Critical Injuries (19 page)

When Roddy's case is called, it's like going on stage. He's moved away from the others, off the bench at the side and into a chair beside Ed Conrad's, behind one of the desks out in front of the judge. At another big desk there's a woman, and one of the two cops that busted him. The bigger, older one; the nicer one, although not somebody, obviously, on Roddy's side.

Now here is Roddy in another way he wouldn't have dreamed: standing up beside Ed Conrad admitting armed robbery. “Guilty,” he hears himself say when the judge asks for his plea. Ed Conrad said he should speak clearly in court, so he does, and then the word “guilty” ricochets and reverberates around the room like he's proud of it.

Everything sounds bad. The woman, the lawyer on the other side, sitting at the other table with the cop, says some of what happened. Then the cop takes it from there, the facts of the thing, including all the stuff Roddy told them himself, which was everything except Mike.

The cop also reads bits from other people's statements: the woman's husband, describing being outside in his truck, hearing the shot, running in, seeing Roddy. Seeing Roddy throw up, too, and hand the gun over to Mike, and run out. Embarrassing, the throwing up part, and the running.

“We have been unable to determine that the defendant did not act alone.” It takes a second to unravel that sentence. It means, Roddy guesses, they tried to rope in somebody else, Mike, and couldn't, but they're leaving it open. Mike's maybe not out of the woods yet. Maybe that's why he's not here. Even so.

Ed Conrad leans over with a friendly expression like he's just going to ask his client about something or other, and whispers, “Sit up. Uncross your arms. Get that look off your face.” If he means Roddy should stop squinting, he can't do that. It's bad enough everybody knows he threw up. It'd be way worse if he cried.

The cop says, “The victim remains in hospital, with an undetermined prognosis as to her full or limited recovery.” Which means Roddy isn't the only one who isn't exactly sure what he's done. It's so weird there's this woman, somebody he probably wouldn't recognize on the street unless she was wearing that blue suit again, and both their lives are suddenly completely different because of each other. Roddy shakes his head, because it won't come clear. Ed Conrad clears his throat and shifts in his chair and frowns.

The cop says this and that about Doreen: that she was away from Goldie's for a few days visiting her sister; that robbers might have expected her to do the same as she did last year, which was let cash pile up in Goldie's until she got back, only this time she changed her mind. The cop says, “The timing indicates forethought and foreknowledge. Deliberate planning targeting Goldie's, not a random choice.” Ed Conrad objects. He says that's an unprovable assumption, not one of the facts of the case the cop's supposed to be giving. The judge agrees. Ed nods to himself like he's done something smart.

When it's his turn to ask questions, about all Ed Conrad does, though, is raise the subject of how Roddy's dad stored the shotgun and ammunition. “My client is only seventeen, after all,” he says. “The adults in his life have some responsibility to protect him, even from himself.”

“Was that a question?” the judge asks.

“Oh,” Ed says. “No,” and sits down.

If this wasn't about Roddy himself, it'd be kind of funny. Ed Conrad has nerve, though. Considering who's paying him, it was kind of brave to suggest some of this could be Roddy's dad's fault. Or he's stupid. Whatever.

And that's about it, except for both lawyers, Ed Conrad and the one against Roddy, wrapping things up. The one against him goes on about vicious crime, youthful violence, brutal, reckless behaviour, innocent victim, the need for harsh penalties to set an example. It sounds to Roddy sort of general; like it's not really directed at him.

Ed Conrad is different. For one thing, he talks slowly and softly about Roddy's mother, and what does he know about her? He talks about a boy wrenched from one place and set of people to another due to family tragedy. A hard-working but difficult family situation, loving grandmother and father doing their best, a good sturdy outlook for someone with that kind of support. A reckless, immature, tragic act, he says, by a boy still with promise, who might be destroyed by harsh punishment. “He did a terrible thing,” Ed Conrad says. “But he is not a terrible boy. One out-of-character act should not destroy so much potential.”

What does he think he knows about Roddy's character? Roddy has no good idea of it himself. Nor about potential. He doesn't want to think about that word at all. It means a future that's lost. What he could have done, whatever that might have been if he'd ever worked out such a thing.

What Ed Conrad really has no business doing, though, is bringing up Roddy's mother. If he'd known the lawyer was going to get personal, for sure he'd have told him to leave her out of it. She had enough trouble, without getting dragged into this. Blamed in a way, although Ed Conrad doesn't exactly say that. “My mother was great, we had fun, I trusted my mother.” He would like to stand up and interrupt Ed Conrad and say that. He glares, narrowing his eyes as best he can. Ed Conrad frowns back, quickly, a warning.

The judge says, “I'll set sentencing for one week today, ten o'clock, this courtroom.” Ed Conrad thought it would be a couple of weeks, but the judge probably doesn't figure he has much to think about. Maybe he'd sentence Roddy right now, except that would look too fast. “I'll hear victim impact statements now, along with any statement the defendant cares to make.” The judge sounds sort of bored. Like whatever's getting said, he's heard it before. He probably has. None of this is probably new to anybody except Roddy.

He hears Ed Conrad sigh, and sees a tall older guy in a suit, not a suit like Roddy's dad's but smoother, and dark grey and three-piece instead of black and two-piece, walking from behind Roddy to the front of the room. He doesn't look upset or nervous, but he does look real serious. He's familiar, or his shape is: last seen outlined in the doorway of Goldie's. The judge says, “Please identify yourself to the court,” and he says his name and where he lives. That he's the husband. Also a lawyer. He gives some long-named company, and his own is one of the names. For sure he looks a whole lot smarter, and more expensive, than Ed Conrad.

“I'll be brief,” he says, “because I don't think this young man,” nodding in Roddy's direction but not looking at him, “is worth much of the court's time. My wife, however, does deserve some attention.” That hurts, even though it makes sense the guy has to be bitter. “So I want to tell you just a little about her, so you'll understand the person who's been hurt by all this, through no fault or act of her own.” Well, that's true. She did nothing except show up at the very wrong moment.

“She and I have been married for just over six years. Her first marriage ended very badly, and it was hard for her to make a happy life for herself in its aftermath. But we did. We have.” Hurray for them. Ed Conrad frowns at Roddy again in his quick sidewards way.

“She has two children, both now young adults, whom she worked hard to help through the very difficult years after the end of that first marriage. I'm not here to invade her privacy, but I do want to say that all her adult life she has been a dedicated mother, as well as a creative and talented businesswoman as partner and vice-president of a major advertising agency. A productive and energetic member of society. But of course what's most important to me,” and the guy's smooth voice drops low and goes bumpy and rough, “is that she is my partner. We've each made a second chance for ourselves, which is a considerable triumph at this stage of our lives.”

You'd think he'd know something about second chances, then. You'd think he'd consider sparing one for somebody else. But Roddy supposes that'd be quite a lot to ask of this man. “We enjoy our life. My wife is a person who knows the value of celebration, and that's what we were setting out to do — celebrate a happy moment with ice cream. That's all she was doing: going for ice cream.” His voice breaks slightly there. If Roddy's heart feels clogged up with sentiment, what about everyone else's?

“And now because of this one kid here, she's in a hospital bed where she can't move or feel. She is paralyzed. Even in the best of medical hands, even the best possible outcome would mean months, maybe years of recovery. This boy,” and suddenly he is looking at Roddy, right into Roddy's eyes, a hot stare that welds Roddy's eyes, too, so he can't look away, “this boy blew up her life, he exploded our hopes, he did something more terrible than he can imagine.”

How does he know what Roddy can imagine?

But he's right.

“There's no way to redress this. There's no sentence that fixes it. There's no possible justice. I just want to ask you, your honour, to keep in mind, when you're deliberating, a loving, hardworking woman who was finally happy.” Shit. Happy. Loved.

Going back to his seat, the guy walks stiffly, kind of jerking, and doesn't glance Roddy's way. Roddy feels tiny, stepped-on, like an insect, one of the ones nobody but him sees any beauty in.

Now he can hear somebody else moving behind him, coming up beside him, soft short-stepping sounds. A girl. A young woman, right beside him, almost in reach if he leaned over slightly and stretched out his arm. And as if she is inclined to lean over slightly and stretch out her arm and touch him, she pauses in her journey to the front of the room. She is looking at him in a really strange way.

She's got the wildest red hair, flaming out unbound and amazing. The dress she's wearing doesn't look like it belongs on somebody with that hair; it's long and brownish and he can see through it to the shape of her legs, all the way up. She's real thin. She looks — weak's not the right word, but something like his grandmother's glass animal figurines that she keeps in the china cabinet. She looks like she could break. Or be blown over.

Her skin, it's pale and pure and like he can see right through it, like her dress.

Mainly it's her eyes: really intent, staring right into him. Not like she's angry or any second could pull out a gun, more that she's trying to see right inside his head. He almost nods at her, just as gravely, a way of saying,
Come right in, you're welcome, feel free, look around. Save me.

Something is happening here that's light-headed and also terrible in a way: he is being washed over, his whole self, top to toe, with warm, sincere, perfect love of this girl.

When she turns away and continues to the front of the courtroom he feels released, freed, relieved, although at the same time adrift and more lost than he already was.

Her voice is high and clear. She says she is the daughter and her name is Starglow. The judge says, “Your legal, birth name, please,” and she sighs and says, Alix.

She's looking at Roddy again with those serious eyes. She says she doesn't hate him. If not hate, what? Love? No, that's him. Pity's not quite right either.

She says she only wants to say that her mother is someone with a good soul. “She is paralyzed in her body,” this girl says slowly, talking to Roddy like she's touching him, so his skin feels like it's rising right off the rest of him, “but only in body, never in spirit. My mother has the promise of serenity, she can be a revelation of peace of the spirit. It's very hard, but something so great can't ever be easy. I just want to say this is a promise. It encompasses everyone who's willing.” Her eyes still hold Roddy's. Oh, he's willing. He even thinks he can glimpse what she means by
something so great
and
peace of the spirit
. But it's like a dream, what she means that he understands, it's not quite graspable, and slips away.

His head swims, he feels faint, like he could go falling right over, as she slips past him, back to her seat. Everybody's kind of frowning, rustling, resettling, including the judge. In this whole room, it's like Roddy's the only one who got any of what she was saying. For a few seconds there, he almost had hold of something.

“Thank you,” the judge says finally, in a what-the-hell-was-that sort of voice. Roddy is offended on her behalf; although probably that's small-minded of him. Whereas she is large-minded, huge-hearted, enormous of spirit, and wouldn't care. “Now then.” The judge turns to Ed Conrad. “Does your client have anything to say before we adjourn?” Ed looks at Roddy, who finds himself standing. This is like Goldie's: something he's doing without deciding or thinking.

Now what?

Now here he is, standing up in his dress pants and new shirt, looking at a man in a black robe who's waiting for him to speak, but the point is the girl. She told him something important, even if he can't quite hang on to its meaning, and he needs to tell her something back. A message between the two of them. “I'm sorry” is what comes out. “I'm really, really sorry. I didn't mean it. I'd do anything if it hadn't happened. I don't know how it happened. I'm just sorry.”

Ah no, he has blown it. That was exactly what he already decided was useless, and it's also not even close to anything he wants to tell her. How come there aren't words for what he truly means, the scope of his regret, his sorrow, his sudden, weird love?