Killer and Mochi

Chapter 3: The Hearing Date

I spent the next week listening for Ezra's name in my own kitchen.

Claire didn't bring him up. Neither did I. We talked about flour orders, the broken freezer, and whether the new awning should be green or cream. I picked green because the bakery's old sign had been green. Claire picked cream because she said it would make the storefront look bigger.

We were both right, and neither of us was talking about the thing that mattered.

On Thursday, a certified envelope arrived for Claire. The return address was the state parole board.

She signed for it at the front counter, then took it to the back room. I was putting a tray of sesame mochi into the display case. I watched her disappear through the door.

When she came out, she was holding a printed sheet.

"They confirmed the hearing," she said.

"June seventeenth?"

"Yes."

"Are you going?"

"I said I would."

"Can I come?"

She blinked. "You want to?"

"I don't know. I want to know what happens."

"You don't have to be there."

"You don't have to decide that for me."

She nodded once. "You're right."

I looked at the page. Ezra's full name was printed above his inmate number. The board would accept written statements from victims and family members. The deadline was ten days before the hearing.

"I want to submit something," I said.

Claire's eyes moved to mine. "What would you say?"

"I don't know yet."

"You don't have to send anything."

"I know."

That was the point. I wanted it to be mine to decide.

I took the notice home and placed it on the table beside Owen's latest letter. He had written that he was growing basil in a bucket because the garden beds were frozen. I wrote back about the hearing date and the hidden letters. I didn't use Ezra's name.

Owen's reply came a week later.

You don't need to decide whether a person is good or bad before you tell the truth about what he did. The board can hear both.

It was the first time I had thought of the hearing that way. I'd been imagining one question with two answers: Was Ezra still a dangerous man, yes or no? But maybe the board could hear the truth without me having to fit him into a single category.

I told Claire I wanted to write a statement.

She put down the inventory sheet she was checking. "Okay."

"You don't have to agree with it."

"I know."

"I don't know yet what I'm going to say."

"Then take your time."

I looked at her. "What are you going to say?"

"I haven't written mine."

"Would you tell the board you forgive him?"

She flinched. "I don't know."

"Would you tell them you want him out?"

"I don't know."

"Why do you keep writing him if you don't know?"

"Because I wanted the answers to make it simple."

"Did they?"

"No."

I sat on the stool beside the prep table. "What did he tell you about Mom?"

"Everything he remembers."

"Like what?"

"That he saw the crosswalk sign change. That he looked down to pick up his phone. That he was going too fast. He said he didn't see her until the impact."

"He was drunk."

"Yes."

"Did he say how drunk?"

"He said he'd been drinking for hours."

I pressed my thumbnail into the side of my finger. I remembered the courtroom only in fragments: the gray walls, a glass of water, Claire's hand on my back. I remembered waking in the hospital and asking for Mom. I remembered my father saying she was gone. The doctors explained that my concussion could cause gaps, but I already had them. I couldn't recall the crash itself, which made my loss feel borrowed from other people's stories.

"Why didn't you tell me he was writing all that?" I asked.

"Because I didn't know how to tell you without making you think I was taking his side."

"You are taking his side."

"I'm trying to hear what he says."

"That's not the same thing?"

"No." She looked exhausted. "But I understand why it feels that way."

I wanted her to say she wouldn't support parole. I wanted her to say she would never let him near us. I wanted her to say the years he'd served were not enough, because Mom was still dead and my head still hurt when I was tired.

Instead, Claire said, "I don't know what I'll do."

I knew then that she might choose a future I didn't want.

The next morning, I asked Marcy for the parole board's victim statement form. I filled in my name, my address, and my relationship to the victim.

For the statement, I wrote one sentence:

I am not ready for Ezra Cole to come back to our town, and I don't want my sister's forgiveness to be mistaken for mine.

I stared at it for a long time.

Then I signed.