Waiting for Morning (15 page)

At the sight of her disheveled, clearly miserable little girl, Hannah was pierced with guilt and heartache. She stopped tapping and sighed, her voice sadder than before. “Honey, you haven’t said two words to me since yesterday. I need to know your plans. I’m getting ready to leave for the hearing this morning.”

Jenny crossed her arms. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, for starters—” Hannah forced herself to sound understanding, even patient—“are you going to school or coming with me?”

Jenny was silent, her eyes glazed with unresolved anger and grief.

Hannah sighed. “Jenny, I think you should come with me today. Carol Cummins called yesterday. She’s the woman from Mothers Against Drunk Drivers.” Hannah hesitated. “She said sometimes the victims get forgotten in these court proceedings.”

Jenny huffed. “No kidding.”

Hannah frowned. What on earth did that mean? “I’ll ignore that comment. What I’m trying to say is, we need to be there to represent your dad and Alicia. We’re the only ones who can do that.”

“Dad and Alicia are dead.” Jenny turned, plodded across the room, and fell onto her unmade bed. “I’m staying home today.”

Hannah’s heartbeat quickened and she felt her face grow hot. “That isn’t an option. You need to get dressed and make your bed. Then you need to either get yourself to the bus stop or come with me to the hearing.”

“I don’t feel good.”

Hannah’s heart sank. Jenny had always been the picture of health. Before the accident, she was routinely recognized for perfect attendance in school. Now she’d missed twelve days since returning to school, and she rarely woke up enthusiastic about anything. “Honey, you’ve missed too much school already.”

Jenny began crying again. “I thought you
wanted
me to miss school! So you can haul me off to court and show me off, so everyone can stare at me like … like I’m some kind
of freak
or something!”

Hannah clenched her fists
. Why can’t you understand? Jenny, what’s happening to us?
“Never mind. Don’t come to the hearing. I just thought you might feel better if you did something constructive.”

Jenny sat up, her shoulders hunched wearily. “What’s constructive about sitting in a courtroom while people walk around feeling sorry for you?”

“Someone has to represent your dad and Alicia.” Hannah heard her voice getting louder, and she struggled to regain control.

“This isn’t about Daddy and Alicia. It’s about that guy who hit us. You want him locked up and … and you want to use me as some kind of … I don’t know, some kind of puppet to make everyone feel sorry for us.”

Hannah felt as if she’d been slapped. She reeled, taking a step backward. “That’s not fair, Jenny! That man
destroyed
our family. Yes, I want him locked up. So he won’t do this to anyone else. If our being there could possibly help get him off the streets, then your dad and Alicia’s deaths will not be in vain.”

“That’s a lousy reason to die, Mom. I need them here. I want them
here
. Besides, I don’t care what happens to that guy. I’m not going to court … not today or any other day! It won’t bring Dad and Alicia back, and that’s the only thing that matters.”

Hannah felt the sting of tears. She wanted to go to Jenny, comfort her, and hold her. Take away the hurt. But Hannah’s own pain seemed to create an invisible wall between them too high to scale. “Fine. Don’t go. But I’ll expect you to get dressed and be at the bus on time.” Hannah glanced at her watch. “You have forty-five minutes.”

“I said I don’t feel good.”

Hannah’s sympathy evaporated. “Listen, Jenny, unless you want to repeat this year, you need to go to school. I don’t feel good, either. It’s part of life these days.”

Jenny was silent again, and Hannah turned to leave. How had this happened? How had she and Jenny grown so distant? If only Tom were here. He would know what to say, how to reach her.…

She collected the photograph of Tom and Alicia and placed
it carefully in her day-planner. She had lost so much, and somehow it seemed like the losing had only begun. In the end, when the court proceedings were behind her … would she have lost Jenny, too? Hannah wiped at a single tear, grabbed her car keys, and forced herself to think of the events that lay ahead.

For an instant she considered praying, considered asking God to help Jenny understand. Maybe if she begged him to repair their damaged relationship, he would help them, restore them, so that at least they would have each other. But the thought of praying made Hannah’s skin crawl. It was the same creepy feeling she used to get when she and Tom would see a television commercial for the Psychic Hotline.

That was when the idea came to her. She ignored it for a moment, but it wouldn’t go away. And for the first time in her life, Hannah considered an unthinkable possibility: Perhaps everything she’d ever learned and believed about God was just fable and fairy tale. Perhaps God didn’t really exist at all. At least you could see the Psychic Hotline people, but God … what proof was there?

No God. It was a plausible explanation, and as Hannah tested it in her heart and mind, she felt herself becoming convinced.

Yes, that had to be it. There was no God. No father in heaven who had deserted her, no Lord who had allowed her family to be destroyed. Perhaps all of life was only a random crapshoot.

The idea was strangely comforting, and by the time Hannah climbed into her car and headed for the Criminal Courts Building, she had accepted it as truth.

Brian Wesley sat on a cold wooden chair in a holding room adjacent to Courtroom 201, home of the formidable Judge Rudy Horowitz. He fidgeted with a paper clip, twisting it back and forth until it broke into tiny metal strips. Across the table from him sat his lawyer, Harold Finch.

“You understand the order of events today?” Finch’s chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. The hearing was in fifteen minutes, and Finch had just arrived to court. Late, as usual.

Brian turned in his chair and studied his trembling fingers. “They charge me with murder. I tell ’em I’m not guilty.”

“Right.” Finch studied him. “Try to sound sure of yourself.”

Brian nodded, his eyes downcast.

“You remember what I’ve told you about Judge Horowitz?”

“No nonsense. Doesn’t like drunk drivers.”

“Good.” Finch breathed easier. “You been off the bottle?”

“Sometimes. I drink a little now and then, but no driving, man. Don’t worry.”

Finch’s face grew red and he frowned. “It’s going to take more than that, Mr. Wesley! You need to stop drinking. This case will go to trial, and if the prosecutor can prove you’re still drinking, there’s a chance you’ll be convicted of first-degree murder.”

Brian gulped and his palms began to sweat. When he could speak again, his voice was pinched. “You said that wouldn’t happen.”

“It’s never happened in the history of California.” Finch set his elbows on the table and leaned closer to Brian. “But jurors are changing. They’re only sympathetic to a point. If they think you’re going to drink and drive again, maybe hurt
their
families or friends, they just might put you away.”

Brian picked up a broken piece of the paper clip and ran his finger over its smooth length. “I’m trying to stop, man.”

“How about AA? You connected with a group yet?”

“I went once. Some guy led the thing … kept talking about higher power this, and God that. I couldn’t relate, you know?”

Finch waved a hand in dismissal. “The God stuff is part of the deal. No one says you have to believe it, but if you’re not in with an AA group, you’ll lose the jury’s sympathy for sure.”

Brian looked down again, and his eyes fell on another paper clip. He reached out and pulled it closer. “So … what? Pretend I’m some kind of Jesus freak?”

“God, Jesus, Buddah, higher power … whatever. Just go along with it. This has nothing to do with your personal belief system. It has to do with keeping your pickled behind out of prison. Understand?”

Brian nodded and bent the paper clip until it was unrecognizable.

Finch summed up Brian, and his face became a mask of doubt. “I plan to win this case, Mr. Wesley. But I am going to need your cooperation.”

“Got it.”

“All right, that’s better. Listen, I have to talk to someone down the hall. I’ll be back in ten minutes, and we’ll get set up in the courtroom.”

Brian did not look up as his attorney left the room. A ripple of terror ran through him like a current of electricity.
How did I get here?
His heart skipped a beat in response.
Wasn’t I doing my best work ever, sober for three weeks? How did everything get so messed up?
He closed his eyes and he could see Carla, the devastated look on her face when she picked him up at the county jail the night of the accident.

She had said nothing until they were in her car. Then her voice had been barely more than a whisper. “How could you, Brian?”

He hadn’t answered her. He had still been drunk, after all, and there was no point defending himself to Carla. But she’d been relentless, horrified at what had happened. “Brian, do you understand? You
killed
two people!”

He tried to explain that it was an accident … of course he hadn’t meant to hurt anyone. But Carla was furious and unforgiving. For days after the accident she stayed away from him, almost as if she were afraid of him. When they spoke, she talked of nothing but the accident, the impending court proceedings—and the biggest issue of all—when Brian was finally going to quit drinking.

A week after the accident Brian could take no more. He moved out and took up residence on the sofa bed at a friend’s
nearby apartment. Jackson Lamer was a party buddy from Brian’s high school days, faithful and true, always ready with a cold one when the chips were down.

“Dude, whatever you need,” Jackson had told him after hearing about the accident. He popped the top of an aluminum beer can and handed it to Brian. “Rides to court, AA meetings. Whatever, dude. You’re in righteous, big-time trouble, and that’s what buds are for, man. Just let me know.”

Jackson was a keeper, the kind of friend Brian wished he had more of.

Police had impounded Brian’s car, and the few times he had needed a ride in the weeks since, Jackson had come through. Days were difficult, wondering if he should look for a job or wait until the courts were through with him. But evenings were better, he and Jackson would pass the hours sharing a twelve-pack, talking about old times.

Since the accident, only Jackson had been faithful. Everyone else had forsaken him: Avery Automotive, Carla, even the beer. Back in the old days, the drink always made things okay, but ever since the accident, there was no peace—not in drinking or sleeping … and definitely not in thinking. Day or night, whenever he closed his eyes, he was haunted by them. The girl lying lifeless on the side of the road; her father trapped in their family car, his life slowly draining away. A mother and sister left alone, brokenhearted.

He hated himself for what he’d done to them.

He tried to block out their faces, but they pushed their way into his mind anyway. And with them came images of demons, laughing, taunting him, offering him another drink. Brian swallowed hard around the lump in his throat.

The legal proceedings were pointless. Whatever happened in court, he was already trapped in the worst kind of prison.

He looked around, searching for another paper clip, but found none.

A meeting for alcoholics had offered no relief. Finch had
called with the information, explaining that there was a meeting one mile from Jackson’s apartment. Brian remembered the evening well. He had stayed clean for the occasion, and that evening Jackson had dropped him off.

“Give it a try, man.” He’d shrugged. “Who knows, maybe I’ll join you one day.”

Brian walked through the double glass doors nervously, signed in, and found a seat. The room was filled with twenty or so men and women ranging in age from early twenties to late fifties. Most of them looked comfortable, like they’d been meeting together for years.

“We have someone new in our group tonight.” The leader looked right at him as he spoke. “Mr. Wesley, will you stand and tell us a little about yourself and why you’re here?”

Brian wished he could disappear, but he stood, his knees knocking within his worn jeans. “Brian Wesley. I, uh … I was in an accident last week. Uh … my attorney told me about this.”

A knowing look came over the leader’s face. “Brian—may I call you Brian?”

Brian nodded.

“Brian, was that the accident at Ventura and Fallbrook?”

He looked around the room, suddenly embarrassed. “Yeah.”

The leader seemed to wait for him to elaborate. When he stood silent, the man went on. “You were driving under the influence, is that right?”

Brian nodded again and shoved his hands deep inside his pockets.

“Can you tell us about it?”

“Uh … well … no.”

The leader nodded. “Okay.” He paused. “I’m sure a few of us read about that accident.” He looked at the others and his voice filled with compassion. “A father and daughter were killed when Brian, here, drove his truck through a red light at Ventura and Fallbrook. Is that right, Brian?”

Brian’s temper flared. “I said I didn’t want to talk about it!”

“I understand, but we don’t keep secrets in this group. We’re here to help you.”

Brian wanted to run from the room. “I don’t need help. I’m here because of my attorney.”

“You’re not alone, Brian. A few of those sitting around the room here have been involved in serious accidents. Accidents they caused by driving drunk. But they’ve found forgiveness in Christ and have accepted his gift of new life.”

Brian shook his head. The guy sounded like some kind of religious freak. Who was Christ anyway, and what did new life have to do with drunk driving? What sort of God would want anything to do with him after what he’d done to that family?

His response had been quick. “I don’t believe in God, man.”

The leader smiled kindly. “That’s all right. He believes in you. He wants to meet you right where you are, Brian.”