The anchor, Mike Morken, is not one of those Arlene can’t stand to listen to, who during the trial cast her daughter as the girl who tried to wreck the home of the Teacher of the Year. Morken didn’t hurl judgment like everyone else in the square cold state.
Arlene hears him say that in North Dakota you can request the file of any teacher in the system. This is new, shocking information. She feels that God is speaking through Mike Morken, directing her. The very next day she calls the West Fargo school system and requests Aaron Knodel’s teacher file. She receives a thick packet that feels dirty to the touch. On every page she can hear the teacher’s voice asking her underage daughter to wait five years for him, telling her how he could not wait to cover her entire body with his mouth.
Then Arlene finds something more stunning than upsetting: several handwriting samples that had not been disclosed during the trial. In fact, she sees Aaron Knodel’s job application, all of it hand written, lines and lines of idiosyncratic flourishes that might have helped the forensic document examiner reach a more conclusive opinion than “indications,” an opinion that implies that there is evidence to suggest Knodel may have written the notes, but on the scale of analysis, it is a fairly weak assessment.
Arlene doesn’t know what to do with the discovery. She thinks of telling Jon Byers but he’s ignored her calls so many times. At the end of the trial, although she was devastated, Arlene put her hand out to shake his, to thank him, and she saw the way he pretended not to see. He was still holding a grudge, she figured, from when she asked why it was taking so long to press charges. Who, exactly, Arlene asked, are you protecting? But she didn’t know then, and still doesn’t know now, who is on her side.
All she has is her unwavering belief in her daughter’s account. It runs through her brain like a ticker. Every testimony, every piece of evidence. A steaming landfill of information and the terrible thoughts that course from it like runoff. In how many ways, for example, did they let the system have its way with them, because they were mourning Mark Wilken’s death as much as they were focusing on the trial? She looks at the empty side of the bed and begs for guidance.
Would this finally convince people that Knodel wrote to her daughter, I can’t wait until you’re 18 . . . ?
She wants to call someone. She wants to tell the world: Look, please! Look at the way our family has been misused, ignored. Look at all that they held back! She picks up the phone. Then she sets it back down. There is no one to call. No one who cares. She doesn’t feel disappointment, exactly. Disappointment would mean that you were occasionally used to things going your way. For years she has been trying to exonerate her daughter, her husband, and herself. In public, yes, but mostly she presided over the private trials, alone in her bedroom, the many terrorizing hours she went over every move they’d made as a family, every dinner and every trip and every drink.
The next evening, when Maggie comes over after work, Arlene tells her about the new samples. She wants to know what they should do. Whether Maggie wants to pursue it. Maggie shrugs her shoulders.
For what, Mom? You think this time they’re gonna believe me?
Arlene nods. She starts toward the kitchen. She can make pasta or reheat soup, or they can order out. What do you want, Maggie? Maggie says she isn’t hungry. She’s tired. She’s worked a full day as a behavioral health specialist. Presiding over a bunch of kids, most more luckless than herself.
Maggie, we could go out for dinner, the two of us?
Since the trial, since Mark Wilken’s death, Maggie doesn’t want the same way she used to. The only thing harder than a parent you can’t please is a disenchanted child who doesn’t want you to try. The desperation of a mother, Arlene realizes, is not enough.
Even when women are being heard, it is often only the right types of women who are actively heard. White ones. Rich ones. Pretty ones. Young ones. Best to be all those things at once.
Some women, like my mother, are afraid to speak. One of the first women I spoke to dropped off because she