Free Crush. Candy. Corpse. by Sylvia McNicoll Page B

meant to keep the others from going in there,” Sheila explained. “For his own safety. The tape is enough to stop the others.”
    “But not me.” I couldn’t help myself. I yanked the yellow barrier down and walked into the room.
    In the far corner Johann sat, blue eyes swimming, his left cheek bright red but turning blue near the eye.
    “You can’t be with him by yourself.” Gillian suddenly rushed into the room from behind me.
    “But he’s crying.” I looked back at her. “Why does he have to be by himself?”
    “Jeannette hit him when he wouldn’t stop yelling.”
    “Why doesn’t Jeannette sit alone then?”
    “Last time it was Susan.”
    “Susan hit him?”
    Gillian shrugged her shoulders. “He made her baby cry.”
    Johann sobbed.
    “But now he’s crying. I’ll get him to stop. Then I’ll feed him.”
    She shook her head. “Mrs. Johnson won’t like it.”
    “Then sit down beside me and watch.” I wasn’t leaving.
    She sighed. “We’ll keep the door open and check on you now and again. Sheila, bring the food in.”
    Cole doubled back to look after his grandmother, but Sheila and Gillian took their time leaving. I didn’t wait. I took some tissue from the box in the bathroom and carefully dried the tears from Johann’s face. Then I sang to him in my crummy voice that Jeannette thought was so beautiful. I sang softly in German the lullaby that my grandmother used to sing to me. “ Weist Du wiefiel Sternlien stehen am dem blauen Himmelzelt .” The song about how God looks after the stars and loves us too.
    It was the only German song I knew. The lullaby used to comfort me. When Johann settled down, I fed him the plops of different-coloured mush on his plate before he fell asleep.
    When I finally joined Cole and his grandmother, they were having tea in chairs near the courtyard window. Outside a sole snowflake drifted down. Then another and another, more quickly, until it was as if someone had shaken a feather pillow.
    Jeannette stopped by to tell me how beautiful my smile was. My mouth was gripped tightly so that I wouldn’t tell her off about hitting Johann. She shuffled on.
    “It’s not her fault,” Cole said as he took my hand.
    “She understands better than most of them,” I grumbled.
    “Who knows what part of her brain is broken. Which section is covered in plaque. She’s in the lockup for a reason and not just because she doesn’t know a pair of jeans from a skirt.”
    Not her fault. Not in her right mind. Not herself.
    Just like what he said about his mom when she blew up over Helen’s hair colouring. I forgave Jeannette, just like I forgave Claudine Demers then, too.
    As I stare across the courtroom, I’m having a much harder time forgiving her today.

chapter ten
    My lawyer decides he wants to question Donovan, and I switch my attention back to the witness stand.
    “You said you met Sonja two summers ago while mowing the lawn. Can you tell us how she acted towards you?”
    “Sorry. I’m not sure what you mean.”
    “Did she laugh a lot, flirt maybe?”
    “No, she was very quiet. If anything she acted bored mostly. There wasn’t anything for her to do at the condo office. She was supposed to be helping out, answering the phone and opening the mail ’cause her mom was recovering from surgery.”
    “How did Sunny react to her mother being treated for cancer?”
    “I dunno. I thought she was just angry about spending her summer at the condo office. But it was more than that. Like she was just angry at her mother about something else.”
    “When you met her, did she have pink streaks in her hair?”
    “Not right away. That’s something she did after we went out.”
    “Do you think she would have gone out with you if her mother didn’t have cancer?”
    “Objection!” the buzzard calls out.
    “Sustained,” the judge answers.
    Michael smiles. He’s made his point anyway. Maybe I snuck around behind my parents’ backs to go out with a shoplifter, as the Crown