The Unremarkable Heart Read Online Free PDF

her at the grocery store. Anyone who met June Connor during that time would’ve gotten the same story from her: I know these girls, and they are all lying for attention.
    For his part, Richard was outraged. Teaching was his life. His reputation was sterling, one of those teachers students loved because he challenged them on every level every single day. He had devoted himself to education, to helping kids achieve something in their lives other than mediocrity. The previous year, four of his kids had gone on to full scholarships at Ivy League schools. Twice he had been voted teacher of the year for the district. Every summer, former students would drop by his classroom to thank him for making them work harder than they had ever worked in their lives. Doctors, lawyers, politicians – they had all at some point been in one of Richard’s English classes, and he had done nothing but help them prepare for their exemplary lives.
    That first week was a blur; talking to lawyers, going to a bail bondsman in a part of town June had never even known existed. There was an entirely different language to this type of life, a Latin that defied their various English degrees: ex officio , locus delicti , cui bono . They stayed awake all night reading law books, studying cases, finding precedent that, when presented to the lawyer, was dispelled within seconds of their meeting. And still, they would go back every night, studying, preparing, defending.
    There is no bond tighter than a bond of mutual persecution. It was June and Richard against everyone else. It was June and Richard who knew the truth. It was June and Richard who would fight this insanity together. Who were these girls? How dare these girls? To hell with these girls.
    June had often lectured Grace about responsibility. Like most children, Grace was a great subverter. Her stories always managed to shift blame, however subtly, onto the other person. If there was a fight, then Grace was only defending herself. If she was late with an assignment, it was always because the teacher’s instructions had not been clear. If she got caught sneaking out in the middle of the night, it was only because her friends had threatened her, cajoled her, to be part of the group.
    ‘Which is more possible,’ June had asked. ‘That every single person in the world is conspiring to make you seem a fool, or that you are only fooling yourself?’
    But, this was different. June was vindicated. One by one, the girls dropped away, their charges dismissed for lack of evidence. The parents made excuses. The girls were not lying, but the public scrutiny was too much. The limelight not what they had expected. All of them refused to testify – all but one. Danielle Parson, Grace’s best friend. Richard’s original accuser.
    The prosecutor, having lost tremendous face when the bulk of his case fell apart, would have sought the death penalty if possible. Instead, he threw every charge at Richard that had even the most remote possibility of sticking. Sodomy, sexual assault, statutory rape, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, providing alcohol to a minor, and, because the debate team had traveled to a neighboring state for a regional tournament, child abduction and transporting a minor for the purposes ofsexual concourse. This last one was a federal charge. At the judge’s discretion, Richard could be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
    ‘It’s come to Jesus time,’ their lawyer had said, a phrase June had never heard in her life until that moment. ‘You can fight this, and still go to jail, or you can take a deal, serve your time, and get on with your life.’
    There were other factors. Money from a second mortgage they had taken on the house would only get them through jury selection. Obviously, Richard wasn’t allowed back at work or within three hundred yards of any of the girls. The board had told June they were thinking of ‘transferring her valuable skills’