The Unremarkable Heart

bondsman in a part of town June had never even known existed. There was an entirely different language to this type of life, a Latin that defied their various English degrees: ex officio , locus delicti , cui bono . They stayed awake all night reading law books, studying cases, finding precedent that, when presented to the lawyer, was dispelled within seconds of their meeting. And still, they would go back every night, studying, preparing, defending.
    There is no bond tighter than a bond of mutual persecution. It was June and Richard against everyone else. It was June and Richard who knew the truth. It was June and Richard who would fight this insanity together. Who were these girls? How dare these girls? To hell with these girls.
    June had often lectured Grace about responsibility. Like most children, Grace was a great subverter. Her stories always managed to shift blame, however subtly, onto the other person. If there was a fight, then Grace was only defending herself. If she was late with an assignment, it was always because the teacher’s instructions had not been clear. If she got caught sneaking out in the middle of the night, it was only because her friends had threatened her, cajoled her, to be part of the group.
    ‘Which is more possible,’ June had asked. ‘That every single person in the world is conspiring to make you seem a fool, or that you are only fooling yourself?’
    But, this was different. June was vindicated. One by one, the girls dropped away, their charges dismissed for lack of evidence. The parents made excuses. The girls were not lying, but the public scrutiny was too much. The limelight not what they had expected. All of them refused to testify – all but one. Danielle Parson, Grace’s best friend. Richard’s original accuser.
    The prosecutor, having lost tremendous face when the bulk of his case fell apart, would have sought the death penalty if possible. Instead, he threw every charge at Richard that had even the most remote possibility of sticking. Sodomy, sexual assault, statutory rape, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, providing alcohol to a minor, and, because the debate team had traveled to a neighboring state for a regional tournament, child abduction and transporting a minor for the purposes ofsexual concourse. This last one was a federal charge. At the judge’s discretion, Richard could be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
    ‘It’s come to Jesus time,’ their lawyer had said, a phrase June had never heard in her life until that moment. ‘You can fight this, and still go to jail, or you can take a deal, serve your time, and get on with your life.’
    There were other factors. Money from a second mortgage they had taken on the house would only get them through jury selection. Obviously, Richard wasn’t allowed back at work or within three hundred yards of any of the girls. The board had told June they were thinking of ‘transferring her valuable skills’ to a school that routinely ended up in the news for campus shootings and stabbings. Then, there were the signs left in their front yard, the burning bag of shit on their front porch. Nasty phone calls. Deep scratches in the paint of their cars.
    ‘It’s like Salem,’ June had muttered, and Richard agreed, making a comment that burning at the stake was preferable to being slowly drawn and quartered in front of a crowd of hysterical parents.
    June decided then and there to dig in her heels. They would fight this. They would live in a homeless shelter if that’s what it took to clear Richard’s name. She would not let them win. She would not let this lying, cheating whore who had been her daughter’s best friend take another life.
    She was certain then that Danielle had had something to do with Grace’s death. Had she taunted her? Had Danielle hounded Grace until picking up that straight razor, opening up her skin, seemed the only way to redeem herself?
    Leading up to the trial, June was consumed with such hatred for Danielle Parson that she could not look at a blonde-haired, slight, simpering teenager without wanting to slap her. Danielle had always been mouthy, always the one who wanted to push the limits. Her mother let her dress like a hooker. She skipped class. She wore too much mascara. She was a hateful, hateful child.
    More obscure Latin. Deposition, from depositio cornuum , ‘taking off the horns.’
    The twenty-one years since Richard’s conviction had given June