I couldn’t handle it. I needed to get out of the courtroom.
My mother was still on her knees. She didn’t see me slip away, weaving my way through the crowd of people who had witnessed my family’s destruction. She didn’t see me run out the double doors.
The day was beautiful. The sun shone high in the sky and the soft breeze was enough to make the heat of summer more bearable.
When I woke up in the morning, I pretended the pleasant weather was a sign that the day would end on a good note, that we would be reunited as a family. But like the people of Dallery, the sun was a traitor.
I hopped onto my bike and cycled as far away as I could from the courthouse.
I kept going until I burst through the gates of the cemetery.
With most people at the courthouse, the place was empty.
Her grave was nestled in the space between two sturdy oak trees. They offered her shelter even though she no longer needed it.
She was dead and gone. She would no longer feel pain or experience the warmth of joy.
Like my mother had done in court, I dropped to my knees, too numb with shock to even feel the pain of a pebble digging into my flesh.
My tears dripped onto the sea of flowers, forming droplets on the surface of fragile petals.
When I caught my breath, the smells of various kinds of blooms and damp earth flooded my nostrils. The cocktail of scents overwhelmed me so much that I gagged.
When anger overtook my sadness, I planted my fingers into the soil next to the grave, my short nails digging deep.
I cried until my stomach muscles protested.
Between my sobs, I heard the wind sweeping through the trees above. It ruffled the leaves and snatched some of them off the branches. One or two floated through the air like feathers and brushed my body before going to rest on the ground.
The same wind swept across my face, attempting to dry my tears.
I finally found the courage to read the name carved into stone, like an eternal scar.
Lacey Simmons
“Who did it?” I demanded. “Who killed you? My father… He didn’t do it. Tell them. Please, tell them he’s innocent.”
I didn’t get a response. Dead girls don’t speak. They take the truth with them to the grave.
Chapter 37
The day after my father was sentenced to life without parole, I didn’t go to school. I didn’t want to. I knew how it would be, how I would be treated.
Since the trial began, the bullying at school had increased. I was the daughter of a convicted murderer. It couldn’t get worse than that.
Instead of sitting in class, I went to see my father for the first time since he was arrested. I couldn’t get myself to do it before. I was waiting for him to come back home.
“But you have to see him sometime, Jia Li,” my mother had begged. “He wants to see you.”
Now that I knew he would not be coming home, I had no choice. The sole purpose of my visit was to get him to tell me the truth, that he was wrongfully convicted.
He looked haggard, his eyes and cheeks sunken, his lips chapped and bruised. It took a while before he started the conversation.
“How have you been doing, my girl?”
I answered his question with one of my own. “Did you do it? Tell me it’s not true, Daddy.”
He dropped his head and closed his eyes. When he looked back up at me, the pain in his eyes spoke volumes.
