Jodi Picoult - Change of heart

And Shay? Well, he'd been sitting right there, with his unwashed hair and his vacant eyes. His silence-which I'd read as pride, or shame-might only have been the understanding that for people like him, the world did not work the way it should. And I, like the other eleven jurors, had judged him before any verdict was given. After all, what kind of man gets put on trial for a double murder? What prosecutor seeks the death penalty without good reason?

Since I'd become his spiritual advisor, he'd told me that what had happened in the past didn't matter now, and I'd taken that to mean that he wouldn't accept responsibility for what he'd done. But it could also have meant that in spite of his innocence, he knew he was still going to die.

I'd been present at that trial; I'd heard all the testimony. To think

Shay might not have deserved a death sentence seemed ridiculous, impossible.

Then again, so were miracles.

"But Shay," I said quietly, "I heard that evidence. I saw what you did."

"I didn't do anything." He ducked his head. "It was because of the tools. I left them at the house. No one came when I knocked on the door so I just went inside to get them... and then I saw her."

I felt my stomach turn over. "Elizabeth."

"She used to play with me. A staring game. Whoever smiled first, that was the loser. I used to get her every time, and then one day while we were staring she lifted up my screwdriver-I didn't even know she'd taken it-and waved it around like a maniac with a knife.

I burst out laughing. I got you, she said. I got you. And she did-she had me, one hundred percent." His face twisted. "I never would have hurt her. When I came in that day, she was with him. He had his pants down. And she was-she was crying... he was supposed to be her father." He flung an arm up over his face, as if he could stop himself from seeing the memory. "She looked up at me, like it was a staring contest, but then she smiled. Except this time, it wasn't because she lost. It was because she knew she was going to win. Because I was there. Because I could rescue her. My whole life, people looked at me like I was a fuckup, like I couldn't do anything right-but she, it was like she believed in me," Shay said. "And I wanted- God, I wanted to believe her."

He took a deep breath. "I grabbed her and ran upstairs, to the room

I was finishing. I locked the door. I told her we would be safe there. But then there was a shot, and the whole door was gone, and he came in and pointed his gun at me."

I tried to imagine what it would be like to be Shay-easily confused and unable to communicate well-and to suddenly have a pistol thrust in my face.

I would have panicked, too.

"There were sirens," Shay said. "He'd called them in. He said they were coming for me and that no cop would believe any story from a freak like me. She was screaming, 'Don't shoot, don't shoot.' He said,

'Get over here, Elizabeth,' and I grabbed the gun so he couldn't hurt her and we were fighting and both our hands were on it and it went off and went off again." He swallowed. "I caught her. The blood, it was everywhere; it was on me, it was on her. He kept calling her name but she wouldn't look at him. She stared at me, like we were playing our game; she stared at me, except it wasn't a game... and then even though her eyes were open, she stopped staring. And it was over even though I didn't smile." He choked on a sob, pressed his hand against his mouth. "I didn't smile."

"Shay," I said softly.

He glanced up at me. "She was better off dead."

My mouth went dry. I remembered Shay saying that same sentence to June Nealon at the restorative justice meeting, her storming out of the room in tears. But what if we'd taken Shay's words out of context?

What if he truly believed Elizabeth's death was a blessing, after what she'd suffered at the hands of her stepfather?

Something snagged in the back of my mind, a splinter of memory.

"Her underpants," I said. "You had them in your pocket."

Shay stared at me as if I were an idiot. "Well, that's because she didn't have a chance to put them back on yet, before everything else happened."

The Shay I had grown to know was a man who could close an open wound with a brush of his hand, yet who also might have a breakdown if the mashed potatoes in his meal platter were more yellow than the day before. That Shay would not see anything suspicious about the police finding a little girl's underwear in his possession; it would make perfect sense to him to grab them when he grabbed

Elizabeth, for the sake of her modesty.

"Are you telling me the shootings were accidental?"

"I never said I was guilty," he answered.

The pundits who downplayed Shay's miracles were always quick to point out that if God were to return to earth. He wouldn't choose to be a murderer. But what if He hadn't? What if the whole situation had been misunderstood; what if Shay had not willfully, intentionally killed

Elizabeth Nealon and her stepfather-but in fact had been trying to save her from him?

It would mean that Shay was about to die for someone else's sins.

Again.

"Not a good time," Maggie said when she came to the door.

"It's an emergency."

Then call the cops. Or pick up your red phone and dial God directly.

I'll give you a call tomorrow morning." She started to close the door, but I stuck my foot inside.

"Is everything all right?" A man with a British accent was suddenly standing beside Maggie, who had turned beet red.

"Father Michael," she said. "This is Christian Gallagher."

He held out his hand to me. "Father. I've heard all about you."

I hoped not. I mean, if Maggie was having a date, clearly there were better topics of conversation.

"So," Christian asked amiably. "Where's the fire?"

I felt heat rising to the back of my neck. In the background, I could hear soft music playing; there was half a glass of red wine in the man's hand. There was no fire; it was already burning, and I had just thrown a bucket of sand on it. I'm sorry. I didn't mean-" I stepped backward.

"Have a nice night."

I heard the door close behind me, but instead of walking to my bike, I sat down on the front stoop. The first time I'd met Shay, I'd told him that you can't be lonely if God is with you all the time, but that wasn't entirely true. He's lousy at checkers, Shay had said. Well, you couldn't take God out to a movie on a Friday night, either. I knew that I could fill the space a companion normally would with God; and it was more than enough. But that wasn't to say I didn't feel that phantom limb sometimes.

The door opened, and into the slice of light stepped Maggie. She was barefoot, and she had her power-suit coat draped over her shoulders.

I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to ruin your night."

"That's okay. I should have known better than to assume all the planets had aligned for me." She sank down beside me. "What's up?"

In the dark, with her face lit in profile by the moon, she was as beautiful as any Renaissance Madonna. It struck me that God had chosen someone just like Maggie when He picked Mary to bear His

Son: someone willing to take the weight of the world on her shoulders, even when it wasn't her own burden. "It's Shay," I said. "I think he's innocent."

Maggie

I was not particularly surprised to hear what Shay Bourne had told the priest.

No, what surprised me was how fervently he'd fallen for it-hook, line, and sinker.

"It's not about protecting Shay's rights anymore," Michael said. "Or letting him die on his own terms. We're talking about an innocent man being killed."

We had moved into the living room, and Christian-well, he was sitting on the other end of the couch pretending to do a Sudoku puzzle in the newspaper, but actually listening to every word we said. He'd been the one to come outside and invite me back into my own home. I fully intended to pop Father Michael's bubble of incensed righteousness and get back to the spot I'd been in before he arrived.