my father says. He finishes the page he has been reading and shuffles it to the bottom of the small pile of sheets he is holding. I can’t believe he has written so much. My father works on an assembly line. He reads the newspaper, mainly the sports page, but I have never seen him read a book. I have never seen him write anything but a check. “We have been here for every single day of this trial. We have heard everything that was said.” The trial started in January, nearly fifteen months after Mark was killed. In that time, my father stopped drinking, started again and then stopped again. By the first day of the trial, he had been sober for four straight months. My mother stayed on antidepressants, but she didn’t stay in bed. She got up and found another job at another store, a 24-hour grocery store this time. My aunt moved back to her own place. All my friends graduated the spring before the trial started. I got a part-time job that fall and started taking classes at night to get my high school diploma.
