Crush. Candy. Corpse.

sylvia mcnicoll

James Lorimer & Company Ltd., Publishers
Toronto

“Sonja Anna Ehret, you stand accused of manslaughter. How do you plead?”

It’s been a year since it happened and now, here I stand, front row centre in a courtroom. Four windowless, beige walls surround me, and I find it hard to breathe, let alone answer. Silence hangs heavy and musty.

A couple of clerks watch me from behind a long desk. Dressed in black robes, they’re like crows on a wire between me and an eagle, the judge. He trains his eyes on me from a higher perch, a throne-like desk flanked on either side by a flag.

The clock on the wall ticks slowly forward. Everyone’s waiting for my answer.

A man with a clipboard sits on the opposite side of the room. A reporter. Why doesn’t he sit on my side?

I want to plead guilty. Immediately the trial would end and the sentence would be lighter — probation and a few hundred hours of community service. But it would kill my parents, especially Mom.

She sits behind me, tall, pale, and thin, with her chin held high. She’s a proud woman and I’m already the Big Disappointment of the family, not at all like my older brother Wolfgang who is minding the office so Mom and Dad can be here. Next to Mom sits Dad, slightly shorter but square shouldered and strong. He and Wolfgang look alike — guys you can instantly trust and lean on.

My family is the only reason I’m considering this dragged-out process and I know they’ll stand behind me no matter what. Still, what happens if I’m found guilty? The sentence will be way worse — a couple of years in a youth correctional centre, at least.

Twelve jury members stare vacantly at me from the left side of the courtroom, waiting for my answer. They’re going to decide my fate. Really?

My lawyer told me to dress in smart-casual, but I’m guessing no one instructed the jury. The best-dressed one wears a kiwi-coloured sweatsuit, the worst wears relaxed-fit jeans and a long-sleeved, red plaid shirt. Then there’s the lady in the front with a stained top, a fat guy wearing a polo shirt with horizontal stripes, and a guy with broken horn-rimmed glasses that make his head look tilted in a question. Two young guys with identical goatees fidget at the back. One has multiple piercings and looks as though the rings in his eyebrows and lips are the only things holding him together. The other scratches his beard a lot. Five more jurors look like they’ve just left the bowling alley or their jobs as greeters in a big-box store.

That jury doesn’t know that I took a half an hour to press my clothes. Maybe that’s good. Maybe they’d hold it against me — excessive neatness, sign of a serial killer in the making. I’m wearing a dark grey skirt, a pale rose shirt, and low-heeled pumps. A subdued look except for the pink streaks in my hair.

The guy in the glasses yawns, checks his watch, then glances over at me. Still waiting.

“Sunny?” Michael McCann, my lawyer, prompts. I look down to the right where he stands. Another crow in a black robe. Or maybe a raven. His hair is dark and closely cropped, and everything about him seems sharper than those clerks at the front. His brown eyes measure me.

Guilty, guilty, guilty. My heart flip-flops. This is it; I’m going to say it. Who cares what the lawyer told me to say? Can he honestly believe this jury will acquit me?

I face the unsmiling bald judge. He’s wearing a jaunty red sash across his robe. I focus on that diagonal slash of red.
Guilty
, I say in my mind and tell my mouth to follow. But for some reason, that stripe of colour gives me hope. Instead, I speak out as clearly as I can.

“Not guilty.”

The judge raises his eyebrows at me.
Oh really?
“Very well,” he says out loud. “Mr. Dougal, are you prepared to make the opening statement?”

The Crown prosecutor nods and approaches his stand like a large vulture, his robe floating behind him. His skin and hair look white against the blackness of the robe, his eyes are window-cleaner blue. “Your Honour, members of the jury . . .” he stares their way till all of them pay attention, “we will prove that on February 14, 2011, the defendant entered the Paradise Manor Longterm Care residence and willfully fed hard candy to Helen Demers, a known diabetic who also had difficulty swallowing due to her Alzheimer’s.” The jurors squirm under his stare and he swivels to focus on me instead. He looks towards the judge now. “Evidence will show Sonja had a relationship with Cole, the victim’s grandson, and that she carried out his pact with his grandmother to assist her in suicide. We will show that when the victim began to asphyxiate, the defendant walked away, purposely failing to provide medical assistance.”

My mother coughs but it’s really the cover-up for a sob. I turn slightly and see her head bowed, her shoulders shaking. Dad slips his arm around her.

Beside her, my lawyer nods his head as though all of this was part of his plan, but his eyes go all teddy-bear soft whenever Mom cries.

The Crown prosecutor approaches my seat. “With the consent of Defence, we have entered the coroner’s report to show the details of this death.” He pauses and looks at me hard again, a vulture after a rabbit. “I now call my first witness, Adam Brooks, to the stand. Adam Brooks, do you wish to take the oath on the Bible or —”

“The Bible.” Mr. Brooks swears in and tells the court how he was my Grade 11 English and homeroom teacher last year when all this happened. He wears a dark jacket, light shirt, and a cherry-coloured tie. His hair lies combed and flat against his head. He’s made a big effort for me and I appreciate it.

“How would you characterize Sonja Ehret as a student?”

Mr. Brooks digs his forefinger between his tie and his neck. Behind those silver-rimmed, round glasses, his eyes look trapped. I know he wants to say nice things, but he’s also a stickler about the truth. “Average.”

My father clears his throat behind me.

The thing is, I handed in my homework on time and it was always neatly printed out in 14-point Times New Roman, as he liked it. I just didn’t sweat over the content as much as he wanted. The other thing is, I sat at the back where my best friend Alexis and me passed notes and chatted from time to time, and that ticked him off.

“Would you say she is a truthful person?”

“Objection.” My lawyer jumps to his feet and gestures to the prosecutor. “Your Honour, my friend is asking Mr. Brooks to form an opinion.”

“Sustained.”

The vulture does a quick eye roll, one I’m sure he doesn’t want the judge to see. “Can I direct the court to exhibit A, on the screen? Mr. Brooks, would you kindly explain to the court what this is?”

“Sure. I always try to get the students to write about their own experiences. They were asked to journal about their volunteer work. On the screen is the first entry from Sonja’s volunteer log.”

Imagine, to graduate we have to perform forty hours of volunteer work in the community. Forty hours at Paradise Manor. A sentence in itself. But Mr. Brooks gave me a second sentence: I had to document and respond to what happened to me along the way.

The First Visit — thirty-eight hours left

The sewer exploded! Honestly! Today was supposed to be my volunteer training at Paradise Manor, but because my ride cancelled out on me and the bus driver needed to detour around a broken pipe on Harvester, I arrived at the seniors’ home late. I waited at the front desk for at least fifteen minutes, but Mrs. Johnson never came and I couldn’t see a book to sign in. There was no one around to ask. I would have looked for her but a terrible odour filled the foyer — methane gas, I was sure of it. I figured that another pipe must have burst and Mrs. Johnson was busy evacuating the residents, because judging by the level of stink, the home was about to blow. A nurse came into the foyer, and I asked her about the methane leak and how long we had till the whole place went up. She just stared at me, but that did happen in that Mexican resort, Mr. Brooks, so I told her I needed some air and left. But I showed up for my volunteer work, Mr. Brooks, and waited and waited, so I think this should count towards my forty hours.

Okay, Paradise Manor smelled so bad I wanted to hurl, but truthfully, I didn’t think a pipe would explode. All I knew was that I couldn’t take it, so when Donovan (my boyfriend at the time) finally texted me that he could pick me up, I dashed outside to make my escape into the fresh air.

I guess the nurse must have told Mrs. Johnson about my methane leak comment, and of course she took it personally. That really started our relationship on a bad note.

She never could find it in her to change her mind about me, which is why she insisted the police charge me with manslaughter.

I wish I could explain all this to the jury, but I won’t get a chance to talk until the end. What I want to say is this: The definition of the word volunteer, straight from the dictionary, is “to perform a service of one’s own free will.” But there’s no free will involved if you have to do it in order to graduate. Forty hours! Our principal suggested we do it this year so that it wouldn’t interfere with our heavier course load and part-time jobs in our final one. He thought our volunteer work might “inform” our work choices. Mr. Brooks forced the issue by assigning us that volunteer journal.

It’s not like Paradise Manor was my choice. I wanted to put in my forty hours at Salon Teo — where I’m still hoping to get an apprenticeship — but Mr. Brooks said no. I had to work for a charitable cause. My friends Lee, Christopher, Liam, and Sasha snagged placements at our local cable station. While that television channel deserves everyone’s sympathy, I can’t see how it qualifies as a charity. Mr. Brooks said because they video City Hall meetings and local events like the Santa Claus Parade and the Art Auction — they serve the community.

I could have swept up the hair of the mayor’s wife or shampooed and rinsed out the dye from the Culture Centre chairman’s hair. I give the best scalp massages when I shampoo. I could have helped them look great for the camera and maybe if they would have felt good, the mayor and the council might have approved the budget for the extension on the museum. People underestimate these things, but just look around at the state of the world and the way people’s grooming and dressing habits have gone. You can’t deny that the two are linked.

But appearance has never been important to Mr. Brooks. He wears saggy-bottomed jeans and faded golf shirts and runs his fingers through his long, grey hair as though they’re a substitute for a quality ion-free ceramic hairbrush.

The choices for placements were running out. My boyfriend had held out till his final year to volunteer. He chose helping at the food bank ’cause it was the closest thing to working out in a gym that he could find. Donovan, dark and good-looking — my parents had forbidden me to see him after we got caught shoplifting together. But I just couldn’t quit him then.

Alexis took me to sign up with her for the animal shelter, but there was only one spot left and I let her have it. I wasn’t being a hero — that place reeked of antiseptic and dog doo, and I have a sensitive nose.

One of the other girls in my class, Lena, was trained at clown school — no, really — and hung out with terminally ill kids at the hospital, which I found depressing.

After school, once I had finally been forced into the last placement, I tried to explain my “choice” to Donovan.

“But Sunny, old people are even more depressing ’cause they are definitely going to die.” He caught my hand and held it as we walked out of school together.

“You’re right.” I squeezed his palm with my fingers as we went down the walkway and into the parking lot towards his car. “My grandmother died when I was six,” I told him as he opened the door for me. “Still, I think she was the person who liked me best in all the world.”

Donovan swung me around and looked into my eyes. “I like you a lot.”

I couldn’t help smiling. “I guess.”

He gently pushed back the pink strands of hair framing my face and kissed me.

Like, not love,
I thought as we broke apart.