Labor Day: A Novel by Joyce Maynard

Author:Joyce Maynard [Maynard, Joyce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Coming of Age, Family Life
ISBN: 9780062346056
Google: 06dkAgAAQBAJ
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2014-01-21T23:53:42+00:00

When they first brought him in, the lawyer assigned to his case had called it a clear case of manslaughter.

Frank was responsible for Mandy’s death, he told them. He never meant to kill his wife but he had. That was the fact of it, and he would take his punishment.

The part they didn’t expect was the next. Her sister had come forward to say the baby wasn’t his, and that when Frank found out, he’d murdered his own son.

What about my grandmother? he said. The doctor ruled she had a heart attack. It was an accident.

She had a heart attack all right, the D.A. said. What old woman with a weak heart would not, when she came upon the sight of her great-grandson, murdered by her flesh and blood?

The D.A. charged him with murder. Frank’s lawyer, sensing things were going badly, had called in an expert on post-traumatic stress disorder, right at the end of the trial. They went for a temporary insanity defense. By that time, Frank barely cared. What difference did any of it make anymore?

They gave him twenty years before parole eligibility. He served the first eight of them at the state hospital. When he was ruled competent, they moved him to the penitentiary. At the time he had jumped out the window, he had two years to go.

But I knew I had to get out of that place, he said. I knew there was some reason to jump. I wasn’t wrong about that.

The reason was her. My mother. He didn’t know it at the time, but he had jumped out that window to come save her.

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