God Only Knows (30 page)

Julia showed no emotion as she crossed her legs again. “Considering what Eddie tried to do to Cassie, your deal sounds like
a pretty good one.”

Jake ignored the slam, returning his gaze to the carpet. “He considered it for a minute, I really think he did. He had me
drag him away from the field at first, so we could talk out a story to construct without being found out. We were at the south
end of the campus, not far from the main road, when he turned on me suddenly.” Jake shook his head. “I’ll never forget the
look in his eyes when he asked the question, a rhetorical one really. ‘Why’m I listening to you, Jake?’ It was like it had
occurred to him all of a sudden that I was one of the ‘other,’ unworthy to provide him with advice. He told me that my popularity
with the white kids hadn’t fooled him, that he knew when it counted I would side with my fellow ‘baboons.’ Next thing I knew,
he was vowing to make the girls pay for roughing him up. ‘My word versus theirs,’ he said, enough times that I finally told
him to shut up. ‘I was there,’ I told him. ‘You can’t change that, Eddie.’ I told him if he was going to go his own way, I’d
go mine. I turned back toward the field to get my father, when Eddie suddenly found his strength. Next thing I knew, he’d
cuffed the back of my head with a fist.

“I was shocked, but not paralyzed. Maybe it was my residual shame over sitting by while you girls took him on, maybe it was
just a sense that this kid felt he had nothing to lose. I turned back on him and swung, hard. I landed one punch, then another
before he tried to charge me. I deflected him pretty easily —he was awfully winded, obviously —but he tried to come at me
again. When I cuffed him on the chin, he backed off me. ‘This ain’t over,’ he said, trying to keep his balance as he backed
away. I stood there, I’ll tell you now, and watched Eddie Walker limp toward his meeting with that truck. I wanted to go and
stop him, but I knew he wouldn’t listen to me. I didn’t know what to do.

“I was maybe halfway through the woods, nearing the soccer field, when I heard the slamming of brakes out on the street. By
the time I got back to the bonfire area, my father and several other parents were out on the road, hysterical over Eddie and
calling the police.”

Julia raised slitted eyes, darting her glare from Maxwell to Jake. “Are you finished?” Registering the wounded look on Jake’s
face, she said, “You understand this is meaningless if you stay safely hidden in the shadows?”

Julia almost —
almost
—felt a twinge of shame when Jake dropped his head into his hands, his shoulders quaking with sobs. “Julia,” Maxwell said,
one hand on his friend’s shoulders, “I wouldn’t have let him come over here without first counting the cost.”

F
lanked by their respective attorneys, Julia, Cassie, Terry, Toya, and Jake filed into the Marriott conference room and took
seats at the front table. As cameras and bulbs flashed in her face, Julia rose and stood at the podium stationed at the far
end of the table. Daring a glance, she caught sight of her father, Marcus, M.J., and Maxwell in the front row. She found herself
looking for Peter Whitlock and his mother as well, and was surprised to feel disappointment at their apparent absence.

Once the room had quieted sufficiently, she cleared her throat and began her remarks. “I want to welcome all of you here this
morning,” she said, her voice strong and steady. “To the members of the media, I ask your understanding for the fact that
aside from my reading this statement, our attorneys will answer all questions. To the members of local churches and community
organizations, we thank you for your support and honest reactions to the controversy in which we found ourselves.

“I stand before you today very relieved that the legal proceedings around all five of us have now been resolved, but I am
here on the group’s behalf to say this is no celebration. While none of us asked to be placed in a situation that led to such
a tragic outcome for young Eddie Walker, we recognize that our experience that fateful night will never be easy for some to
digest. We’re here today to clear as much air as possible, so that our attorneys can explain not just the truths we all lived,
but the factors that convinced the district attorney to reduce all charges to misdemeanors carrying fines and required community
service. Once that has been explained, we commit ourselves corporately to fight the racial and economic divisions that are
a part of this closely held tragedy. We will report more about our activities along that line in the coming weeks. God bless
you, and thank you for your time this morning.”

As Julia returned to her seat, accepting an affirming back pat from Cassie, she wiped a tear, despite herself. She realized
for the first time that she had spent twenty years assuming she would have to go to her grave with this secret, trusting and
praying that God had forgiven her silence, in light of the circumstances. The freedom she felt at this moment —despite the
occasional harassing phone call from strangers spitting racist taunts and the stack of legal bills sitting on her kitchen
counter —was a gift more precious than she could have imagined.

Patiently she endured as her lawyer and each of the others’ attorneys soaked up the free media and answered the reporters’
many questions. As the conference wound down, Julia actually found herself doodling on the top sheet of her speech, which
she had read from a typed script.

She was still scribbling mindlessly when the back door of the ballroom opened. Edna Morrison stepped across the entrance tentatively,
her eyes hooded by both shame and defiance, and the disgraced Peter Whitlock followed behind his mother. Toya’s attorney was
completing his remarks, but for a second no one cared, all eyes darting toward the mother-son team as they crept their way
down the middle aisle.

“Unfinished business,” Julia said under her breath. Without a second’s wait, she pushed her chair back and calmly descended
the stage. Walking down the middle aisle, she met Edna halfway and extended her hand, nodding to Pete as if to reassure him.

As the attorney went into his summation, Edna linked one arm underneath Julia’s, letting the taller, younger woman guide her
to the front row.

The already hushed room fell completely silent.

D
espite everyone’s best efforts, the word somehow leaked in advance that the “Christian Light Four” would be visiting the nursing
home. As the large Lincoln sedan carrying them pulled into the parking lot, Julia, Cassie, Toya, and Terry looked with hushed
silence on the dozens of reporters and camera crew members dotting the home’s front walk. As her mouth grew parched with anxiety,
Cassie envied Jake, who had been cagey enough to make a surprise visit the night before.

The men with them —Marcus, Toya’s husband George, and the limo driver —cleared a path, shielding the ladies from the reporters
and flashing cameras. “This is a private meeting,” Marcus said repeatedly, pausing at several points to aim shaming stares
at his former media colleagues. “You all can go home, please.”

A young, spindly, blond reporter reached through the scrum and snared Cassie’s elbow. “Mrs. Gillette,” she said, “is it true
that Eddie Walker’s mother convinced all of you to come here this afternoon, that she believes your prayers could move God
to bring her son out of his vegetative state?”

Cassie nearly chided the woman for such a ridiculous question, then recalled her attorney’s cautions and turned away. A few
more steps, a few more outlandish questions, a few more flashes of the camera, and finally the women were ushered into the
nursing home’s front lobby.

Edna Whitlock-Walker-Morrison sat just inside the door, a weathered cloth purse on her lap and a baggy trench coat still covering
her clothes. Raising pained eyes as the women crossed the threshold, she smiled as if pleasantly surprised they had actually
come.

“Mrs. Morrison, good morning.” Cassie dutifully stepped out in front of Julia and the others, bending over the aging woman
and wrapping her in a hug. Somehow, Edna had taken a liking to her out of the four women —or as close to a liking as was possible
under the circumstances. During the hour that the women had spent with Edna following the big press conference, Eddie’s mother
had proven to be the most tangible evidence Cassie had ever observed of God’s grace. She couldn’t imagine having the strength
to sit across the table from someone who had played any role in harm brought to M.J., Heather, or Hillary.

What else but the filling of the Spirit could have empowered Edna to so calmly, almost lovingly, shake the hand of each woman
as they had entered that Marriott conference room. Maxwell Simon and Jake Campbell had been there with Edna, Maxwell serving
as the moderator and Jake simply observing; he had already met with the woman a few days earlier.

“I want to thank you all again for taking the time to meet with me the other day,” Edna said now. As Cassie and the others
took seats surrounding Edna’s, the older woman held to Cassie’s hand. “It was important for me to know each of you as people,
to see you as more than faceless children who robbed me of my Eddie, the one that I knew and loved for fourteen years. As
I told you then, I didn’t want to believe Cassie’s initial claims about my boy’s actions toward her, but God worked in mysterious
ways to confirm her honesty. I know in my heart that you four and Pastor Campbell have grown into fine adults, the type of
citizens I believe Eddie could have developed into. And it’s clear that one thing you didn’t do is try and coordinate your
stories in some false fashion.”

“Mrs. Morrison,” Cassie said, squeezing Edna’s hand and glancing at Julia to gather her own strength, “we had to finally tell
the truth. Whether I liked it or not, God used Peter to make us do that. We struggled to finally get it all out, I’ll admit,
but I hope you understand once we started, we couldn’t hold back.”

Edna nodded, her hands searching her purse for a tissue she retrieved. She blew her nose before saying, “My boy wronged you,
Cassie. That is a shame I will take to my grave.”

“It may be no comfort,” Cassie said, tone hushed to ensure that strangers across the aisle didn’t hear, “but we’ll never know
whether Eddie would have gone beyond the legal definition of assault with me. He did
not
molest me, ma’am. My friends broke it up before things could escalate that far. For all we know, he might have eventually
let me go without forcing himself on me.”

“He was a good boy. I know I sound like a broken record, but before we go in there, I want you all to remember that.” Edna
took the time to connect eyes with all four women. “He hadn’t learned how to respect women yet, I’ll admit that, but please
know that was my fault, not his. Eddie didn’t have a stable father figure in his life until he was almost twelve, my second
husband. And by then, he was already full of bitterness over barely knowing his father and over the fact he’d hated most of
the boyfriends I had after his daddy left.

“There was so much I couldn’t give my kids back then,” Edna continued, tears coming again. “I was doing my best, but I’d had
Peter so young and was always trying to dig out of a financial hole. Eddie, see, he was at a disadvantage because he didn’t
have Pete’s good looks or natural self-confidence. My oldest may have disgraced his police department with the way he treated
you, Cassie, but, believe me, I am still proud of him. That boy earned his way into the police academy and then into a detective’s
job, without any of the inside connections or high-priced education of a lot of his colleagues.

“Eddie was still coming into his own. Wasn’t good in sports, and was struggling in math and science. He felt like he didn’t
fit in. I just think he was such a bundle of nerves . . .” She stared helplessly at Julia for a second, as if Cassie weren’t
in the room. “I talked to him once or twice about Cassie, okay? She was so beautiful, even I remember that from seeing her
a few times when I would pick Eddie up from school. We weren’t used to seeing girls who looked like her then —yellow-brown
skin with hair like a white girl’s. Eddie was fascinated with you,” she said, finally facing Cassie again, “and the truth
is he had no acceptable way to tell you.”

Cassie nodded respectfully. “I understand.”

“Well,” Edna said, slowly leaning forward and preparing to stand, “I’d like us to go in to him now. I know nothing’s promised,
but I just believe that if anyone’s prayers can reach his soul, it’s yours.”

Cassie patted Edna’s hand and stood along with her, but she locked eyes with Julia, who was slower getting to her feet. Terry
and Toya also remained still, their eyes glassy with apparent shock at what they were about to face.

“Oh.” Edna turned suddenly as the other women slowly rose. “I forgot. They usually only allow three of us at a time in to
see him, but I got them to make an exception. They have asked that we be as quiet as possible, though, out of respect for
the surrounding residents and their families.” Edna paused, apparently noticing the wobble in Toya’s knees and the nauseous
look on Cassie’s face. “Of course I explained that this won’t exactly be a party.”

Cassie stepped back toward Toya. “Will you give us one minute?”

“I’ll just wait for you at the lobby door,” Edna said, pointing. “Just beyond the receptionist’s desk there.”

“Thank you.” Cassie turned to Toya, whose mascara had started to run from an apparent combination of sweat and tears. “Toya,”
Cassie said, “I want to thank you again for coming back into town for all this.”

“Yeah, girl,” Terry said. “You’ve surprised me, been a real soldier about everything.”

“It’s not like I had much of a choice, is it?” Toya tried desperately to collect herself. “Once Julia and Terry chose to go
to the police along with Jake, I would have looked like odd man out if I’d played dumb.”

“Well, I seriously doubt the police would have pursued you to the ends of Paris, much less the earth.” Julia gave a thin smile.
“You showed your true colors by even entering the lion’s den of the legal system with us, Toya. Thank you.”