Free Verdict in Blood by Gail Bowen Page B

girls in the class and one new boy. The Grade 2 teacher’s name was Ms. Jane Anweiler, and she had silver earrings that were shaped like dinosaurs. Ms. Anweiler also had a Polaroid camera with which she had taken pictures of everybody in the class. The pictures were mounted on a bulletin board outside the classroom, under a sign reading: WELCOME TO THE HOME OF THE GRADE 2 ALL-STARS!!! The letters were made out of baseball bats except for the O’s, which were baseballs. Taylor would be allowed to sit beside her best friend, Jess, as long as she remembered not to talk. The Lakeview School year was, it seemed, off to a dazzling start.
    Angus didn’t get home from school till dinner time. I was making a salad when he came into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of juice, and started to leave.
    “Hang on,” I said. “Whatever happened to ‘hello’ and ‘how are you’?”
    “Sorry,” he said. “Hello and how are you?”
    “Fine,” I said, “but you look a little down. Back-to-school blues?”
    He shook his head. “No,” he said. “School’s okay. Actually more than okay. It looks like it’s going to be a good year.”
    “So why the long face?”
    “I went down to the hospital to see Eli.”
    “Was he still mad at you about what happened at the game.”
    My son’s face was perplexed. “No. When I got there, Eli was the same as he’d been before. I thought he was just ignoring what happened, and for a while I went along with him. Then I decided it would be better if we talked about it.” Angus put his glass down and came over to me. “Mum, Eli doesn’t remember what happened at the game. He doesn’t remember anything from the time he took off till he saw his shrink yesterday.”
    “That’s twenty-four hours.”
    “I know. So does Eli. He’s really psyched about this. Mum, could you go see him?”
    “Do you think it would help? Eli has never been exactly easy with me.”
    “It’d help. He likes you. I think he just kind of resented you.”
    “Because of my relationship with Alex?”
    Angus frowned. “I never thought it was that. I always thought it was just that you were our mum and, every time he saw you, it reminded him of what he didn’t have.”
    That night, after supper, Taylor and I drove to the hospital with the books and assignments Anita Greyeyes had given me. I was tense as we approached Eli’s room, but he seemed genuinely pleased to see us. Physically, he was an immensely appealing boy: graceful, with the brooding good looks of a youth in an El Greco painting. He tried a smile of welcome, then stood aside so we could walk through the doorway. He was wearing brand-name sandals, khaki shorts, and a pressed white T-shirt, an absolutely normal sixteen-year-old boy, but one of his slender wrists was ringed with a hospital ID band, and his brown eyes were troubled.
    Taylor immediately staked out one of the visitor’s chairsfor herself; Eli directed me to the other one and sat on the edge of his bed. For a moment, there was an awkward pause, then Taylor took charge. She amazed me. She didn’t prattle about her cats or her school; instead, she asked Eli very seriously about what they did to help him at the hospital and whether he’d made any friends. Even more surprisingly, she waited for his answers, which came, at first haltingly, then with more assurance. When she told him a story about Bruce and Benny, Eli laughed aloud, and the melancholy that had hung in the air, heavy as the hospital smell, seemed to lift.
    I wasn’t as successful with Eli as Taylor had been, but I did my best. I told him about Gerry Acoose Collegiate and his homeroom. As I described the starblanket on the wall and the bank of computers by the window, Eli’s eyes moved with interest towards the textbooks we’d brought. When it was time to leave, he gave Taylor an awkward one-armed hug, then he and I stood side by side in his doorway and watched as she wandered down the hall towards the elevators. It was a rare