Herein are several people whose lives at first do not seem connected. Their paths converge unexpectedly. This is Part Twelve.

Parts: 1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9|10|11|12

Part Twelve

Lori sat in her parked car, nervous.

She took the last bite of an over-ripe banana, the final bit of the lunch she had gobbled down on the drive from her mother’s house. Although she was more than a thousand miles from her normal routine and a world away from the life she had carved out for herself, old habits died hard. Just like back home, she put efficient use of time above safety.

As she put the sandwich container back into her padded lunch pail, she wondered exactly what she was putting above safety now.

Muffled strains of Mozart interrupted her thoughts. Her phone was ringing. She rifled through her purse, pulled it out and flipped it open. Her thumb hovered over the “Send” button as the caller ID displayed the words, “Yo Momma.”

“Oh, great,” she said and pushed the button. “Hey, Mom.”

“That’s disrespectful,” her mother said.

“Excuse me?”

“You should say, ‘Hello’ when you answer a phone.”

“I knew it was you. I wouldn’t call that disrespectful.”

“Well, there’s something not right about it. Are you there yet?”

“I’m sitting in the parking lot about to go in.”

“Why are you doing this? Love? A crush?”

“Don’t grill me, Mom. I told you that I feel like Doug needs somebody, and for some reason he and I were on the same train that day.”

“You’ve become some sort of thrill-seeker.”

Lori sighed. “Yes, that’s it. Knitting just wasn’t doing it for me anymore.”

“Don’t get smart,” her mother said, the last word lost in a cough.

Lori held the phone away from her face while her mother’s lungs worked a little revenge for decades of chain smoking. After the hacking subsided, she set the phone against her cheek again and said, “You finished?”

“Are you trying to fix him? You can’t fix a man, sweetheart. He is what he is.”

“I’m going to see him, Mom. I’m already here and you’re not talking me out of it.”

She held out the phone and pressed “End.”

——-

Doug sat staring at the wooden table’s unblemished surface. A piece of wood free of carved letters would be a wonder in any normal public meeting space. Where he sat, however, objects capable of such defacement were considered potential weapons.

The incongruity of all those pristine table tops in a place built for society’s most brutal former citizens bothered Doug. His head felt hazy, but very clear was a desire to slash a big “Z” in the table, just for fun.

A jury of his peers — if anybody truly could be called that — were about to find him guilty. Despite the teenagers’ testimony that they had been taken hostage at gunpoint and Doug had saved them, his self-defense argument held no water. The jurors twisted their faces in disgust and horror when the prosecution presented photos of the victim. The prosecutor’s words came back to him.

“The accused stated to bystanders, ‘Now, just point me toward that trigger-happy asshole and you and your mom will get your money’s worth.’ He then ran from a position of relative safety to confront a man witnesses testified had just shot him. He then nearly decapitated the victim like an animal would its prey, a slaughter described in detail by two witnesses and corroborated by police photographs. All this, ladies and gentlemen, constitutes a vengeful act of murder, not self-defense. No matter what the victim allegedly had done that day, we cannot allow the defendant to do his Honor’s job and yours by delivering vigilante justice. The law says that we cannot allow it.”

Doug’s court-appointed attorney had done a fine job, but with so many witnesses and the victim’s blood all over his client, there was only so much doubt he could cast, and none of it very reasonable. The charge of second-degree murder was the best the District Attorney offered, and Doug’s team had jumped at it. He found himself hoping for a miracle

A door at the far end of the room opened. Lori walked through, followed by a guard. She scanned the room and found Doug, then smiled at the guard before working her way down an aisle between tables and chairs identical to Doug’s.

For the first time since he and Lori were so forcefully reunited on the commuter train, Doug noticed her beauty. That, her demeanor, and her wit had caught his attention in a college class 10 years ago, when he and his last serious girlfriend were still together. Shortly before holiday break, his girlfriend dumped him, just days before his 21st birthday.

In his family, it was a coming of age that few people knew about and even fewer understood. He had dreaded it all his life, and he was expected to make a decision: continue as a part of the family or leave it behind and forge ahead completely on his own.

The following semester he had seen Lori walking alone on campus. Unspoken for, he jumped at the chance to go out with her, but when he had to force her out the door before they could watch the sunrise together, he knew he was doomed romantically. He worried that he had accepted his fate hastily, but there was no going back.

One thing he knew for sure: had he not broken his rule about socializing with co-workers, he wouldn’t be in any of this mess.

Now, as Lori pulled out a chair and sat across from him, Doug also knew that he was going to tell her the truth. After all he had put her through then and now, he figured she deserved that much.

(To be continued)