The Power of Testimony

SHAWN THORNTON || 33
While Bev was unconscious, John had graduated and
taken a job with Everett- Ballard Funeral Home. His goal:
to become a mortician. They put him to work cleaning
the place, doing routine maintenance, and driving an
ambulance—​mostly to pick up drunks and vagrants. At
the time, the mortuary business operated ambulances that
offered no service except a fast ride to the hospital. After a
year of apprenticeship, John could attend mortician school,
then get his license and perhaps one day own a funeral home
or become an embalmer on staff.
He had chosen not to fade away from the Gilvin family
and instead was quietly allowed to see Bev again. Betty
and Russell even gave him permission to drive Bev to school
occasionally.
But school was proving difficult for Bev. Her natural
intelligence seemed bottled up inside her, tangled at times.
Connie was tagged to help her with her homework. One day
she brought in the geometry book for a quick lesson before
the next day’s exam.
“Triangles are very predictable,” Connie instructed, reading
from the book lying open on Bev’s lap while she sat in
a chair in the living room. “They have three angles, and the
angles always add up to one hundred and eighty.”
Bev listened and processed.
“So if this angle is forty-​five degrees and this one is fifty-​
five, what is this third one?” Connie asked. The question
hung there as Bev pressed her brain into the problem.
“ Forty-​ five plus fifty-​five would be . . .” Connie said.
Bev’s face f lushed. She clearly didn’t like being prompted