Free Thunderstruck & Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken Page A

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    Really, there was no prior proof other than vague gossip. He really was, or had been, a good kid, and who knew? The book Juliet had carried was discovered in her living room; it contained only sketches of her children. Maybe Tommy Mason’s parents—and some of the people on the street, who’d already lost one neighbor—were right. Maybe Tommy Mason was innocent and the two men he said he’d seen fleeing the scene were at large, dreaming of their perfect crime. A single perfect crime: the woman was not raped, the house was not robbed, the door had not been tampered with.
    There were two bloody fingerprints, Tommy Mason’s, in the cellar. Bloody, but not his blood. The police said that, and we believed them.
    Tommy Mason stayed in jail, and people stopped believing he hadn’t done it. Of course he’d done it. TV reporters were no longer interested in his parents’ version of the story. One day, at a community picnic in the park, a Little League coach began his remarks, “With all the troubles in our neighborhood in past months …” and one of Tommy Mason’s sisters was there. She went home to tell Mrs. Mason, who returned and stood at the edge of the baseball field. Mrs. Mason was a small woman to have had such a big son, and she looked smaller, cut into diamonds by the chain link of the backstop. “You’ll be sorry!” she screamed. She curled her fingers into the fence. “You’ll see, my Tommy never did it! You’ll see, you assholes!” Somepeople wondered whether they should go to her, say something comforting. But she scared them, rattling the backstop. Maybe she’d start climbing up it. People walked the other way. They waited for her to stop.
    And perhaps she never will stop. What can you do? Your son, your only boy—whether he killed somebody or not, though he didn’t—is lost to you. He never could have killed anyone. He never even liked horror movies. He was always respectful. He believes in God. And if—though he didn’t!—if he did kill her, that’s one life gone already. Your child used to live in your house, and he has been taken from you, and all you can hope for is that eventually he will be returned. He will already be ruined. The best you can hope for is your ruined boy back in your house.
    Tommy Mason—no matter what—has no doubt already been ruined. The newspapers refer to the Tommy Mason Case, not the Suzanne Cunningham Murder. In fifty years, neighborhood kids will choose kickball teams with rhymes about Tommy Mason, not knowing exactly who that was. Tommy Mason had a knife / Tommy Mason took a life / How. Many. Times. Did. He. Stab. YOU.
    You better be good, or Tommy Mason will get you.
    The children’s librarian was inconsolable. Her mind wandered; her story times made no sense; she forgot the words to “The Wheels on the Bus.” She also forgot to feed the rabbit, who died a week later. The cage had to be covered with cloth so the children wouldn’t peep in. The rabbit lay in state all morning, till someone from the DPW could come and haul it away.
    “You know,” said the children’s librarian to the head ofcataloging that day, “she told me, ‘I’ve had a good life. If I died tomorrow, I’d have no regrets.’ ” The head of cataloging stared, thinking,
That rabbit said no such thing
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    “Suzanne,” said the children’s librarian. “I don’t care about the rabbit. I’m talking about Suzanne.”
    Which, when the news made its way around the library, struck us as stupid. She had children who grieved for her—isn’t that regret enough? How could sunny Suzanne, sunny Juliet, with her book and her dark hair and her three beloved and loving children, think that if she had to die tomorrow, she wouldn’t mind? We thought perhaps she had lost her life through carelessness and underappraisal. We wouldn’t be so free with our own lives. The difference is, no one has ever wanted ours.
    Did he love her? We had encyclopedias of criminals, anthologies of