Read Online The 37th Hour by Jodi Compton - Free Book Online Page A

to grade, and Genevieve and I joined Doug Lowe in the living room, where he was still watching his game.
    I did that for about fifteen minutes. I’d grown up playing basketball, but I couldn’t find any interest in it today. As long as I’d known Genevieve, she’d never shown any interest in sports, unless she was being asked to play, but now she kept her eyes on the screen, the same as Doug.
    She didn’t seem to care when I got up and slipped away.
    Deborah was still in the kitchen, papers in two piles in front of her: marked and unmarked. A single paper was in front of her. Her eyes were skimming over it, a red pen ready in her hand. She looked up when I slipped into the chair opposite her.
    “Do you think Genevieve’s angry with me?” I asked.
    Deborah set the pen down and licked her teeth thoughtfully. “She’s like that with everyone now,” she assured me. “You’ve got to practically kick her in the ass to get her to say anything.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “I figured that. But you know about Royce Stewart and the hearing, don’t you?”
    “What about it?”
    “Kamareia’s identification of Stewart, on the way to the hospital,” I said. “It was my fault that it got thrown out.”
    Deb shook her head. “I know what you’re talking about,” she said, “and it’s not your fault.”
    “If I’d handled things right, in the ambulance, Stewart would be in prison now.”
    She set the pen down and gave me a level look. “If you’d handled it right—’right’ for a cop—what would that have been? Telling Kamareia she was going to die?”
    I said nothing.
    “Do you think that’s what Genevieve would have done if she’d been with her daughter?” she persisted.
    “No,” I said, shaking my head.
    “See? And if you’d done it, Genevieve would never have forgiven you. Ever.”
    “I’m not sorry about what I said to Kam on the way to the hospital,” I said slowly. “But . . .”
    “But what?”
    “Genevieve might not be thinking straight.”
    Deborah reached across the table and squeezed my closed fist. “She doesn’t blame you. I’m sure of that,” she said.
    “Well,” I said, “I guess that’s good. Sorry I interrupted your work.”
    “I think she’s glad you’re here,” Deborah said. “You’ve got to be patient with her.”
     
    Around ten-thirty, after a quiet evening, I found myself in the guest bedroom with Genevieve.
    I’d undressed in front of her dozens of times in the locker rooms at work and the gym, but this sisterly, intimate context made me feel exposed and shy. I tried to take my clothes off entirely from a sitting position on the narrow twin bed, head lowered.
    “Damn,” I said, rolling a sock over my callused heel, “in bed at ten. Now I know I’m in the country.”
    “Sure,” Genevieve said, as if reading from a script.
    “Doesn’t it get boring, being out here?” I said, pulling my shirt over my head. Hoping, I suppose, for Yes, it does; I think going back to the Cities would do me good.
    “It’s nice out here. It’s quiet,” Genevieve said.
    “Well, yeah,” I agreed lamely, pulling back the covers on my bed.
    “Do you need the light any longer?” she asked.
    “No,” I said.
    Genevieve clicked the bedside lamp off.
    She was right about one thing: it was quiet. Despite the early hour, I found sleep beginning to tug at my body. But I resisted. I wanted to stay awake long enough to hear Genevieve’s breathing change. If she could fall asleep in a normal amount of time, that at least was a good sign.
    I don’t know how much time passed, but she must have believed me asleep. I heard the susurrus of the bedsheets, then padding footsteps as she left the bedroom. It took a few minutes after that for me to realize she hadn’t just gone across the hall to the bathroom. I got up to follow.
    The light from the kitchen spilled, increasingly narrowly, down the hall. There was no need to wonder where she’d gone. I walked carefully on the plastic