Chapter Fifty-One
 

He often wished his mother were alive, but today the thought hit Franklin particularly hard. He knew of all the people he had ever known, his mother would be viewing this trial from his perspective. He realized what a blessing that was—to have a person you knew, or once did, who could look at the world in the exact same way as if you shared a pair of glasses that nobody else knew about. He should have been sad that she wasn’t with him in this moment, but he only had room for one emotion at a time, and right now, he was utterly devastated—a feeling that often came to him whenever he understood the only option was to place his life into the hands of God. Relief, he knew it should have been relief, and he would wait for that feeling to come, too, like it usually did. But sometimes, especially when it came to those he loved with the worst kind of longing, he felt an unraveling within himself having to trust anything other than himself to get the job done.

Franklin smirked at his sad audacity. When had he ever gotten anything right?

He tried not to think of Anette, which he often failed to do. She was the woman at his right, the ghost of someone he used to know but still did, maybe even more so than when she was alive. It was the luxury of getting to the root of her after all those years, stripping back the layers of the things she said. Of the things she did and didn’t do, like the secret affair she had with his brother.

Neither of them knew he knew. But that’s because Edwin and Anette were cut from the same cloth. They believed what was said mattered most, that words could paint any picture of reality they wanted. But Franklin was a man of observation. And he was aware there was a before time with his brother and wife and an after. And it had nothing to do with what they said but how they acted.

He spotted Edwin sitting on a bench outside the courthouse. It was a rare moment of Franklin walking up to his brother, not the other way around. Typically, Edwin appeared like the air itself, something unnoticeable until you did.

“Good of you to make it.” Franklin scooted in next to his brother who was wearing his weekend clothes. He looked like he was on his way to the club. Edwin didn’t answer him, just kept staring at his devastated son.

“Douglas here?” Franklin asked as a way of conversation. He was desiring a change in his nephew for the sake of his grandson.

“Car,” Edwin nodded, and Franklin spotted Douglas slumped inside like he was either praying or sleeping.

“Why did you sleep with my wife?” Franklin imagined the words like loose balloons. The adage about kicking a man when he was down popped up, but so did the one about everything dark coming to light. Franklin just wished he hadn’t been the one to drag it there.

“What you mean?” Edwin asked. It was the same voice he had used as a child when he stole the watch Franklin’s father had given him as collateral for a game of marbles. Edwin had lost.

“You know.” The air sat heavy as they watched Douglas pawing at the door handle with minimal interest.

“Why now?” Edwin said, his voice changing to the beat of truth.

“Why not?” Franklin asked back. The best time for anything is right this moment. His mother spoke from when he was a child and didn’t want to make his bed. Right this moment, Franklin repeated in his head.

“I’m bad, you’re good. Let’s leave it at that.”

“It won’t be left there. It can’t, Edwin. I’m bad too. Believe me.” Edwin snorted at him.

“Saint Franklin bad? Can’t fathom it. You’ve always been the good one, Franklin. Sometimes, we just can’t stop what we’re destined to be.” Did Franklin believe that too? He saw God’s hand in everything. There was no separation between the seen and unseen, God’s heaven and Franklin’s earth. Everything intertwined at some point, but there was always that extra layer of truth that kept him from feeling like an automaton. Free will.

“God made you sleep with my wife then?” He could hear his brother stop breathing.

“There’s no God in any of this Franklin. If there was, could you say he was good? Look.” Edwin nodded at Marge who was coming around the building holding onto her son. It had been a while since Franklin had seen him, a big boy now, an adult. He loomed over his mother, but his face was someplace else, attracted to the black birds scattering and pecking at dried gum and cigarette butts on the covered walkway leading to the courthouse. Marge looked older than she had the other day when Franklin felt her in his arms. She was a substantial woman, but her grief had made her feel like any other human. And Franklin had asked the Holy Spirit to be who she needed him to be, if only for that one moment. For that right now.

“I’m not sure we’re seeing the same thing, Edwin. I’m not sure we’ve ever had. Because what I see is the end of all this. I see you saying, ‘I’m sorry’ and meaning it. And I see me loving you anyways, even if you took something from me. And I see your son owning up to his wrong and my grandson going free because of it. I see God where God roams, and I can’t stop seeing Him, Edwin. Because the moment I do, then that’s the moment I stop seeing anything at all.”

His brother considered this. Franklin could see it in his face. There was another “right now” moment, the way Edwin’s eyes shifted over to the truth for a small fraction of time. His eyes hung there and so did his mouth that seemed to relax. But then he shifted back—a dog returning to his vomit, thought Franklin—and took in everything as he usually did.

“Must be nice that place in your head, big brother,” Edwin said, his pinky ring clanging loudly against the metal bench.