The Name on the Broadcast novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Testimony

"Yes," I said.

The prosecutor nodded once and put her notebook away.

"She'll be watching you the whole time," she said. "She'll try to make you feel small."

"She's been doing that since I was born."

"Then you've had practice."

The courtroom was on the fourth floor of the county building in the city, with tall windows and wooden benches.

Every bench was full.

Frances sat in the second row, in her quilted vest, with her reading glasses on their chain.

Rachel sat beside her, holding her own mother's hand.

Annie's brother sat on Frances's other side with his arms crossed.

Behind them sat the families.

I hadn't known there would be so many.

Mothers. Fathers. Sisters. A man in a fire department jacket. A woman in a nurse's uniform who'd come straight from a night shift.

The prosecutor had found them all through the green book.

Some of them had found a daughter alive in one of those houses on the hill.

Some of them had found a grave behind a mill.

They all came.

Rachel had testified the afternoon before. The back room, the river, the two days. She said it the way she'd said it in church, and the defense lawyer asked her four questions and sat down.

Grandma Verna sat at the defense table in a lavender cardigan, with her white curls freshly set.

She looked like somebody's sweet grandmother, waiting for a bus.

When I walked to the witness stand, she smiled at me.

I swore on a Bible.

I sat down.

The prosecutor asked me about the town, and I told her.

It took most of the morning, and I told it in order, the way Frances had taught me.

I didn't look at Grandma once.

I looked at Frances.

Then it was the defense lawyer's turn.

He was young and polite, with a soft voice.

"Ms. Haskett, you were four years old when you say your mother tried to run."

"Yes."

"And you were told she died of a fever. You believed that for twenty years."

"Yes."

"So for twenty years you lived in that house, ate your grandmother's food, went to her church, and took her money for college books. And you never once thought anything was wrong."

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