I’m not proud of it. I’m telling you anyway.
My daughter Jenna is fifteen. The man who harmed her was the assistant coach on her softball team. Twenty-three years old. Everyone’s favorite.
He got six months in the county lockup because my girl couldn’t make it through the deposition without throwing up, and the prosecutor said a plea was the kindest thing we could do for her.
We agreed. My husband Ray hasn’t spoken more than ten words in a row since.
The day of his release, I told Ray I was going in early to the school cafeteria. I lied.
Ray was already awake when I left. Dressed, boots on, sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of coffee he hadn’t touched.
“Drive safely,” he said.
I didn’t ask why he was dressed at five in the morning. I have replayed that a hundred times since.
I drove past the fairgrounds to the county lockup and parked on the shoulder where I could see the gate.
I wasn’t the first one there.
Motorcycles lined both sides of the road. I counted forty before I quit counting.
Big men in leather vests, standing beside their bikes with their arms crossed. Not talking. Not smoking. Not moving. Two deputies stood behind the fence with their thumbs in their belts, watching them.
Nobody noticed me.
I know what I thought. I thought, good. I thought, let them. I sat in my car with my hands gripping the wheel and let myself imagine it.
At 7:20, the rolling gate slid open.
Travis walked out in a gray sweatsuit, carrying a clear plastic bag with his belongings inside. His mother’s tan minivan was idling near the booth. He saw the bikes and stopped cold.
Nobody moved. Not a single man.
Then eighty engines roared to life at the same time. Travis flinched so hard his bag hit the ground. The deputy at the gate placed his hand on his belt. And the oldest biker, a man with a white beard down to his chest, lifted one hand above his head, and every single one of them started……….(Continue reading in the C0MMENT) ㅤ͏
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