Free Presumption of Guilt by Marti Green

couldn’t push away thoughts of Molly. At first, he’d let his father convince him Molly was guilty, and he’d given in to his father’s insistence that he testify at her trial. The guilt gnawed at him like a parasite, eating away inside him.
    He heard the front door slam, then heard Sophie’s footsteps stomping up the stairs to her bedroom. When she was younger, she’d rush into his office upon her return from school, eager to tell him about her day. Now she barely spoke to him. He hoped it was normal. Raging adolescent hormones turned the most rational of children into foreign creatures, mortified by their parents’ very existence. When he drove her and her friends anyplace, he’d see her try to shrink into the car’s seat, as though she could will herself to be invisible. It was almost comical to watch, but he knew better than to laugh.
    He remembered his own adolescent embarrassment when his friends were around his parents and wanted to believe that was all Sophie was going through. Yet there seemed to be more to it than that. He left his office and walked upstairs to her room, knocked on the closed bedroom door, and opened it before she responded.
    “Hey, no hellos?” he asked.
    Sophie lay on her bed, her arms thrown over her forehead. She remained silent.
    “Something wrong, sweetie?” Finn looked around her room, still a child’s room, with pale-pink walls and pink-and-green gingham curtains. An oversize stuffed giraffe sat in one corner, and a shelf over her desk held dolls she’d collected over the years. The walls were adorned with posters of Justin Bieber and the boy band One Direction.
    Slowly, Sophie moved her arms down, then looked up at Finn. “I hate her.”
    Finn knew she meant Kim. At times, he couldn’t blame her. “What did she do now?”
    “Now? What could she do now? She’s locked up, where she belongs.”
    Finn didn’t understand. Had Kim been arrested? He went over to Sophie’s bed and sat down on the edge. “What are you talking about?”
    “My mother, the murderer,” Sophie said, her voice filled with disgust. She rolled onto her stomach and buried her face in the pillow. Finn could hear soft cries. Undoubtedly her friends, or their parents, had seen the paper, reminding everyone of the murder that had taken place in their quiet town twelve years earlier. She’d been taunted at school, he figured. It wasn’t the first time, but it hadn’t occurred in a long while. He lay down next to Sophie and put his arms around her slim body. Soon, he wouldn’t be able to do this. She was poised on the edge of childhood, ready to take the leap into becoming a young woman.
    “I don’t believe Molly murdered her parents,” he said softly to his daughter.
    Sophie turned onto her back and wiped away the tears with the back of her hand. “But you were against her at the trial.”
    “How did you know that?”
    “I know a lot. Kids talk.”
    Finn wrapped his large hand around Sophie’s. “I spoke about things Molly had told me. I thought then it was the right thing to do, but I was wrong.”
    “Dad?”
    “Yes, sweetie?”
    “Do you think there’s a murder gene?” Sophie’s voice seemed strained.
    “Of course not.”
    Sophie turned to him, leaned into him, and buried her face in his chest. “Sometimes I’m afraid of my thoughts about Mom.”
    Finn knew she was now talking about Kim. The only mother she’d ever known, she’d called her “Mom” from the beginning. “All kids hate their parents at one time or another. It’s natural.”
    “But I don’t hate you.”
    Finn laughed. “You will. Trust me. When you get a little older and you don’t like all the restrictions I’ll put on you.”
    Sophie picked up her head and looked at Finn. “Like what?”
    “Well, like you can’t date any boys till you’re at least twenty-one.”
    She punched him in the arm. “Oh, Daddy, you’re so silly.”
    They laughed together and relief washed over Finn. It had been a long time