The Best Kind of People by Zoe Whittall Page A

this is true, if it’s true what those girls are saying … what the hell can we do?”
    “Honey, we don’t know anything for sure yet. And who are you going to trust? Strangers, or your own father? We have to wait and see what Bennie says. Someone is lying and out to get him.”
    “That sounds crazy.”
    “This situation is crazy!”
    “I know, I know it is,” agreed Sadie. “I want to go see him and talk to him myself. It just doesn’t make sense .”
    Joan wasn’t sure what made her say this, but she felt a sudden surge of protectiveness for her husband. “We need to stick by your father,” she said. “We don’t know the real story.”
    “But if it is true …”
    “Sadie, don’t say that.”
    “Come on, we can’t not think about that possibility.”
    “Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and who knows your father better than us? He is a friendly guy. Perhaps some girls, who are told by everyone not to go near men because they’re all evil monsters, maybe they misinterpreted his kindness and interest in their lives.”
    When someone is your husband or father, that’s simply who they are. You don’t stop to question much about them, unless you’re given reason to, and they’d never been given reason to.
    “Well, keep an open mind until we know more. Until we can see him. You are coming with me to the hearing tomorrow, right? We’ll figure out bail and he’ll be home again and we can put this behind us and let the lawyers do the work.”
    “Mom. What if we’re just in denial? What if it’s true, what they’re saying?”
    Something cracked against the front window. Joan ran into the living room, expecting to see the smear of a bird carcass across the grass, but when she moved the blinds aside, she saw remnants of eggshell and the smear of yolk, and saw the blur of teenagers running and jumping over the Hendersons’ side hedges.
    “Maybe you should stay inside today, honey.”
    “Okay, Mom,” Sadie said as she headed upstairs. She paused at the landing and turned around. “We have to face the facts of what is happening.”
    “We need not to jump to conclusions. This is a shock, but we’re not going to help anything by being hysterical and convincing ourselves that your father is some sort of axe murderer.”
    “Two-thirds of all sexual assaults are committed by someone who knows the victim. Someone who the victim trusts.”
    “So? Most murderers murder people they know, but that doesn’t mean if you know someone, you’ll murder someone.”
    “No one is charging anyone with murder. You’re obscuring the point. We have to look at what’s really happened here.”
    “We need to stay calm and focused on helping Dad beat these ridiculous, baseless charges. He’ll be home soon, and we’ll figure this out.”
    “I think we just, like, need to make sure we know that they are baseless.”
    Joan stopped buttering the toast and stared at her daughter.
    “I mean, it might be a misunderstanding or something,” Sadie mumbled.
    They were silent for a moment before Sadie went upstairs.
    Joan stirred her coffee slowly, the carton of skim milk sweating on the table in front of her, anchoring the morning newspaper. Joan ignored her toast. Above the fold was a headline about George, screaming out in thick, bold lettering. She watched as the liquid in her cup cooled, the text blurring behind it. Outside, the leaves appeared to have reddened overnight, going mad alongside her.
    Whatever the police had tried to find wasn’t discoverable, but they dug and sifted anyway, with no regard for personal history, for the meaning humans attach to objects, for the symbols of a family’s life. They took the family albums, the diaries, the telephone bill printouts.
    The phone rang. Joan answered, and heard her husband’s voice on the other end of the line, sounding far away. “I am being set up,” he said. “I only have a few seconds, but I wanted you to know that. Watch your back. Who knows what