4: 4
"Don't call the police, I'm begging you, don't call them." Florence rushed the words out. "We don't want compensation, we're not even asking you to turn yourself in. Just delete the video and that's enough."
I looked at her. "I'm not carrying this filth for you. I trust the police will get to the truth. They'll give Odette justice, and they'll clear my name too."
"My poor girl, why did you kill yourself, tell me, why did you do it?" Florence kept wailing. "Now that you're dead, there's no one left to testify, and the man who wronged you has the nerve to call the police."
"Your dad and I are useless, we can't get you justice, so I won't go on living either."
That line of Florence's cut deep. All around me the eyes turned my way burned with anger.
"I understand how you feel. But if you keep twisting things, if you keep trying to turn black into white and pin this filth on me, I won't just call the police to prove I'm innocent. I'll sue you for slander."
"My daughter's already dead. Whatever you say goes, what else can we do? Oh Lord, how can you be so unfair." Florence went on crying.
"Then I'll call them right now." I didn't want to keep arguing the point with them. I took out my phone to make the call.
"You still have the face to call the police?" A shape came rushing at me out of the shout.
Before I could react, whoever it was kicked me down, and once I saw his face I stopped resisting and let the slaps land across my cheek.
"You worthless piece of filth, thieving since you were a boy, and now you pull something this low. If I'd known, I never should've fathered you."
My father cursed me and slapped me at the same time. I didn't fight back. I just stared at him.
My mother came too, standing off to the side, apologizing over and over to Odette's parents.
When he finally stopped, after more than a dozen slaps, my father glared at me with venom in his eyes. "Delete the video and go turn yourself in, right now. Otherwise I don't have a son like you."
My brother spoke up as well. "Emmet, you couldn't get yourself a wife because you've got nothing to offer, fine. But that doesn't mean you get to ruin some poor girl."
"How are Mom and Dad supposed to hold their heads up now? You... you... you've let us down so badly."
"Son, how could you do a thing like this?" My mother wiped at her tears. "Your dad and I have lived honest all our lives. We never asked you to make something of yourself, but you... where does that leave our old faces? Listen to me and go turn yourself in."
"You do wrong, you stand and take your punishment. Emmet, that's what Dad always taught us."
"Emmet, if you've got a habit of stealing, fine, that's one thing. But of all the things you should never have done, it's this."
"A dog can't change its ways. Watching you grow up, I had you pegged from the start." My father's face was cold. "This time he has to be convicted. Lock him up for a good few years."
I looked calmly at my own flesh and blood. They'd come at me without asking a single question about right or wrong, telling me to turn myself in.
And that wasn't all. They twisted the truth the same way.
I've lived clean. I never stole a thing, never robbed anyone. As the eldest son, the year my father fell gravely ill, I had no choice but to quit school and go to work.
For over ten years I'd worked in factories, on construction sites, waited tables, delivered food.
For over ten years I'd studied in whatever spare time I had, passed the adult college exams, earned my degree.
But because my father could no longer work and my mother had to care for him, the burden of his medical bills and putting my brother through school fell on me.
I worked at a company by day, and drove for Uber at night.
I never dared rest, not for a moment. I'm nearly thirty. I wanted a wife, but I had no money to marry one.
My own flesh and blood couldn't see any of what I'd given. They rushed over the second they heard, told me to confess, and thought about cutting me off for good.
I wiped the blood from the corner of my mouth, looked past all of them, over to that figure with tears falling like rain. "Turn around and look. Go ask her whether I ever did anything to hurt Odette."
Everyone turned. Odette's parents went pale in an instant.
"Isn't your sister dead?" My brother looked at Jerome.
