The Reckless Oath We Made - Bryn Greenwood Page 0,127
the Department of Corrections listening in on phone calls, because I’d had to hear it every time she talked to my father. I went to look at the situation in the kitchen: the leaking sink, the garbage disposal, the dead fridge that was blocking the back door. I needed to hire an electrician, a plumber, and a couple guys to throw stuff into the dumpster.
“Are you listening to me?” Mom yelled. I hadn’t been, but I went into the front room, because if I ignored her for too long she would come into the kitchen, and catch me making plans.
“I didn’t hear you.”
My phone rang, but it wasn’t a number I knew, so I didn’t answer.
“I said she needs a better lawyer than a public defender,” Mom said. “Your father’s lawyer was fresh out of law school. He’d never even been to trial. There has to be something we can do to scrape up a retainer. I’m going to call your aunt Shelly. She’s always complaining about money, but she certainly has more than we do. And I can always take out a second mortgage on the house.”
I stood behind Mom’s chair, waiting to see if the person calling would leave a message. I wasn’t surprised when the voice-to-text popped up.
Miss Trego, this is U.S. Marshal Boyd Mansur. Please return my call at your earliest convenience.
“You need to stop pouting and help me figure out what we’re going to do!” When I didn’t answer, Mom squinted over her shoulder at me. Then she put her hands on the arms of her chair like she was going to stand up. “What are you doing?”
“What I’m going to do is go to the Goodwill and buy you a couple china hutches and a bookcase. I’ll get some guys to bring them into the house, and you can fill them up. Everything else has to go,” I said.
“I told you to leave it alone. I’ll get it cleaned up.”
“Mom, please. We only have three weeks. If we don’t take care of this, the city is going to come, and they are going to throw everything away.”
“Don’t you worry about it. Come here.”
When I didn’t do it fast enough, she snapped her fingers at me and held out her arms. I bent down over her, and she put her arms around me. I wasn’t sure if it was a hug or if she wanted me to help her up out of her chair.
“We have to help your sister. With a decent lawyer, there’s no way she’ll serve time,” Mom said.
The way she could flip from one subject to another, I knew we were never going to have a real conversation about any of it. Nothing I said was going to sink in.
“Mom, I know you hope that, but you need to be realistic.”
“Or at least not much time. Help me up.”
“If the prosecution can convince a jury that LaReigne was in love with him, the jury’s going to believe that she helped him,” I said. I bent my knees a little deeper and pulled hard enough to get Mom out of her chair. Hard enough that my back and my hip lit up.
“So what if she helped them? She can’t have been very much help! It’s not like she’s a criminal mastermind.”
“It doesn’t matter how much. If she helped them at all, that makes her an accomplice to at least two murders.” I didn’t want to be angry at Mom, but I was. She had stood by Dad for so long because she could twist everything around until it fit with what she wanted to believe. Mom still had her arms around me, and it felt like she was trying to hold on to me and push me away at the same time.
“That wasn’t her fault. She didn’t kill those guards. I just need my baby to come home. I want LaReigne to come home.”
“I want LaReigne to come home, too,” I said, but it was a lie. “But I don’t know if that’s going to happen.”
“Don’t you say that.” Mom pushed me away, and I was glad to get free. “If you move in, we can use your rent money. That might be enough to hire a better lawyer.”
“No,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not moving in.” I thought of how Leon was so stubborn, and in my mind, I put my head down and tucked my tail.
“Can we please not go through all that drama again?” Mom said.