Free Picking Up the Pieces by Denise Grover Swank

noticed that right away when she sat on my jury. While all the other jurors looked like they were about to pass out from the heat of the broken air conditioner, Rose watched the trial like it held the secret of life. Sure, she passed out, but I later realized it happened at the very moment she realized I was innocent. And when my old neighbor took the stand and told the judge that Rose had been snooping around Frank Mitchell’s house, investigating my case, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Judge McClary threw her in jail for contempt of court, and I watched in disbelief as she was escorted out of the courtroom.
    Why would someone I didn’t even know risk so much to help me?
    The very next week she sat across a table from me, both of us stuffed into a tiny room with my worthless attorney. She held her ground when my lawyer tried to make her look like a fool, and when she stared into my eyes, I about fell over. She truly believed I was innocent. Other than my best friend David, she was the only one who did. But truth be told, there were a few times when I’d seen doubt in David’s eyes.
    I spent plenty of sleepless nights pondering it. Why did she believe in me?
    At first I wondered if she wanted something, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out what it could be. After I was released, I waited for her to show up asking for favors, but she never did. Not for a couple months and then not for what I expected.
    When David called to tell me that she wanted us to help her plant flowers at the new reverend’s church, I thought he was high on ’shrooms. But he swore to me that he was at work and sober.
    “ That’s what she wants from me?” I asked in disbelief.
    David sounded leery. “So what do you wanna do?”
    I hadn’t worked since before my arrest for Frank Mitchell’s murder. No one would hire me, so there was no denying that I needed the money. But I could have been rolling in a bed full of hundred-dollar bills and I still would have gone. I owed her. I figured I’d pay off my debt, collect my paycheck, and be done with her.
    Little did I know I’d only just begun with her.
    Little did I know I’d finally found my purpose in life.
    One summer when I was twelve, my momma couldn’t take the bickering between me and Russell anymore, so she packed me up and sent me to her uncle’s farm. I mostly helped him with the cattle, but my aunt had a garden and I helped her weed the beds. Before the summer was over, she was calling me Farmer Bruce.
    I planned to go back the following summer. Instead, I ended up doing my first stint in juvie for shoplifting.
    Maybe it was working at a church. Maybe it was Reverend Jonah making me think I could do more with my life. Or maybe it was the woman who believed in me more than I believed in myself… Whatever the reason, when I first promised Rose I’d help her, it was because I owed her, but when I agreed to work with her on Jonah’s house, I did it because I loved it.
    Rose gave me my life back twice. And I wasn’t about to forget that.
    When I was in fourth grade, I read a book about a Chinese proverb. I wasn’t much of a reader, but I had a book report due. I grabbed the book out of the school library, hardly looking at the cover—I just needed a book to skim so I could write the report. But later that night, I started reading it and couldn’t put it down. It was about two men, a fisherman and a merchant. The merchant thought he was high and mighty and treated the fisherman like pond scum. The merchant needed to get to the other side of a lake in a hurry, so he asked the fisherman to use his boat to take him. Once they’d started their journey, the merchant confessed he couldn’t swim, which the fisher found ridiculous. But halfway across the lake, a sudden storm blew in and tipped the boat over. The fisherman frantically searched the water and pulled the merchant from his almost watery grave, laying him on top of the overturned boat.
    “Why did you