“My birthday’s in February.”

  “Close enough.”

  “How much can I spend?”

  “You can spend a million dollars, Stafford. We’ll write a check. What about this?” he said, pulling out a dusty red bag tucked behind a row of hockey sticks.

  “Golf clubs,” Stafford said. “Neato.”

  “Maybe you want to try something new,” his father said. “There’s a little golf course at Napanee now.”

  “It’s closed.”

  “Just for the winter, Stafford. Gives you time to practice up a bit. Who knows? Maybe I’ll take up the game myself. Get your mother out there with me,” Michael said, and they both laughed at the thought of Mary-Jean Hopkins swinging a golf club.

  “Well, anyhow, happy birthday, son.”

  “Thank you, Father,” Stafford said.

  Bobby opened the kitchen door as Stafford trudged across the yard. His parents hovered behind him, but he waved them away. He knew they would worm it all out of him later. They always did. But he wanted privacy right now in case he said the wrong thing or lost his temper. Stafford stopped when he got to the porch steps, clutching the golf clubs to his chest. He’d come across the field without a hat and the jacket he wore was too thin for such a cold day. The cut on his lip had sealed over, but Bobby could see there was still a mark, and he was surprised to think he was responsible for something so permanent as a scar on another boy’s face.

  “Nice clubs,” he said to Stafford.

  “Steven Truscott was framed,” Stafford said. “It’s obvious. You were right and I was wrong.”

  “Well, I’ve changed my mind,” Bobby said.

  “What?”

  “He wasn’t framed. Not really. More like used. They had to blame someone, and he was just convenient, that’s all. And that’s way worse. Worse than framing.”

  “What’s the difference? He’s innocent.”

  “But it’ll be harder to prove it now.”

  “Bobby.”

  “Look, Stafford, framing is like when you know who did it but you’re gonna set things up so another guy gets blamed. Why? Because either you hate the guy who’s getting framed so much you want him to suffer or because maybe it was you who did it and you’re trying to protect yourself or—or, maybe you know who did it and you like or need him more than whoever’s getting framed. Either way it’s personal. Get it?”

  “Yeah, sure I get it.”

  “But using a guy, well, that’s different, isn’t it? Using is just taking something that’s possible and making it more possible so you can get what you want quicker. It’s way worse. Why? Why? Because it’s not personal.”

  “Do you think they’ll hang him?”

  “I don’t know,” Bobby said. “But I bet they wait until after Christmas.”

  “Why?”

  “He’ll be fifteen in January. It’ll be easier to hang a guy who’s fifteen.”

  “Yeah,” Stafford said.

  “You’d better come inside.”

  “It’s cold out, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe for golf,” Bobby said.

  But as November passed and December came and went, and everyone settled into the long month of a Canadian January, Bobby became less agitated and fell instead into a depression that worried his parents and Stafford far more than all his pre-Christmas fury. It was not like Bobby to be silent around those he loved, and even Stafford’s bold prediction that Steven Truscott would not hang did little to lift his spirits.

  “They’ll commute the sentence, Bobby. You’ll see. He’ll get life.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “And then later, if he’s doing okay, he’ll get parole. Like when he’s fifty, maybe. He’ll get out of jail when he’s fifty and it’ll be over.”

  “Over.”

  “Look, Bobby, he’s not going to hang, okay?”

  “How do you know?”

  “I just know, okay. It’s a very strong feeling. In my guts.”

  “Your guts.”

  “Yeah. My guts.”

  “Well, we’ll just have to wait and see how smart your guts are, Stafford.”

  When Stafford was older and the events of his past no longer relevant, he was assigned to a show called Judges, which won an important industry award. He was a studio production executive then, one of many, but the success of the show set him apart and initiated his later move to the network. It was about a group of retired judges who worked secretly to protect the unwary public from criminals who slipped through the justice system with the aid of their unscrupulous lawyers. The creators of the show had pushed for an edgier drama in which the line between good and evil was less defined, but Stafford had nixed that. Why? they asked. Because it was 1980, he told them. Because the Soviet Union was invading Afghanistan, interest rates were at fifteen percent, oil prices were climbing, and fifty-two American citizens were being held hostage at the American embassy in Tehran. Because we’re not doing Beckett, he said. We’re doing a show where the good guys win. Did they understand that? And because this was their first show and they thought Stafford held more power than he did, the writers said yes. Yes, they understood that.

  He and Agnes had dressed up for the awards show, and their photograph appeared in a surprising number of industry magazines after the event. They were an attractive couple, beautiful, in fact, both of them with their dark hair and blue eyes and the fine bones of people who would always be nice to look at. But they had been in a rush to get out the door, and Agnes had lost her temper with Callie just as the limousine arrived to pick them up.

  Callie had been difficult all morning and would not leave her mother alone, despite the new nanny’s best efforts to engage her attention elsewhere. Agnes had a complicated dress that had to be put together in layers of tulle and ivory silk with far too many straps in critical places. But the sound of Callie’s unhappy voice was distracting, and it filled the house. She didn’t like the show on TV. She wanted a soda. No, she didn’t want a glass of chocolate milk. She wanted an orange soda. She needed a bandage. She had a scratch on her leg. No, she didn’t hurt the cat. She wanted to change her clothes. She didn’t like her shorts. She wanted to put on her velvet dress. No, she didn’t want to have a friend over. She hated her friends.

  “I said I wanted a soda!” Callie wailed, and she threw the offending glass of chocolate milk at Agnes, where it landed on the beaded silk overlay of her mother’s dress.

  Televised awards shows demand the early arrival of those in attendance, and with a long drive across town and the inevitable lineup of limousines inching their way toward the red carpet, Agnes was expected to be fully dressed and ready to leave by two thirty. It was September, and between Callie’s miserable mood, the ruin of her dress, and the humidity of the day, Agnes lost her temper.

  “Get away from me!” she said to Callie. And then she slapped her.

  “Mommy!”

  Callie let out a shriek, and that brought Stafford up the stairs and into the bedroom, where he stood at the door, his face rigid with fury.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “Mommy hit me,” Callie cried.

  “Agnes!”

  “I spanked her.”

  “She hit me on the face!”

  “You slapped her?”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Agnes said. “I shouldn’t have.”

  “You slapped a child on the face? What is the matter with you, Agnes?”

  “I can’t get ready! She’s all over me.”

  “She’s five years old, for Christ’s sake!”

  “She wants this. She wants that. I’m trying to get ready!”

  “Agnes, pull yourself together. The limo’s waiting. Jesus Christ! Why does everything have to be such a goddamned crisis with you?”

  “I’m sorry,” Agnes said, and she started to cry, which ruined her makeup, and by the time she had found another dress to wear and changed into it and fixed her face, Stafford was so angry he could not bear to look at her.

  They arrived late, of course, and were rushed inside just before the show began, and when Judges won, the creators went to the podium and thanked their production executive, Stafford Hopkins, for having the guts, they said, to take a chance on their vision that America was a place where the good guys win.

  “You must be very proud,” whispered the woman sitting behind Agnes. “Your husband is wonderful.”

  “Hmm,” Agnes said, and she smiled and kept clapping because she could see the cameras looking for her.

  “And so handsome!”

  “Hmm.”

  “Justice!” Bobby said. “You call it justice?”

  “I never said that,” Stafford said. “Could you move back a bit? You’re blocking the light. And hang on to the cat. Don’t talk. Ah, crap.”

  “Nice putt,” Bobby said as the ball hit the wall and dribbled backward.

  “It’s harder than it looks,” Stafford said. “And that’s thirty feet to the wall, you know.”

  “More like twenty,” Bobby said, and he tossed the golf ball back to Stafford.

  Golf had a natural appeal for Stafford, and the Hopkinses’ barn had a cupola that flooded the hayloft with light. It was unbearably hot in summer, but the winter months brought cooler temperatures, less hay, and more floor space, which enabled Stafford to practice his short game after school and on weekends. His long game would have to wait for spring, because he couldn’t risk losing any of his golf balls in the snow.

  “I measured,” Stafford said. “And it’s thirty feet to that beam.”

  “Justice,” Bobby said, “is them saying he’s one hundred percent innocent. And that would make them one hundred percent wrong. That’s what justice is.”

  “Some justice is what I said.”

  “There’s no such thing as some justice. There’s either justice or there isn’t.”

  “That’s just dumb.”

  “Dumb? Define dumb.”

  “Okay, maybe not technically dumb. But it’s better—could you hold on to the cat, please?”

  “It’s better what?”

  “It’s better to get what you can now and wait for the rest. At least he has a chance now.”

  “In jail? Are you serious?”

  “Maybe he’ll go to Disneyland. My uncle Frank works there. He says the prison farm is a good deal.”

  “He won’t be going to Disneyland.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s too young.”

  “Too young?”

  “Yeah, it makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? He was old enough to hang when he was fourteen, but now that he’s fifteen and they’ve decided not to hang him, he’s too young to get into a federal penitentiary.”

  “Ah, crap.”

  “Nice putt.”

  “You want to try? It’s not as easy as it looks. Here, go ahead then. Give me the cat. You have to put your feet on the line.”

  “What line?”

  “Back up a bit. I made a mark on the floor. There.”

  “Thirty feet, eh?”

  “You have to keep your arms straight and your knees loose. Your feet should be apart. Keep your shoulders down.”

  “Stafford, just shut up, okay?”

  “Sorry. So where’s he going then?”

  “There’s a reform school in Guelph for juvenile delinquents,” Bobby said. “He’ll probably go there first.”

  “Well, maybe that won’t be so bad.”

  “So bad? Are you kidding me? Bad compared with what? Getting hung? Getting the shit kicked out of you at a federal penitentiary? Starting grade nine with your friends?”

  “Ah, crap. You did it. You made the putt. How did you do that?”

  “I locked my knees, bent my arms, and kept my feet together.”

  “You’re not supposed to—”

  “Stafford, just shut up and hit the ball.”

  The news that the government of Canada would not hang Steven Truscott broke on January 21, 1960, three days after his fifteenth birthday. It was a decision that marked the beginning of a shift in the country’s relationship with justice and punishment, a decision that brought Canada one step closer to abolishing the death penalty a decade later. But Bobby cried when he heard the news, and his father had called Stafford.

  “He’s all broken up about this Truscott business,” Andrew said. “Maybe you can think of something to cheer him up. His mother and I are all out of ideas.”

  “Okay,” Stafford said. “I’ll come over.” But he didn’t have a clue what he could say or do to help his friend.

  “That Bobby Shepherd,” Stafford’s mother said, “is too sensitive for his own good.”

  “He’s not sensitive,” Stafford said.

  “Well, it’s no surprise with those parents of his,” Stafford’s mother said. “They’re quite the pair, those two.”

  “No, they aren’t,” Stafford said. “Nobody’s sensitive.”

  When Stafford arrived at Bobby’s house, Bobby’s parents told him that Bobby had gone across to the old milking shed.

  “He said he wanted to be alone,” Susan Shepherd said. “But we’d rather he wasn’t.”

  “Should I go over there?” Stafford asked.

  “Yes, dear,” Susan replied. “We think that would be a good idea.”

  Stafford could hear Bobby crying in the milking shed as he approached, and he didn’t know what to do. When they were little boys, they both cried easily, but that had stopped when they went to school. Schoolboys didn’t cry when they got stung by a bee or strapped by the teacher for talking back. Schoolboys were tough and didn’t crack up the way girls did. But the sound, now, of Bobby’s broken sobs shocked Stafford, and he retreated to a safe distance where he could no longer hear them. He waited there, halfway between the house and the milking shed, and tried to think. He wanted to help Bobby, but he knew if he walked in on him all choked up like a girl, Bobby would never talk to him again. Bobby had always been stronger than Stafford, no matter what Stafford’s mother had to say about sensitive boys. Bobby had been the leader from the start. Bobby wasn’t afraid of anything. He didn’t worry about the opinions of others. He didn’t care if a grown-up thought he was sensitive. Bobby Shepherd didn’t lie awake at night worrying about a brother who hadn’t come home and parents who fought about it.

  Stafford didn’t speak to Bobby that afternoon. Nor did he return to the Shepherd house and tell Bobby’s parents that Bobby was crying his eyes out in the old milk shed. Instead Stafford walked home the long way and found Emmett in the woodlot, collecting the last of the old logs from the spruce grove cut in the fall.

  “What are you doing way out here?” Emmett asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “Father sent you to check up on me, didn’t he?”

  “No. I just came myself.”

  “Grab hold of that big one there.”

  “Are these dry enough to split?”

  “They’d better be,” Emmett said. “What’d you come out here for then?”

  “I want you to get me something.”

  “Yeah? And what’s that?”

  “Some beer.”

  “Beer.”

  “Four bottles. Labatt’s.”

  “Why four?” Emmett said.

  “Two for me and two for Bobby.”

  “Okay,” Emmett said, and a few days later he left the four bottles of beer in Stafford’s room on the windowsill where the tea-birds once sat.

  In the early days of their friendship, when they fought the pirates together from the rock that separated their farms, Stafford and Bobby used flashlights to send messages after dark from their bedroom windows. It was Bobby’s idea, of course, but a tree planted in front of Stafford’s window had gradually blocked their sight lines and phone calls replaced flashlights. But occasionally one of them would revive the old game.

  Bobby was reading and the house was dark when the summons came. He put the book down and went to the window where he could see someone standing on the rock in the distance, flicking a flashlight on and off. Abandoning the warmth of his bed, Bobby dressed quickly and slipped out of the house.

  It was a bitter night and when Bobby arrived at the rock, Stafford was sitting on it, clutching a backpack next to his chest for warmth.

  “Are we going somewhere?” Bobby asked, sitting next to him.

  “Baileys’ old barn,” Stafford said. “They’re at Cobourg for a funeral.”

  “What about the hired man?” Bobby asked.

  “He won’t say anything,” Stafford said. “He won’t even know.”

  “Well, that’s great. But would you mind telling me why we’re doing this?” Bobby asked.

  “We’re doing it for Steven Truscott,” Stafford said.

  There was no light from the stars to lighten the night sky, but they knew where to cross the highway and how to pick their way through the little grove of trees that separated the Baileys’ farm from the road, and where the snow would be hard-packed and where it would be deeper. The Baileys had done well over the years, and they had two barns now, but it was to the older one the boys went. Stafford had flashlights, beer, blankets, and cigarettes in his backpack, and when they got to the barn, they crept in through a side door and made themselves comfortable. The barn was used to store machinery over the winter, and the light from their flashlights illuminated the tractors and the combine in strange patterns against the barn wall. It was cold in the barn, colder than outside, but they settled in with their beer and their cigarettes and they drank to justice and to Steven Truscott.

  “Real justice,” Stafford said. “One hundred percent.”

  “Or nothing,” Bobby said.

  “That’s right,” Stafford said.

  “Why didn’t you get a six-pack?” Bobby said when they finished their first bottle.