The Unremarkable Heart

plenty of time to reflect on what happened next. They were sitting at the conference table in the prosecutor’s office. Richard and June were on one side of the table – he because he was the accused and June because she would have it no other way – while Danielle, Martha and Stan Parson sat opposite. The lawyers were in between, stacked up like dominos ready to fall over each other with objections and motions to strike.
    June relished the prospect of confronting the girl face-to-face. She’d prepared herself in the mirror that morning, using her best teacher gaze, the one that caused students to stop in their tracks and immediately apologize, even if they weren’t quite sure why.
    ‘Cut the bullshit,’ June wanted to say. ‘Tell the truth.’
    There was no such confrontation. Danielle would not look anyone in the eye. She kept her hands folded in her lap, shoulders drawn into a narrow V. She had that fragility some girls never lose as they cross into womanhood. She was the type who would never have to take out the trash or change a tire or worry about paying her bills because one flutter of her eyelashes would send men running to her aid.
    June hadn’t seen Danielle since Grace’s funeral, when the girl had sobbed so uncontrollably that her father had physically carried her out of the church. Recalling this scene, the revelation had come to June that Danielle was acting out of grief. Grace had been her best friend for almost a decade, and now she was gone. Danielle wasn’t hurt, at least not in the physical sense. She was mad that Grace was gone, furious at the parents who couldn’t prevent her death. There was no telling what reasons had clogged her mind. She obviously blamed Richard for Grace’s death. She was lost and confused. Children needed to know that the world was a place where things made sense. Danielle was still a child, after all. She was a scared little girl who didn’t know that the only way to get out of a hole was to stop digging.
    In that crowded conference room, a tiny bit of June’s heart had opened up. She understood fury and confusion. She understood lashing out. She also finally understood that Grace’s loss had left a gaping hole in the girl’s chest.
    ‘Listen to me,’ June had said, her voice more moderate than it had been in weeks. ‘It’s all right. Just tell the truth, and everything will be fine.’
    Danielle had finally looked up, and June saw in her red-rimmed eyes that she was not angry. She was not vindictive. She was not cruel. She was afraid. She was trapped. The slumped shoulders were not from self-pity, but from self-loathing.
    ‘It’s my fault Grace died.’ Danielle’s words were a whisper, almost too soft to be heard. The court reporter asked her to repeat herself as the lawyers clamored to ignore the declaration altogether.
    ‘She saw us,’ Danielle said. Not to the room. Not to the lawyers, but to June.
    And then, with no prodding from the prosecutor, she went on to describe how Richard had seduced her. The longing glances in the rear-view mirror as he drove the girls to and from school. The stolen kisses on her cheek, and sometimes her lips. The flattery. The compliments. The accidental touches – brushing his hand across her breast, pressing his leg against hers.
    The first time it happened, they were at school. He had taken her into the faculty lounge, deserted after the last bell, and told her to sit down on the couch. As Danielle described the scene, June moved around the familiar lounge; the humming refrigerator, the scarred laminate tables, the uncomfortable plastic chairs, the green vinyl couch that hissed out a stream of air every time you moved.
    Danielle had never been alone with Richard. Not like this. Not with the air so thick she couldn’t breathe. Not with every muscle in her body telling her to run away. June did not hear the girl’s words so much as experience them. The hand on the back of her neck. The hissing of the couch as she was shoved face down into the vinyl. The agonizing rip as he forced himself from behind. The shredding of his callused hand as he reached around to touch her.
    Why hadn’t she told anyone?
    The lawyer asked this question, but June did not need to hear the girl’s answer.
    If June Connor knew about anything, it was teenage girls. She knew how they thought, what they did to punish themselves when something bad happened, even if that bad thing was beyond their control. Danielle was afraid. Mr Connor