“Are you aware that Officer Murphy’s wife recently gave birth?”
I stop jostling the others for a better position and freeze in place.
“I wish Officer Murphy and his wife the best when it comes to raising a happy and healthy child.” Sabrina looks directly into Bart’s camera. “That’s what every parent deserves. That’s exactly why we’re here today.”
Chapter Fourteen JEN
By this time tomorrow we’ll know where we stand.
“I’ve never been so humiliated, Jen,” Kevin says, staring at the ceiling, still in his clothes.
Moments ago, I’d stripped off my sweats and T-shirt that smell like hospital and crawled into bed next to him in my bra and underwear. I’ve been at the NICU for ten hours and my eyelids are dry as sandpaper, but I’ve got to keep them open because he needs someone to listen to every single excruciating detail of turning himself in this afternoon—the fingerprinting, the mug shot, the paperwork, the shame of being on the other side, all the sympathetic I’m only doing my job shrugs from his fellow officers, who wouldn’t even look him in the eye. He’d thought Cameron would be there too, that they could have gone through the hell together, but Cameron isn’t surrendering until next week. His lawyer asked for more time. Kevin wanted to get it over with—and at least he didn’t have to spend a night in jail, thanks to the $50,000 bond Cookie and Frank scrounged together. I’d heard them talking in the kitchen a few days ago, about how they’d have to give up their dream of a little house not far from the beach in South Carolina. There goes their easy retirement filled only with the drama of grandkids and hurricane warnings. Even so, Cookie never hesitated, never even complained. She never will.
I can hardly focus on what Kevin’s saying since I know I’ve got to get up in a few hours to get back to the hospital. I just want to drift off picturing Chase’s little eyelashes, counting each individual strand framing his deep blue eyes, but Kevin needs me.
“I’m a failure. I feel like I’ve already ruined his life, Jen,” he says, his voice flat. “It hasn’t even really begun yet, and I’ve ruined Chase’s life.”
I won’t let that happen.
He drops his arm across my tender boobs. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Jaybird.”
I blink at him, my face so close to his that I could kiss him. I don’t. I can’t remember the last time I kissed him. “I know, I know,” I murmur, patting him on the shoulder. Kevin is sorry. He’s always sorry. He’s been nothing but sorry for weeks now. His apologies are like background music.
“What did Brice say?”
“He’s all over the place. Says we have a good shot at trial as long as Cameron and I keep our stories straight, stick together, and then five minutes later he was all, ‘They might offer you a deal if you’d be willing to testify against Cameron,’ since the video footage shows him shooting before I even turned the corner. He didn’t properly identify the suspect or confirm the weapon.”
The idea of a deal has been vague, always floating in the air in the Murphy house, with no one willing to let it seem real. It isn’t real to any of them because of the simple fact that cops don’t snitch. I know enough to know that. A cop who snitches isn’t a real cop. He’s a pariah, a pussy, a traitor. But he would also be safe. He’d still be my husband and Chase’s father, and I’ll take pariah and pussy if I can have my fucking family.
Besides, Kevin can’t go to prison. It would break him. He would never survive. The fact of being a cop in prison would mean his life was at risk every day. I wouldn’t survive the fear.
Last night I heard the nurses gossiping about me as I rocked Chase in the NICU nursery.
“That woman would last about two seconds visiting her baby daddy up in prison. Can you imagine?” They both got a big kick out of this.
Yeah, I was “that woman.” I didn’t even have it in me to be pissed, because it was true. I should have walked over and told them that they’re right. I can’t imagine sitting across from Kevin, holding our baby up to a filmy plate of glass to show off his first smile, first words, first steps, first everything.
When we decided that Kevin was going to turn himself in today, all my attempts at positive thoughts and promises to stand by my man were immediately replaced by one screaming question: How can I stay with him? I don’t just mean in the moral sense, I mean in the actual sense of how will I manage as a single mother with a husband locked away? I can’t let him get locked away.
For a full minute, I lay there wishing I had fought against Kevin’s decision to become a police officer all those years ago and that he was back selling ads, as soul crushing as that might have been for him. Why didn’t I fight harder? Well, I have to now. “Kev, if they offer you a deal, you have to take it.”
“But, Jen, I’d have to throw Cameron under the bus. I’d have to get up there and say that he made the wrong decision. That his judgment was bad.”
“But it was bad. You shot because Cameron shot, but your life was never in danger from that kid and you knew it the second you actually saw him. I watched the video. I saw your face. In the split second after the gun went off, you knew you shouldn’t have shot.”
Kevin releases a low moan. “They’ll all crucify me. If I betray my brothers. I mean, remember when I talked to Ramirez a while back and I was so upset? You know what he said to me, Jen? He said he would never be able to look me in the eye ever again if I testified against Cameron. Said he would never be able to forgive me. My best friend said that, the guy I want to be Chase’s godparent. He asked me how I could live with myself. How could I, Jen? How could I lose my best friend?”
“Easy for Ramirez to say: he’s not facing decades in prison. You can’t go to prison, Kevin. If there’s a way out, you have to take it. For me, for Chase.” I look over at Kevin when I say this, imploring him, and it’s like he’s disintegrating before my eyes. We’re running out of time and options.
“And you should have heard Matt laying into me. I mean, Jesus. ‘Imagine if that were me, you’d turn on me like that?’？” He does a dead-on imitation of his brother. “I don’t know, Jen, would I? It was a bad call. Cameron made a bad call. He should pay for that. But I should too, you know. But, like, how much? Matt asked me if Cameron deserved to lose everything for doing his job. It’s not that simple though, right? I mean, a kid is dead.”
“No, it isn’t that simple. You both fucked up. But maybe, just maybe, Cameron fucked up worse, and there need to be real consequences for that.”
Kevin lets that sink in and turns to me. “I know I said it, but today wasn’t the worst day of my life. The day I pulled the trigger was the worst day of my life.” There’s nothing to say in the wake of that truth, so I finally do kiss him, but only because it feels like a way to end this conversation. Both of us surrender to our sweaty sheets and our private thoughts about how tomorrow will play out.
* * *
I’m at the hospital before dawn, to get a few minutes with my son before today gets out of hand. Chase feels heavier in my arms today than he did yesterday—at this morning’s weigh-in, he’d gained a full ounce. He’s nearly six pounds now and fits perfectly in the crook below my chin. He squeaks and snuffles against my neck as I push myself back and forth in the rocker in the NICU just as the sun creeps over the horizon.