The Constant Heart by Craig Nova Read Free Book Online

promotion. “The infinite mystery is consciousness . . . ”

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    SARA WASN’T EIGHTEEN yet, and Crandall represented her in juvenile court. That meant my father and I could only look in the little square windows of the door to the courtroom, since the juvenile court proceedings were confidential. So we looked in those little windows, although Sara turned around once and looked at my father and then me and then bit her lip. Crandall spoke, and through the buzz-mumble made by the door I could make out all of it. According to Crandall, it was just a schoolgirl prank. The other lawyer, a man who looked like he had body odor, read Sara’s record, and then Crandall came back with more buzz-mumble.
    â€œWhat can they do to her?” I said.
    â€œA lot of things,” said my father. “They could try her as an adult.”
    â€œOh, no,” I said.
    â€œWe’ll have to wait,” my father said. “Too bad we can’t go in.” The hall had the same scent as the polish they used in the library. “But, Jake, I want to ask you something.”
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œIf Sara had been able to get you in there, into that prison, would you have gone?”
    More buzz-mumble through the door. It was the other lawyer’s turn.
    â€œJake?” my father said.
    â€œI don’t know,” I said. “Probably.”
    â€œTo take advantage of those women?”
    â€œNo,” I said. “No.”
    â€œWhy then?” he said.
    â€œYou know,” I said.
    â€œTo prove something?”

    â€œYes,” I said. Sara’s hair had grown out now and it was half red and half black.
    â€œWell, Jake,” he said. “Let’s face it. Sometimes you have to make hard decisions. No one is going to escape that.”
    â€œNo,” I said. “I’m beginning to see that.”
    â€œWell, all of this is a secret between us,” said my father. “OK? I mean about what you would have done or not done. It’s our business. So we’ll just keep our mouths shut.”
    â€œNo lectures?” I said.
    â€œNot from me,” said my father.
    The judge didn’t try Sara as an adult, but sent her to a home, a sort of mild prison for young offenders, until she’d turn eighteen. Then, depending on her behavior, they’d decide what to do from there.
    â€œWell,” said my father. “The first thing is for you to go visit her. I’ll find out what we can give her. I guess Tampax and maybe some pajamas and slippers and a bathrobe. Or maybe just some money. For the dispensary.”
    So she was arrested and then put in a detention center for troubled girls.
    Mrs. Kilmer was ready to buzz me right up the next day. It wasn’t so much that she was cheerful but more like someone who had had a mathematic proof accepted by the Journal of Theoretical Mathematics .
    â€œYou see,” she said to me. “What did I say? That little slut got what she had coming to her. They say she was trying to get into the prison or something like that. What the hell was she doing?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I said.
    â€œWhy, I bet she was trying to sell them dope. The little slut.”

    â€œDon’t call her that,” I said.
    â€œUn-huh,” she said. “She had you wrapped around her finger, didn’t she? Why, what was she doing with you up there in the stacks?”
    â€œNothing,” I said.
    â€œA gentleman,” she said. “My god, we have a gentleman here. Why, you have some standard? Is that it?”
    She said this as though another person, a sort of ghost of the library, stood next to her.
    â€œHe’s sticking up for the little slut,” she said.
    It wasn’t only that Mrs. Kilmer hated Sara, although she did that for sure. She was one of a number of women who don’t hate men so much as they hate life. And what were Sara and I, at that age, seventeen, but life and