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  Dad sits down on the couch next to me and sighs.

  “In your dream? You saw Coach Mitchell in your dream?”

  Dad cracks his knuckles. Willard wanders over and lays a paw on his knee. He wants to go out.

  “In the dream, he looked right at me. He knew it was me.”

  “It’s just a dream,” he says and scratches Willard’s back.

  “I think I killed Coach Mitchell.”

  He stops scratching Willard and looks at me. “Jess, it was an accident. A horrible, fucked-up accident. Nothing more, nothing less.”

  “Then why do I feel so guilty?”

  He doesn’t answer, just hugs me. I cry into his strong shoulder. We sit like this for a few minutes until Willard starts barking. He really wants to go out now.

  “Are you hungry? Let’s go get some breakfast,” says Dad.

  — — —

  Only in Harrison County can you ride your ATV to town and not seem odd. Dad pulls into Jeb’s Skillet and parks between a pickup truck and another ATV.

  “I’m starved,” he says, hopping off. I don’t move.

  Dad knocks on my helmet. “Hello, anybody in there? Let’s go get some grub!”

  I shake my head.

  “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “I don’t want to go in there. People will stare at me. They’ll know what I did.”

  “Not here they won’t. These people don’t read the paper and the only thing they listen to is the country station coming out of Dallas. They’ve never even heard of Jefferson High School or Coach Mitchell, trust me.” He offers his hand. I take off my helmet and hand it to him.

  “Okay then,” he says and hangs my helmet on the ATV.

  Dad is right. No one stares at us. Cindy’s our waitress. She’s been at the Skillet since I can remember. She says what she always says, “Jess Johnson, you are getting so big I hardly recognize you. And so pretty, you can’t be related to this old coot!”

  Dad orders the Hungry Man Special and I watch him stuff himself.

  “It’s not good to eat so much pork,” I tell him.

  “It’s not pork; it’s scrapple.”

  He smiles with scrapple in his mouth. Then he gets serious, as serious as Dad can get.

  “I told your mom I’d talk to you about going back to school.”

  “Maybe I could come live with you to finish high school.” I hadn’t thought of this until this precise moment, but if no one out here knows about the accident, then going to school here makes sense.

  Dad almost chokes on his Texas Toast. “Wha….?”

  “I can’t go back to Jefferson.”

  He wipes his mouth. “Did you ask your mother about this?”

  “No. I just thought of it.”

  “Sweetie, you know I’d love to have you here, but it’s better if you’re with your mom.”

  I look out the window. Why am I surprised? Dad is nothing if not consistent. “But I don’t want to be there. Everyone there hates me.”

  “Jefferson is where all your friends are and your mom and school.”

  “I don’t have any friends anymore.”

  He looks at his empty coffee cup, then waves to Cindy and lifts his cup.

  “Sure, you do. You’ve always had lots of friends. They aren’t going to abandon you because of the accident. Maybe they’re freaked out a little now, but they’ll come around.”

  I slam my hand on the table, and the silverware rattles. Cindy hustles towards us, but I don’t care. “You and Mom don’t get it! My friends will not come around because the few friends I had are all chasing after the guys on the football team. And in case you didn’t know, I killed their coach. They don’t want to have anything to do with me.”

  “It was an accident.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Stop saying that.” Tears roll down my face and my nose is already snotty.

  Cindy appears with the coffeepot. She looks at Dad, raising her eyebrows. “Teenage girls,” she mouths to him and smiles.

  “Jess, you want me to bring you one of those orange-iced donuts? Jeb made them special for Halloween,” she asks.

  I shake my head and wipe my eyes with the napkin.

  “You just let me know if you change your mind.”

  — — —

  Later in the afternoon, Dad is tinkering with a boat motor and I’m playing fetch with Willard when a dirt bike comes flying into the yard, stopping in a cloud of smoke.

  “Hey Fish, what brings you around?” Dad calls. Fish is the abbreviation for the more formal “Fish Finder” which is what everyone calls the kid who lives four trailers down and Dad says has an ungodly gift for knowing where the fish are biting on any given morning.

  “Polly struck gold this morning and we’re having a fish fry up at Catters Park tonight. Thought you might like some fresh trout.”

  “Jess’ here.” Dad nods towards me and Fish waves.

  “She can come too.”

  I shrug and throw the ball for Willard. Homeboy watches from where he lies in the sun.

  “Yeah, maybe we’ll stop by for a little while,” Dad tells him.

  “Cool,” says Fish. He hops back on his bike and spins out sending gravel shooting towards Dad who ducks and laughs as gravel hits the shed like tin rain. Fish grins over his shoulder as he turns onto the lane.

  “Shithead,” Dad mutters and goes back to his motor.

  — — —

  “A Fish Fry? You’re serious?” I ask later when Dad actually suggests we go. “People really do that?”

  “We don’t have to go,” Dad says. He’s sorting through the dishes in the sink, looking for a clean glass. “We can just hang out here.”

  Another fun evening with farting hound dogs and no cable. “I think we should go.”

  “Hanging out with me is that bad?” He holds up a glass to the light, rubs the edges on his shirttail, and fills it with water. He drinks it down in one swallow.

  “I’m going to grab a shower. What time does it start?”

  “Probably started this afternoon when they pulled out the first trout. Which is why I should warn you some of these folks drink a little too much at these things.”

  “Like I’ve never seen that before,” I tell him, and head for the bathroom.

  “What does that mean?” he hollers.

  When we arrive, the bonfire rises nearly two stories high. About twenty people sit around the park pavilion on picnic tables and folding chairs. Three grills are set up side by side. Next to them is a table loaded with bags of chips, crock pots full of baked beans, and a huge platter of cornbread. I pile three slices of cornbread on a napkin. Dad disappears, probably in search of the beer cooler.

  “Hey Jess, you’re looking so grown up,” says Ernie, slurring his speech.

  “Leave her be,” says Maggie, who waves me over to her table. Maggie keeps like twenty cats in her trailer and writes romance novels that are actually erotica, but I’m not supposed to know that. How it is she has come to be accepted by this group still amazes me. Dad says it’s probably because Maggie nearly always wins the local turkey shoot and makes amazing homemade brownies. I think it’s more likely everybody who lives out here is an oddball, so they aren’t the type to judge. It’s not like Jefferson, where everybody’s in your business.

  Fish sits down on my other side and smiles at me shyly. He’s got a dimple on his left cheek. It’s kind of cute. I enjoy listening to him and Maggie cutting on each other. Dad sits down across the table from us. I wish he didn’t feel the need to babys
it.

  “Jake,” says Fish, nodding and touching the brim of his filthy ball cap. Dad nods and taps his beer bottle with Maggie’s.

  “Jess, did you get something to eat besides cornbread?” Dad asks, glancing at my plate.

  “I’m not hungry. I just ran.”

  “Ran? As in with your two legs?” asks Fish.

  I laugh. “I did about five miles. I would have gone further, but Willard was getting winded.”

  “Jess is the only person I know who can outrun a hunting dog,” says Dad.

  “Are you fast?” asks Fish.

  “I almost made it to states last year in the 800.”

  “What’s an 800?”

  “A half-mile.”

  “Shit, I can run that far. Wanna race?”

  I stand up. I’m always ready to race.

  “Fish, she will smoke your ass in mere minutes. Besides, you’re probably running on at least a six-pack.”

  Fish looks at Dad. “Nah, I only had five. Besides, she’s a girl.”

  That is all the incentive I need. I look around for a good place to run. “How about we race from here to the entrance? That’s about a half-mile.”

  Fish and I walk towards the road and when we’re almost there I yell, “Go!” and take off. Fish whoops and runs after me.

  I glance back over my shoulder when we pass Dad’s trailer. It’s only three lots from the entrance. Fish isn’t as far behind as I thought he’d be. I run even faster. No way some redneck boy is gonna beat me.

  I pull up at the entrance and collapse on the grass in front of the enormous boulder that has Cache Creek Park etched into it. A few moments later, Fish reaches me, heaving and holding his stomach. He holds up one finger as if he is about to say something, and then stumbles across the road and pukes in the grass.

  When he finishes, he looks pale and shaky, but he smiles at me as he walks over. He pulls wintergreen Tic Tacs from his pocket and offers me one. I take one and he empties the rest in his mouth. He sits down next to me and leans against the boulder, crunching on Tic Tacs.

  “I want a re-match.”

  “Anytime,” I say.

  Sitting so close to him is weird. I’ve met Fish before, but I remember a skinny kid doing stupid stuff on his dirt bike who went fishing with my dad sometimes. I sneak a look at Fish now. He’s still skinny, but his shoulders are broad. The beginnings of a mustache are sketched in above his lip and his hair falls across his shoulders, dark and sloppy. He catches me looking and winks.

  “So how old are you now?” he asks.

  “Sixteen, but I’ll be seventeen in January. How old are you?”

  “I’ll be twenty-one next month.”

  A pickup drives by and honks at Fish. He gives the driver the finger.

  “You staying with your dad this weekend?”

  I nod. “But I might move out here.”

  “Really? Why would you want to live here? It sucks.”

  “It sucks where I live more, I guess.” I get up and dust off my jeans.

  Fish looks up at me but doesn’t move. “What makes it suck?”

  I don’t want to think about why it sucks so much at my house.

  “Wanna race back?” I ask.

  “Hell no,” says Fish, getting to his feet. “But we ought to walk back before your dad comes looking for me with his 22.”

  We are almost to Dad’s trailer, when Fish asks, “What would you do if you lived here?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I’d go to school.”

  “The high school is way the heck on the other side of the county. I used to go there. The bus ride was forty-five minutes and the people were stupid.”

  “Did you graduate?”

  “Nah. I couldn’t stand the assholes in charge, so I quit.”

  When we get to Dad’s trailer, I say, “Give me a sec.” I want to say hi to Willard and Homeboy. I scratch their heads and toss a stick for Willard. Fish walks over.

  “They’re great dogs,” he says.

  I sit on the picnic table and laugh as the two dogs compete for our attention. When I scratch Homeboy under the chin, Willard stands up with both paws on the bench to lick my face. Fish sits down next to me and rubs Willard’s back. “It’d be cool if you moved out here. We could hang out.”

  “That’d be cool,” I say. I watch him light a cigarette.

  “Can I have one?” I ask. Fish looks around as if someone’s watching.

  “Your dad would kill me if I gave you a cigarette.”

  “No, he wouldn’t,” I insist, reaching for the pack. Fish holds it away, just out of my reach, then jumps up. I get up and chase him around the table. He runs behind the shed, and I follow him. When we’re out of sight of the road, he grabs my waist with one arm and pulls me to him, still holding the cigarettes up in the air out of reach, his own dangling from the corner of his mouth.

  “God, I’d like to make out with you,” he says.

  “So why don’t you?” I ask defiantly and stop reaching for the cigarettes. I want to do something I shouldn’t. I reach for the cigarette in his mouth.

  “Shit,” says Fish, dodging my hand. He steps away. “C’mon, we got to get back. I need a beer.”

  I shake my head. “I’m going to hang out here. Tell my dad.”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “No.”

  He picks up a stick and scratches something in the dirt. It’s a number.

  “What’s that?”

  “My phone number. So you can call me,” he says.

  “Why would I call you?”

  He shrugs. Smiles. “I don’t know. Would you really have kissed me?” he asks. I look at him again, this time I see him as that scrawny kid wearing the Lincoln Park t-shirt standing over Dad as he tinkers with his dirt bike.

  “You’ll never know now, will you?” I say.

  He smiles and lights another cigarette. “Maybe I will someday.”

  I watch him amble off. The seat of his jeans has grass stains on it. He doesn’t look back.

  I go in the house and find a pen and paper and copy down his phone number.

  But I’m not gonna call him.

  Not a boy like him.

  17

  LIZ

  Kevin and I talk multiple times over the weekend. He has a lot of questions. He needs the names of Jess’ friends, teachers, coaches. He asks which Assistant District Attorney used to hire Jess as a babysitter.

  “Bill Monroe. Jess has been babysitting for his kids for at least three years, almost every Friday, but they haven’t called since the accident.”

  “It won’t hurt to have someone on Jess’ side in that office. He might be somebody we could reach out to if we resume negotiating.”

  “They love Jess. She thinks of them as another set of parents.”

  — — —

  On Monday, Kevin calls to tell me he talked to one of the ADA’s (not Bill Monroe) and got their first offer. He asks if I want to call Jake so we can meet and talk about it.

  “Just tell me what it is.”

  “It’s not something we would seriously consider.”

  “Why not?”

  “It involves jail time.”

  “Then it is definitely not something we would consider. Tell them no.”

  “I already did.”

  I smile at this. He gets it.

  “But you should tell Jake about it since it’s actually a decision the two of you have to
make.”

  “I will, but I know he will agree. Jess cannot go to jail.”

  “Okay, here’s the counter offer I’m writing up. Jess will plead to reckless driving and involuntary manslaughter, do six months of house arrest, surrender her license, and do 200 hours of community service. It seems like a lot, but we have to give them something significant to bring them back to the table.”

  “House arrest?”

  “They would let her leave for school and work.”

  “What about track?”

  “No. She’d have to be home otherwise. They’d probably give her an ankle bracelet to monitor it.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “Do you think they’ll take it?”

  “Honestly? No. From what I can tell, the DA wants to make this a big deal, so it looks like he’s cracking down on teenagers driving dangerously.”

  “What about adults driving dangerously? Jess is a better driver than almost anyone I know.”

  “I’ll make that case, but I already told you, this isn’t my area of expertise. You sure you don’t want to call somebody else?”

  I hesitate because suddenly it all seems too real. I trust Kevin; I don’t know why, but I think he’ll do everything he can to protect her. The fact that payment hasn’t come up certainly plays into it, but if it meant making sure my daughter never sees the inside of a jail cell, I’d sell the house and forfeit every paycheck for the next twenty years.

  “It was an accident.”

  “It was, but all the same, Jess is still responsible. I’ll call you when I know something.”

  What is it with blame? For a country founded on Christian principles, the concept of forgiveness can be sorely lacking. I am as devastated as anyone about Robert Mitchell’s death. He was a great man. But how does putting my daughter in jail make it better? I am willing to bet it is the last thing Robert Mitchell would want. Why does forgiveness require a sacrifice? That piece of Christianity never made sense to me. That sounds more like making a deal than offering forgiveness.