“Clive Lincoln’s stepdaughter,” Reid said. “Zoe sure picked the wrong girl to mess with.” He drained his champagne, but I didn’t drink. Instead I set my bottle down on the bottom step of the staircase and walked out the front door.
“I need some air,” I said.
“Let me go with you—” Liddy took a step toward me, but I held up my hand. I walked blindly to the gazebo, where I’d been sitting with Zoe just a few minutes before.
I had met Pastor Clive’s wife a hundred times. And his three girls, who stood up there with her on the stage and sang. None of them was anywhere near old enough to be in high school. And none of them, I knew, was named Lucy.
But there was another child. A black sheep, who suffered through services and never stayed for fellowship. If she was his stepdaughter, she could have had a different last name from Clive. It was entirely possible Zoe would never have made the connection.
Had this girl really come to Zoe for help because she was worried about being gay? Had she tried to tell her mother and stepfather? Had Clive heard all this, and immediately assumed Zoe had tried to recruit his stepdaughter to her lifestyle—because any other interpretation would only reflect poorly onhim?
Or had Pastor Clive—knowing that we needed ammunition in court, knowing how much a victory would mean to the beliefs he preached daily—pressed this accusation out of his stepdaughter? Had he made her the fall guy so that I’d win? So thathe’dwin?
I sat with my head in my hands, puzzling this out, until I realized thathowthe accusation came about didn’t matter.
All that mattered was that it had happened at all.
Judge O’Neill looks over at Zoe, who is staring down at the square of wood between her hands on the defense table. “Ms. Baxter,” he says, “are you doing this freely and voluntarily?”
She doesn’t answer.
Behind her, Vanessa raises her hand and rubs Zoe’s shoulder. It’s the tiniest gesture, but it reminds me of the day I first saw them together in the grocery store parking lot. It is the kind of comfort you offer, out of habit, for someone you love.
“Ms. Baxter?” the judge repeats. “Is this what you want?”
Zoe slowly lifts her head. “It is not what I want,” she says. “But it’s what I’m going to do.”
After about an hour in the gazebo, I saw a ghost.
It moved like a memory across the grass, slipping between the trees. I thought it was saying my name.
Max,Liddy said again, and I woke up.
“You can’t sleep out here,” she said. “You’ll freeze to death.”
She sat down next to me, a cloud of billowing cotton nightgown.
“What are you two doing in there? Poring over the baby name books?” I asked.
“No,” Liddy said. She looked up at the sky. “I’ve been thinking.”
“What’s there to think about?” I asked. “It’s all good news.”
Liddy smiled a little. “That’s what the wordgospelmeans, you know. Spreading the good news of Jesus.”
“If you’ll excuse me,” I said, starting to get up, “I’m not really in the mood for a Bible lesson.”
She continued as if I hadn’t even spoken. “You know what the greatest commandment in the Bible is, don’t you?Love your neighbor as yourself.”
“Great,” I said sourly. “Good to know.”
“Jesus didn’t make exceptions, Max,” Liddy added. “He didn’t say we’re supposed to love ninety-eight percent of our neighbors . . . but hate the ones who play their music too loud or who always drive over our lawn or who vote for Ralph Nader or who get tattooed from head to toe. There may be days I don’t really want to love the guy whose dog ate the heads off my daylilies, but Jesus says I don’t have a choice.”
She held out her hand, and I pulled her to her feet. “It’s not love if there are conditions,” she said. “That’s what I’ve been thinking.”
I looked down at our clasped hands. “I don’t know what to do, Liddy,” I admitted.
“Of course you do,” she said. “The right thing.”
