Free Chasing Forgiveness by Neal Shusterman

I’m just a little boy worrying about broken Crayolas and whether first grade will be harder than kindergarten. I stroke his hair, like Dad used to stroke mine. I must be his daddy now. I must protect him from evil things.
    Danny should have killed himself instead, I heard people mumble the night of the “accident,” when everyone we knew invaded the house. They mumbled evil things when they thought Grandma and Grandpa couldn’t hear. He should die and burn in hell forever.
    I could believe them if I wanted to.
    I could hate Dad like I hate the devil. Is that what Mom would do? Should I take Mom’s side?
    I could hate him, for Mom definitely did not deserve what he did to her—but then I look at Grandma. There is no hate in her toward anyone. How can she be that way? Is that normal? Is it right?
    As I lie there, listening to the rain and to Tyler’s quiet breathing, I realize that I don’t ever have to side with my mother or my father ever again about anything. Now I can side with my grandparents. They will tell me what to do and how to feel.
    They say they forgive Dad. And surely if Mom’s parents can forgive the man who murdered her, then maybe I can, too.

8
A WALL OF GLASS
June
    The jail is a terrible place. Below, the floor tiles don’t quite reach the walls. Above, old pipes run along the ceiling, weaving in and out of rooms like snakes. It smells like my worst pair of Nikes, and the gray walls are sloppily painted. Those walls seem the worst thing of all. Whoever painted the walls didn’t care about the job—they steamrolled gray paint over signs and thermostats, anything that got in the way. Little gray splatters of paint cover the fading black and white tiles of the floor. Nobody should live in a place where the painters didn’t care.
    There are police officers and guards everywhere, but still I don’t feel safe. The iron bars are covered with the same gray paint, slopped on by the same miserable workers. A gate opens in front of us, and the guard closes it behind. Thenanother. I imagine I’m going through an air lock on a spaceship. The prison barge. I try to make believe it’s all pretend.
    We are led to a room, take a number, and then we wait and wait and wait.
    Finally we are led to another gray room, divided in the middle by a long scratched-up counter and a thick glass wall that goes to the ceiling. It’s like a big ticket booth at a movie theater in a bad part of town. On the other side of the glass are the inmates, talking on the phone to their visitors. How stupid, I think. They’re just inches away, but they have to talk by phone.
    Most of the inmates on the other side of the glass look like criminals. Most of the visitors look like criminals, too. I stay close by Grandma’s side, not caring if I look like a wimp.
    A guard leads Dad to the room on the other side of the glass, and Dad sits in a chair. He doesn’t look at me. He pretends he doesn’t know I’m there yet, but he knows.
    This has been the longest I’ve ever been away from my dad. Three months. I figured he’d be in a wheelchair or something, or walk with an awful limp, on account of he shot himself, but he doesn’t. He’s healed.
    Dad’s long blond hair is cut short. He looks like he’s lost even more weight. His eyes are sunken in farther than I’ve ever seen them, and there are dark rings around them.
    He looks like a criminal, too.
    Grandma goes to talk to him first. . . . ThenGrandpa. . . . Then they bring Tyler and me. I pick up the phone on my side of the wall, and Dad picks up his at the same time. Like two sides of a mirror.
    â€œHi, Preston,” he says. “How are you?”
    â€œFine.” I don’t tell him that I have nightmares.
    â€œHow’s school?”
    â€œFine.” I don’t tell him that my friends treat me like I’m from another planet.
    â€œHow’s