“He didn’t bring me into anything. I wanted to do it,” I practically shouted back at her.
“You want to go to a real terrible prison where ugly things happen to girls your age and you want to go there for years and years? Is that what you want?”
“No, but—”
“But that’s what’s goin‘ to happen to you if you don’t shut your trap, Robin. You nod when you’re told to nod and you shake your head when you’re told to shake it, understand? Otherwise, there’s no tellin’ what that judge is goin‘ to do to you. Mr. Meriweather is tryin’ to work somethin‘ out with that assistant district attorney. If you will sign the statement agreeing with what Keefer Dawson is tellin’ them, she’ll consider a recommendation to the judge that will help you.”
“I don’t want Keefer taking all the blame,” I said.
“He would have done somethin‘ like this with or without you, wouldn’t he?” she asked.
I thought about it.
“Probably,” I said. “His mother just died—committed suicide—and his father hates him and he lost his job.”
“That’s all for his lawyer to tell, Robin. There’s no point tyin‘ yourself to someone else’s troubles.”
“It is if you care about him,” I told her. “That’s something you wouldn’t understand, Mother darling. You never cared about anyone more than you cared about yourself.”
“That’s not fair, Robin. I did care about you. I do.”
“Then how did you bring us—bring me—to live with that horrible Cory Lewis?” I cried.
She stared.
“I didn’t just come to Cory with you because he was involved in the music business, Robin. There was a chance—there is a chance,” she corrected, “that he is your real father.”
I felt as if lightning had snapped over my head.
“No,” I said. I shook my head vigorously to throw the words back out of my ears.
“As I told you, there was more than one, but he was there that night and we… we were lovers that night.”
“No,” I insisted.
“It doesn’t matter. Cory wanted to do somethin‘ for us because he thought it might be true.”
“If it is, I wish I was never born,” I said. “Almost as much as you wish it.”
“I don’t wish it anymore, Robin, but I don’t expect you to believe that. I really was hopin‘ you’d be part of my success and be happy.”
“Good title for a new song. Start writing it,” I snapped, and she bristled.
“I’m tellin‘ that lawyer you’ll do what he says, Robin. If you don’t, you’re goin’ to be one sorry girl.”
She rose.
“You don’t help him by hurtin‘ yourself,” she added.
I looked up at her. It was the first thing she had said that I thought made any sense at all.
And something I wished she would turn into a song.
13
Caged Birds Sing Sad Songs
“This is the story,” Mr. Meriweather said, with Mother darling sitting beside him. “We can keep you out of prison, keep you from being tried as an adult, even keep you out of a juvenile detention center.”