“Jesse Joe’s a good boy,” he told the parole board. I was surprised they didn’t laugh at him. “I know he’s been in some trouble with the law, but the fact is, he loved that girl. He treated her good, took care of her, made sure she went to school. He looked out for her when nobody else did. Not even her, sitting there glaring at me.” He cut his eyes over at Brenda. “She wasn’t the one taking Wavy to school every day, I tell you what.”
I figured that all he meant to do was give me a decent character witness, but then he said, “He’ll have a job if he gets paroled. I’d hire him back tomorrow if I could.”
After he finished talking, he tried to come over and shake my hand. The guards had to explain to him he wasn’t allowed to do that.
“Thanks, Mr. Cutcheon, I really appreciate it,” I said. He nodded and kinda waved at me.
“You take care. We’ll be seeing you soon. I got this cussed Waverunner I can’t hardly figure—”
“Mr. Cutcheon?” the parole board head said.
“Sorry, sorry. I’m going.”
He went, and then it was just me and Brenda.
She stood up, and the parole board head said, “You’re Brenda Newling? The, uh, victim’s aunt?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve got a statement?”
She unfolded a piece of paper she’d clenched in her fist.
“I’m here today, because Wavy found it too upsetting to come. I’m asking the board to turn down his request for parole, because the damage he’s done isn’t over. My niece turns eighteen in July and she still hasn’t recovered. She was a vulnerable little girl, with no one to protect her from his predations. He presented himself as her friend and groomed her for a sexual relationship. He plied her with presents and seduced her. Betrayed her trust. She used to believe she was in love with him. She felt it was her fault that he assaulted her. That she’d led him on. She’s almost eighteen years old and she’s never dated. She didn’t go to her senior prom. She’s never had any kind of normal, healthy relationship with someone her own age and that’s his fault.
“Although it happened on her fourteenth birthday, I’d like to point out to the board that she was born on July nineteenth at eight-thirty in the evening. So in fact, when he raped her, technically, she wasn’t even fourteen. She was thirteen. And he stole her virginity on a desk in a dirty garage. He robbed her of her innocence and she’ll never be able to get that back.”
Brenda was crying by the end. So was I. I didn’t care what Brenda said, but I loved Wavy and I’d lost her, and I wasn’t even allowed to say that. When the parole board head asked, “Mr. Barfoot, would you like to answer Mrs. Newling?” I couldn’t even say, “I lost the best thing that ever happened to me.” Wasn’t that punishment enough?
I said, “I’m really sorry for what I did. I know that doesn’t change it, but I really am sorry. I wish I could take it back.”
Some days I was sorry. Other days I was only sorry Liam got himself killed. Another few days and Wavy woulda been my wife. Before my parole hearing the two things were about equal, the same number of days feeling each way, but when the door never opened and Wavy never walked in, the scale tipped. If she wouldn’t come see me on the one day she could have, I’d done a terrible thing.
PART FIVE
1
RENEE
September 1987
When I walked into my dorm room sophomore year, there was a kid standing on one of the desks, sticking glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling. Her hair was in a spiky pixie cut and she wore 20-Eye Doc Martens. She looked about twelve or thirteen.
“Are you Wavy?” I said, thinking please no please no.
She nodded.
“I’m Renee.”
She waved at me and put another star on the ceiling. Not in random patterns, but actual constellations. Had student housing really stuck me with a child prodigy roommate?
I went to complain to the RA, who said, “What kid?”
It turned out Wavy Quinn was eighteen. She wasn’t a child; she was just really small.
And quiet. Oh my god was she quiet.
I talk a lot, so I admit it was several days before I realized Wavy hadn’t spoken to me. Not one word. I only noticed because by the end of the first week she still hadn’t asked me about Jill Carmody.
It’s pathetic, but that was why I’d been looking forward to getting a new roommate. I was waiting for the moment she would ask about the memorial picture of Jill on my bulletin board.
“So, are you mad at me or something?” I said. “Did I do something to piss you off?”
Wavy was sitting at her desk studying. Four days into the semester and she was studying. She shook her head, without even looking up.
“I’m just missing my best friend. Next week is the anniversary of her death.” For a second, I thought even that had failed, but Wavy closed her book, and looked over at my shrine to Jill.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I did my spiel. Jill was my best friend. Smart, pretty, All-State volleyball champion. Killed by a drunk driver our senior year. I cried. I’m ashamed when I look back at how I played that game, because I barely knew Jill. I once had a history class with her. When I went to college I made up this story about my best friend dying, because it made me more interesting.