. It’s not like my whole damn life would’ve been a hell of a lot easier without all of this. All right? Just go.”

I hear him leave late that night, the garage door opening and closing again, and like every time he takes off at night this way there’s a feeling like a fist gripping
around my throat. I lie in bed with the blinds open and watch the moon outside. It’s hot upstairs. It feels hard to breathe. I can’t sleep, can’t do anything else, either, except
wait to make sure he comes back.

I’m not proud of this, especially given how I felt when he came in my room and found the letter my dad wrote me on my birthday. But sometimes, when he leaves, I go into his room and look
around just because it’s reassuring to see the things you keep when you live somewhere—his spare key and half-used ChapStick, the change he emptied from his pockets, the Post-it notes
he sticks to his mirror to remind himself:
pay grocer
,
call social worker back
,
ask Braden about baseball more.

This time, on a pad of paper, I find the notes he had for dinner tonight. From the different colors of ink and all the cross-outs it looks like something he had going a long time. Stapled to it
there’s a cutout of an old book page. The print’s so small I have to hold it close to my face to read.

To consume an ortolan is an act of spiritual pilgrimage. Lift a napkin over your head to hide your cruelty from God, and eat the whole ortolan at once. The rich fat on your tongue is God, the
bitterness of the organs the suffering of Christ, and as you chew the bones, your own blood mixing salt with fat and flesh is the Trinity: the separate existing as one.

This is the holiness of the divine Trinity, dwelling in mystery with us. Through this act of worship, God is made known.

His car finally pulls back into the garage after four. I hear him come up the stairs and sink down on his bed, and then I think he just lies down there, awake; there are no
creaks in the mattress like when someone’s moving around trying to sleep. When it’s light out, I get up before he does. The kitchen looks like a war zone, and when I go into the dining
room, the dishes from last night are still there, too.

I bring the bowls into the kitchen one at a time and pour everything down the drain. I turn the water in the sink as hot as it will go, until I have to suck in my breath even just to dip the
sponge in. I scrub all the bowls and plates and pans carefully, one at a time, and as silently as I can so I don’t wake him up. I sweep the floor and wipe down the counters, and then I
straighten up the living room. I dust off the top of the TV, and I pick up all my crap from around the room and take it upstairs. Then I go back into the kitchen and, since I can hear Trey’s
gotten up, make him cinnamon toast and scrambled eggs.

Maybe I should fold my hand. I already forced him back here after he’s worked so hard to get away, I drove him past his limits the night I was supposed to take Maddie to the prom—and
maybe it’s not just him I did that to—and maybe now I owe it to him to let him off the hook about going with me to court. Maybe that’s the right thing to do.

Instead, I leave the food on the kitchen table for him, and next to the plate I put the subpoena Mr. Buchwald gave me. I circle the date and time for him so he’ll know exactly when I have
to go.

It’s selfish, I know that, and it’s weak. It can trap you to be needed. But I hope he’ll forgive me, if for no other reason than when someone really needs you, that’s
also how you know where you most belong.

I
’m late to Kevin’s class that day, but he doesn’t say anything as I come in. Later, when he’s walking around the room
checking people’s worksheets, he puts his hand on my shoulder and—whatever this means—squeezes it without saying a word.

We play Lourdon that afternoon. Their catcher’s Shane Lucas, who’s the best hitter in the league and whose form always reminded me of Trey’s. By the time he comes up in the
second, we’ve put two runs on the board to Lourdon’s none, and I’m mowing down everyone who steps into the box. My command is as good as it ever is. I haven’t yet allowed a
hit.

There are different ways, when you face a batter, to go to battle. Most pitchers will try to pull the string on a changeup, send down sliders that break somewhere he’s not expecting, tempt
him with balls that test his patience and his greed. That’s an art, and there are ways you learn to play a batter: you hide the ball inside your glove so he can’t see how you’re
gripping it, you work with your windup so he doesn’t know until your release what kind of pitch you’ll offer him.

But when what you want to know is where you stand, then you show him a clean, pure pitch right down the middle. No tricks, no breaks, just a strike that hits across the plate exactly where he
wants it. That’s how you find out exactly who both of you really are.

Colin knows me; he puts down for a fastball inside. I throw my hardest. The pitch catches Shane looking, and he steps out of the box. I tell myself: two more.

When he comes back into the box, Colin puts down for a changeup. I shake my head. It’s a smarter pitch, maybe, but I’ve got something to prove.

This time Shane swings, but it went by too fast for him to get even a piece of it. I’m ahead 0–2 now. The next pitch, another fastball, he swings again. He connects. This time the
ball arcs over toward third, over Jarrod’s head, and I’m certain—I’m certain—it’s gone. I can see how Jarrod will miss it and I can see how the shot will light
up on the scoreboard. But then, at the very last second, it drops foul.

Our side of the stands cheers, but my heart feels like it’s lodged inside my throat. The worst mistakes are the quickest ones, where you slip just long enough to see everything
you’ve built get blown up in a single instant. That one scared me; it felt like losing control.

I don’t bother to wait for Colin’s sign before I take aim at Shane’s ribs. I know Shane sees it coming, but it doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t have time before
the ball drills into his rib cage with a crack that carries all the way across the field. He goes down holding his side. The batter who was on deck flings his bat to the ground and starts forward.
I think he’s charging toward me—I’m expecting that, maybe I even want it—and I see Colin ready himself, too, but instead the batter drops next to Shane and puts his hand on
Shane’s side. His coaches and their trainer squat down next to him then, surrounding him so I can’t see him anymore. Colin flips the ball back and forth between his hands. He’s
watching me. That was the cheapest pitch I’ve ever thrown in my life, and I know it. But I don’t feel bad. In fact I don’t feel anything, really. I thought I would feel more than
this.

Shane stays in the game, and when I go up to hit he lifts his mask for a second and starts to say something to me, then smiles like he’s changed his mind.

“Whatever, man,” he says, crouching back into position behind me, “La Abra will take care of you,” and I don’t even see the first pitch go by.

When I come home that night from the game, the house is completely dark. When I get to the den I don’t even see anyone there until I hear someone moving, and then I jump
about six inches, my heart exploding into fireworks, before I see Trey lying on the couch in the dark. At first I think maybe he just fell asleep there, but when I peer into the room I see next to
him, on the table, there’s what’s left of a bottle of Scotch and he’s drinking it from one of the tall glasses you’re supposed to use for juice. He looks up and sees me
before I can get away. He smiles.

“
There
he is,” he announces, to no one. “My brother. My golden, perfect baby brother.”

“Uh—hi, Trey.”

“Come here, Braden. Come sit down.”

I shift my weight uneasily. I regret leaving out the subpoena for him this morning. “Actually, I think I’ll just go—”

“Sit.”

I know when someone looks the way Trey does right now he’s best left alone, but I also know that was an order. I lower myself silently on the other end of the couch as far away from him as
I can. He holds up his glass to the dim light and squints at it, which if I didn’t already know better would maybe be my first clue about how much he’s had. Then he sets the glass down
on the coffee table too hard, misjudging where the tabletop would be, and the familiarity in that particular kind of thud feels like someone’s wringing my intestines like a rag.