The Probable Future

“Hey, Will.” Matt gave a noncommittal but not unfriendly greeting. He was wondering if Will had looked this wasted at their mother’s funeral. Matt couldn’t quite remember that day. All he knew was that after the service, Will and Jenny hadn’t come back to the house, leaving straightaway from the cemetery, despite the casseroles arranged on the dining room table and all of Catherine’s many friends who were bound to stop by. Will backed away, insisting he and Jenny had to get home to Stella, left at the last minute with a baby-sitter they didn’t know well.

Go on, Matt had called after him. There were neighbors watching, but he didn’t care. Run away, you cheap bastard, he’d shouted as Will walked to his car, another one that he’d manage to wreck before too long.

Today Matt had brought along a check made out to the Commonwealth, as Henry Elliot had instructed; all they would need to do was add the amount at which bail was set.

“Hey, brother,” Will said, clearly amused at Matt’s discomfort in the courthouse. Not that Will fared much better in his appearance; he had a terrible haircut and was wearing the same clothes he’d been arrested in, his usually pressed slacks and white shirt now wrinkled and sour-smelling, but a surefire step up from the uniform of the Boston city jail.

Matt moved to the left, to get a little breathing room. This was his brother, but Will was a stranger as well. He’d been gone since Matt was in high school, and even before that, he’d always been slippery. Someone who can’t trust his own brother is naturally self-contained, cautious to a fault, suspicious if pushed. Matt turned to Henry Elliot, grateful that there was someone other than Will to talk to. “Parking was hell,” he told Henry.

“Get used to it, bud.” Henry was distracted, looking through his notes before they came in front of the judge. “You’re in the city now.”

True enough, Matt felt hulking and out of place in the courtroom, even though he’d thought to put on his one good suit. He was wearing his work boots and a tie that he’d had since high school. The courthouse certainly hadn’t been made for people over six feet tall; Matt guessed it had been built in about 1790, perhaps even earlier, when most people were still fairly short. At that time, the accused would walk through the side door across from the judge’s chambers, unwashed and underfed, shackled at the hands and the feet, possibly repenting, no matter if he was guilty or innocent, in the hopes of a less harsh sentence, or perhaps saying nothing at all, as Rebecca Sparrow had done at her trial. Matt had memorized the reportage of her final words in Hathaway’s kitchen, uttered to the judge brought down from Boston. There is nothing left for me to say, Rebecca had told them. You have taken my voice from me.

Henry Elliot, a pessimist by nature, had insisted there was very little evidence against Will, other than the fact that he’d reported the crime several days before it had occurred. Still, bail was set high, due to the nature of the crime. It was everything Matt had been left by his mother, his entire savings, his nest egg cracked in two for the likes of Will.

“Don’t worry,” Will assured him. “I’m innocent. You’ll get your money back.”

They all went round the corner to a coffee shop once Will had been released, with the stipulation he stay in town in case further questioning was needed. Will insisted a decent cup of coffee would help calm the tremors in his hands, a nightmare affliction for a musician that he hoped would be cured by a double espresso.

“Your landlord isn’t so easily convinced when it comes to payback,” Henry Elliot said.

Henry still seemed distracted. It was his manner and his fate to worry and fret, and although his character served him well in matters of law, he had no control over his own family. His wife barely spoke to him and his daughter, Cynthia, a good girl at heart, was busy painting her nails black and staying out all hours. But it was Henry’s son, Jimmy, who was the real worry; he reminded Henry of Will, back when they were in high school, always looking for a shortcut, always thinking of himself. In fact, Henry had warned Jimmy about Will Avery, a cautionary tale, a disaster waiting to happen. The guy with everything, who winds up with nothing. Don’t think the same thing can’t happen to you, he’d told his Jimmy. Don’t think you’re above failure.

“You’ve missed paying rent, so you’ve been kicked out of your apartment.” Henry had the papers in front of him. “And the music school? They phoned my office to ask that you not report back until your legal matters were settled.”

“To hell with them.” Will ordered another dose of caffeine, not that he had any cash on him. But someone was bound to pay the bill, so he got himself a croissant as well.