The Reckless Oath We Made - Bryn Greenwood Page 0,140
her hair pulled back into a braid. Her eyes were red from crying. I turned around, I hoped, before she saw me. Using the rows of benches for support, I limped out of the courtroom and pushed through the crowd outside.
Down the hall on the left was the bathroom. I went into the first stall and pulled the letter out of my purse. Whenever I’d thought about getting rid of it, I’d imagined I would read it first, to see if there was some truth in it that LaReigne was keeping from me, but I didn’t. I left it in the envelope when I tore it up. Half and half and half and half until I had a stack of torn squares too small to tear again. I dropped them into the toilet and flushed.
After a couple of minutes, I pulled off a piece of toilet paper to blow my nose. I flushed that, too, sending LaReigne’s letter a little further on its journey to the sewer. Right as I stepped out of the stall, the bathroom door opened and Rosalinda walked in.
CHAPTER 55
Rosalinda
I wondered if Zee thought I followed her to the restroom to fight her. I’d never so much as slapped someone, and I definitely couldn’t imagine doing it to her. She was a foot taller than me and she looked like a girl who knew how to fight. Except when I walked into the restroom, she looked scared.
“I didn’t think I would see you here,” she said.
“He’s the only one who’s going to stand trial. He and your sister.”
In some ways that was the hardest part. The man who killed Edrard was dead. Edrard had killed him, but I still had an empty place in my soul. I’d convinced myself that seeing Tague Barnwell’s trial would fill it up, which wasn’t very Christian of me.
Another woman came into the restroom, and I had to step aside to let her in, but after she went into a stall, I stepped back to make sure Zee didn’t escape.
“I’m sorry. When they went, I didn’t know what—I should have stopped them.” Zee put her hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”
“I bet you are, since your sister’s going to prison,” I said. Whenever I thought about it, I got angry. I knew I needed to forgive, but no matter how much my father prayed over me, I couldn’t let go of it. I didn’t know how to let go.
“She sent me here today. To pass him a note. But I couldn’t do it.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? That your conscience is bothering you? Because it doesn’t. It doesn’t do me any good for you to feel guilty.”
Zee nodded.
Other women went in and out of stalls, flushing, and washing their hands, while Zee stared at my feet. Almost like Gentry, except it was shame that kept her from looking at me.
“I need you to take me out to Bryn Carreg. Gentry’s place,” I said. “I need someone to take me, and I don’t have a car.”
“Do you—like right now? You want to go right now?”
“No. I have to go back in when the recess ends.”
“When do you want to go?” she said.
“I’ll call you.”
When I handed my prayer journal to Zee, she stared at it like she didn’t know what to do.
“Just write your number down,” I said. “I don’t have a cellphone.”
Finally, she scrawled her number in the middle of a random calendar page and handed the journal back to me. I let her go. After the recess I didn’t see her in the courtroom.
At almost three o’clock that afternoon, the defense rested, and the judge sent the jury to deliberate. Most of the spectators left then, but my brother wasn’t coming to pick me up until six, so I stayed and worked on my weaving.
The bailiff came back at four o’clock. Then two lawyers came scurrying in. The jury had a verdict. There was a half-hour crush of lawyers and reporters hurrying to get set up. Finally, the deputies wheeled Tague Barnwell back into the courtroom, and the jury filed in.
I wanted to feel free, but when the jury foreman said, “We find the defendant guilty,” I didn’t feel anything. Six times the foreman said, “We find the defendant guilty,” and none of them made me feel any differently.
When my brother picked me up, he didn’t even ask how I was, so I said, “It’s over.”
“Yeah? What’s the verdict?” He didn’t care, though. Like my father,