A. Taylor - Innocent or Guilty?

Blue Plate was busy and I couldn’t see my roommate Samira anywhere. Probably she was back in the kitchen, prepping the desserts that helped make the restaurant so popular. The maȋtre d’ greeted me and Daniel with familiarity and gave us a corner seat in one of their coveted forest green leather booths. Being roommates with the pastry chef had its perks. Ray and Kat hadn’t arrived yet, and this bothered me. I hadn’t wanted to come after all, hadn’t even known it was happening until roughly twenty minutes ago, and now here I was waiting on a couple of strangers. The restaurant was moodily lit, glittering candles, spherical sconces emitting a gas like low glow. The couple at the table right in front of us were on a first or second date, and to the left a large party had gathered to celebrate a birthday. The birthday girl had balloons tied to the back of her chair and the party’s laughter spilled out over the whole restaurant, people turning to look. I fiddled with my cutlery, the table all laid up for us to eat although we hadn’t ordered any food yet – just wine. I jiggled my legs up and down under the table, Daniel eventually moving his hand to my left knee to still it.

“What is wrong with you?” he said while pouring me a glass of wine. There wasn’t any accusation in his voice; he was practically laughing and he gave me a sidelong look that seemed to say ‘ who are you? ’

“I’m nervous,” I answered.

“I guess I’ve never seen you nervous.”

“I guess not.”

“You don’t have to worry, Liv. They’re not banking on this for their next season, I’m pretty sure they’ve got other options, so if you don’t want to do it, you don’t want to do it.”

“You think I should though,” I said, taking a large gulp of wine, wishing there was bread on the table for me to bite down on.

Daniel shrugged, “I just think … what have you got to lose?”

I looked at him, wondering. I guess he would think that.

“Hey,” he said suddenly, breaking eye contact with me, and moving to stand up although the table stopped him from doing so properly, so he was kind of crouching, hovering over the table, waving an arm in the air, “there they are! Ray! Over here, man.” He was waving them towards us, ushering with his long, outstretched arm, and I watched as two people walked towards us, weaving their way around tables and chairs.

Ray was shorter than I’d expected, but then everyone is normally shorter than I expected. Kat, meanwhile – for I had to assume this was Kat – was over six feet tall, wearing a mustard yellow shearling biker jacket that matched the wrap she had on her head hiding her hair. Underneath the jacket, she was wearing a black and dark green leopard print jumpsuit, and her shoes were stacked high, not that she needed the extra height, chunky soled Chelsea boots protecting her feet from the rain outside. She smiled amiably at us both as introductions were made. I reached my hand across the table to shake hers, and her smile grew wider, “Hi, Olivia. It’s really nice to meet you.” Her voice was low and throaty, a little scratched, and immediately familiar after hours of listening to her on the podcast.

I nodded in response, and felt my throat constrict. Daniel had to nudge me a little to remind me to speak and I was relieved my voice came out sounding normal when I said, “Yeah, you too. Both of you,” I added, taking in Ray as well. “I’m a big fan of the podcast.”

“Oh, you listen? I wasn’t sure after speaking to Danny about it,” Ray said.

I raised my eyebrows at the ‘Danny’, but nodded again, “No, I listen. I just didn’t ever expect to be the subject of it.”

Kat and Ray shared a small look and Kat said, “Well, we haven’t decided on the topic for our third season yet, to be honest. And it would really be Ethan rather than you that was the subject …” she finished with a grin, stretching her hand out to take the glass of wine Daniel had just poured for her.

“Oh, I know it wouldn’t be me,” I said, taking a deep breath, “I just meant … this was hard for my whole family, you know? It’s not just Ethan, although obviously it’s his story. He is the one in prison, after all.”

Kat raised both her eyebrows at me and nodded slowly. “Do you think you’d be able to get your family to talk with us? If we moved forward with Ethan’s story?”

I licked my lips, trying to stop myself from biting at them. “Maybe, I don’t know. Probably Georgia, my sister, but even then I’m not completely sure.”

“But, they do believe he’s innocent, right? Like you do?” Kat asked.

And there it was; Ethan’s innocence, dropping into the room like a rock through water.

“Yes,” I said eventually, but it was so long since I’d talked to my family about Ethan and his innocence, I wasn’t completely sure whether I’d just told a lie or not.

The room changes the moment the judge says the word, ‘guilty’. I watch Ethan’s shoulders stiffen, his entire body braced. We were told to expect this, and yet still, somehow, I didn’t. Didn’t think the system could get it this wrong. Ethan’s long, slim body is completely still; he hasn’t moved, but his lawyer is next to him, arm slung around his shoulders, and I wish I could hear what he’s saying but I can’t. Ethan still doesn’t move. Doesn’t make to reply to his lawyer, doesn’t look as though he’s ever going to move again, until suddenly he does. He’s forced to; the bailiff is attaching his handcuffs again, taking him away.

He turns then, finally, and even though Mom calls out his name, her voice cracking the room in two, he looks straight at me, our identical eyes catching. We’re the same height. He’s not all that tall for a guy, but for a girl I am, and so we’re eye to eye. Mom reaches up to him, pulling him into a hug before they take him away, and Dad has to pull her from him, letting my older sister, Georgia in for a hug too, and then clapping Ethan’s shoulder. Dad says something I don’t hear, and Ethan is swaying slightly in the push and pull, arms and hands outstretched towards him, taking, taking, taking. And still he hasn’t taken his eyes off mine. Finally we hug, for the first time in years it feels like, and of course it’s only one sided because he’s already in chains, but before he’s pulled away again I say, “I’ll make this right, okay? I promise.”

He nods at me, as if it’s all understood, a done deal, as if he knows that, somehow, someday, I’ll get him out of this, out of prison, even though I have no idea how, and wish that he’d tell me. Mom and Georgia are crying, albeit quietly, as Ethan is led away, and when I turn to look at Dad, he’s dumbfounded, his face a mask of stupefied tragedy like I’ve never seen it before. I want to reach out to all of them, to be pulled back into their orbit, but I feel detached from them now, a satellite circling them, no longer a part of the home planet. Mom and Georgia look so similar huddled together, the same size and shape, small and compact, shoulder to shoulder. Ethan and I always took after Dad more, and when I look at him now I wonder if I’m seeing my twin in thirty years’ time, face crumpled and destroyed by sudden loss, transfixed by a horror no one ever saw coming. And then I make a decision, putting my arms around them all, pulling them towards me, pulling them into my own tilted orbit; the strange, circling satellite, and like that we walk out of the courtroom together.

“Did you ever doubt him?” Kat asked, swirling the wine in her glass around so it shone in the candlelight. “Did you ever think he might have done it?”

“No,” I said.

“Really?” She said, her head pulled back in surprise, her voice going up. “Not even once?”