Heist

threatens me. Her grief and her pain match mine. I can feel this too.

  "Start talking, and keep your voice down," she says.

  "What do you want to know?"

  "Why would you do this to me?" she asks, the rage fading in the way her voice softens.

  The pain pulses through me. "I would never hurt you."

  "Then why? Tell me that."

  "Why what? I don't understand."

  Jetta moves closer. "I saw the spray paint cans in a white trash bag by your curb this morning when I left. I didn't think much of it at the time."

  I pause and breathe in her peachy smell. "What happened?"

  Jetta's voice drops low and wavers. "Someone destroyed all the student artwork with spray paint. Including mine."

  "I'm sorry." But inside, I feel relieved. Without her painting, she can't enter the art show.

  She grabs my suit coat and pulls me close. "You're not making any sense. How do you know so much about me? And don't give me any crap about being psychic." She loosens her hold but doesn't pull away.

  If I sway forward our lips will touch but I can barely look in her eyes. "I've been given a chance to make things right."

  Jetta leans back.

  I fight the urge to close the gap. "The first time was an accident. I went to my dad's trial, and I met Frank. You were kidnapped by two of your grandmother's goons at the art festival. She drives a silver car. Your dad was heartbroken." I pause, hoping I don't sound crazy.

  "Keep going."

  "That night I was given a chance to make things right. To help my dad. To help you. But each time I tried to make things better, they got worse. My dad went from being in jail for four years to being an inmate for eleven years to?" I can't say the words. My cheeks burn and my throat constricts so I can barely get the words out. "I can't save you. Each time, your grandmother finds a way."

  "What do you mean by having a chance to make things right?" Jetta asks.

  I can't see her eyes in the dark but I know she's suspicious. I blow out a soft breath. The truth pushes up, regardless. "Don't think I'm crazy. But the day I met you, that night, which would be tonight, a painting in my mom's shop transported me back to 1990 and the Gardner Heist. When I returned, it was March 17th. Again." I whisper, "I'm sorry."

  Her fingers dig into my arm. "I can't believe you would use personal information to mock me. And lie to me. I hate you. I wished we'd never met." Her fist connects with my gut. "I hope your dad rots in hell. Just like you."

  9:11 a.m.

  I fall to my knees on the cement floor and lean over. I cry. The raw pain fills me, rising up into my throat and chokes me. I'll suffocate. Right here. And the only witnesses will be the endless supply of glue, paintbrushes, and tissue paper. After a few minutes, I lay my cheek on the cold dusty floor. I can't help anyone. Never could. I destroyed a friend and killed my dad.

  I tried. I shouldn't have said anything to her. I should've lied. At the beach Dad told me to act more like a man. Being a man is about more than helping out in the coffee shop or cleaning my room. It should mean telling the truth to everyone you care about. I don't know what it means to be a man and now I wonder if Dad did either.

  Light floods the closet. I push up off the floor, blinded. My head throbs and my eyes feel the size of the lumps of clay on the shelves.

  Jetta's voice, filled with hatred, breaks through the haze. "He did it."

  "Jack Brodie?" Vice Principal Sneed gently takes me by the arm and leads me out of the closet. A policeman pats me down.

  "Do you have any proof of this, Jetta?"

  "Yes." Her voice cracks. "I saw the cans of spray paint at his house this morning."

  I don't argue. If Jetta doesn't believe me, no one will. Maybe this is some sort of cosmic payback. I failed Dad. At some point, I made the wrong choice and this is my punishment.

  The policeman cocks his hat. "I'll go check it out. I wouldn't go anywhere, young man. Destruction of property is a serious crime."

  I have nowhere I want to go.

  When Sneed motions me to follow him, I go willingly. I can't look at Jetta or at the walls with the neon colors slashed through the artwork. Jetta puts all her heart into her paintings. No wonder she hates me.

  In his office, Sneed steeples his fingers and peers down at me. "I won't keep you long. I know you have places to be." He pauses as if questioning how to proceed. "I'm terribly sorry for your loss."

  I stare at a potted fern on Sneed's desk and let it go in and out of focus. "Yeah, I have places to be," I mumble.

  Sneed stands and splays his hands on his desk. "We take vandalism very seriously here."

  "Yes, Sir." The need for answers sparks. I need to see the truth, laid out in the ground, and there's only one place to find them. At the cemetery. Coming to the school. Finding Jetta. It was all an excuse. And it would be easier to make Big D sing a show tune than get Jetta to share what she knows about the Gardner Heist.

  "Until your name is cleared, you are on a temporary school suspension. If and when we learn of your innocence, you are welcome back. If the verdict returns that you are guilty, we will dole out consequences at that time."

  I hear the words but don't respond.

  "You are dismissed."

  10:00 a.m.

  The sun pulses, and sweat drips down the back of my neck.

  Dirt sounds like muffled gunshots against the wood coffin.

  A butterfly rises from the six foot hole in the ground, the colorful wings fluttering as it hovers and dances above Mom's head then flies up into the branches of a nearby oak tree. I lose sight of it among the budding leaves. Mom loves butterflies. Or she used to. She called it new life, a fresh start.

  The bushes lining the outside of the cemetery rustle, and then a squirrel shoots out and scampers up the oak. I wave a fly away from my face.

  Signs of life. Everywhere.

  All the times we hung out in the cemetery, I never saw so much life. We just noticed the moonlit gravestones and made jokes about dead people's names. That seems so shallow now, a lifetime away when the only cares we had were avoiding Big D on the streets.

  The gravedigger throws the last of the dirt on the grave sight and pats it down with the back of the shovel. I stare at the patterns in the layers of dirt, the depths of dark and light. I close my eyes and sway with the onslaught of memories.

  The crack of the bat from the Red Sox slamming a home run into the grandstand. The ketchup from Dad's hotdog dripping onto my leg as he cheered. The crash of the waves against the shore, washing away the sand from my feet when the foamy water withdrew back into the ocean. The simple touch of his hand on my arm as he told stories on the porch.

  All these memories taunt me. The weight of guilt is heavy in the air, pushing against me.

  An arm around my shoulder jolts me back to the present. The service is over and I feel like I missed it. Uncles hug me. Aunts kiss my cheek with their painted red lips. They murmur, "So sorry." Some say nothing at all. My cousin, Tommy, home from college, slaps me on the back. "Nice suit."

  People shuffle in between the graves, back to their cars to head to my Aunt Rosemary's house for beef stew, but I'm not hungry. No one talks about what happened and I don't know how Dad died. I need answers, and they all assume I know.

  Mom loops her arm around my shoulders. "Are you coming?"

  I shake my head. My legs are planted to the ground, roots sprouting from the bottom of my feet and digging deep into the earth. I can't move.

  "Your friends are here. Take as long as you like." Mom's voice wavers, her emotions on the brink of breaking. "I'll see you back at home."

  I look at her for the first time. Her eyes are dull and lifeless. Yesterday they sparkled with love. She was happy. I tried to save my dad and only made things worse for everyone. Including Mom. Everything that was so clear is muddled.

  Mom slips her fingers into my hand before turning to leave. She offers me a window, a chance to be close. I wrap my arms around her
and hang on, refusing to let go. Her shoulders shake and her tears wet my neck and seep into Tommy's suit. We stand like that for a few minutes.

  Finally she pulls away. "Your dad would be so proud of you." Then she walks away.

  That's when I see Frank standing at the edge of the cemetery.

  10:45 a.m.

  His presence startles me out of the daydream existence this day has been. I've been traveling through a nightmare, disasters exploding at my right and my left. But this man's voice, his words pull at me. From the very first time we talked, he tore holes in everything I knew to be true.

  He challenged me to go on this journey and now my life lies in pieces around me. Dad's in the grave, because of me.

  I failed him.

  I'm drawn back to the fresh gravesite. The stone is clean with only the natural patterns of dark and light veins running through it. Joseph Brodie. That's all it says. Other gravestones in the cemetery say things like, devoted father, cherished church member. If asked, I wouldn't know what to carve into his stone. I had no words for people to remember him by.

  Stick and Turbo move to my side and stand patiently. It's time. Everyone's gone. My friends can tell me the truth. But I can't say the words; instead I stare at the dark pile of soil.

  "Are we going to stand here all day, because I'd love to miss a Spanish test," Stick says.

  "I got suspended." This truth is safe. My friends can relate to this part of my life.

  "Why?" Turbo asks.

  "For vandalism."

  "You're stepping up in the world," Stick says with a laugh.

  "Someone framed me." This separate truth