Reid
He’d arrived early enough to claim the spot Maya had used every year.
He already had the table set up and the cakes laid out. He was arranging the last of the shortbread when the first person said something.
"I don't think this is appropriate," the man said.
“Raising money for that woman. After what she did.”
“My wife is innocent,” Reid said. "She didn't steal anything."
The man laughed. “But you arrested her."
"I was wrong.” Reid spoke loudly, letting the words travel. "The evidence against her was fabricated."
People were gathering now. There were a few faces Reid recognized, some that he didn't.
Maya had been the one who knew everyone. Reid had been the shy one. He couldn’t afford to be shy today.
A woman folded her arms. "We gave her our money. It’s about trust.“
“You can trust Maya Lawson.” Reid raised his voice.
“This table stays.” He needed them to know he wasn’t going to let them forget about how much she’d done for them.
"The money raised today goes to the same place it always has.
To the same people it always has." He gestured at the cakes, the brownies, the lopsided lemon drizzle.
“Buy a slice of cake to show your support.”
Nobody stepped forward.
Maya would have known what to say.
Maya could turn a reluctant crowd into volunteers. He’d seen it happen time and again.
Reid had facts and evidence. But he also had a stiff voice and an awkward manner.
All the community backing that Maya had developed for years was gone. Because of him.
"The charges are going to be dropped," Reid announced, arms crossed.
It was a promise.
Nobody listened.
Reid stood behind the table. He thought about the weekend she had spent in the holding cell. He thought about her lying on a thin mattress.
He should have kicked down the door and taken his wife home. He should have rescued her from that nightmare.
Instead he had been the person who had put her there.
He picked up a knife, roughly cut himself a slice of the layer cake, and shoved it into his mouth.
He found two twenties and a ten and pushed them through the slot in the cashbox as payment. Fifty dollars into an empty box for his wife's bake sale.
He wanted to be angry at these people. He was angry at them—at the woman who had steered her child away from the table, at the neighbors who had avoided eye contact, at every person who had decided that an accusation was the same as a verdict. He was furious.
But he was angriest at himself.
He’d been so pathetic, so weak, so insecure that he’d believed the columns of a spreadsheet over the woman he loved.
He had stepped onto a stage in front of her community and put handcuffs on her wrists.
Of course they didn't buy her cakes.
He looked at the cashbox with its fifty dollars and the untouched table of cake and the sports field full of people who had known Maya since she was a child and he thought: I did this.
Not Julian. Reid had done this to her.
He was fixing the legal side but that didn’t change anything out here today.
And then he saw her. Maya was standing at the edge of the field, watching the mess he’d made of her legacy.