Change of Heart

by Jodi Picoult

‘So instead of trying, you’re just going to die for a crime you didn’t commit? You’re okay with that?’ He stared at me and slowly nodded. ‘I told you that the first day I met you. I didn’t want you to save me. I wanted you to save my heart.’ I was stunned. ‘Why?’ He struggled to get the words out. ‘It was still my fault. I tried to rescue her, and I couldn’t. I wasn’t there in time. I never liked Kurt Nealon – I used to try to not be in the same room as him when I was working, so I wouldn’t feel him looking at me. But June, she was so nice. She smelled like apples and she’d make me tuna fish for lunch and let me sit at the kitchen table like I belonged there with her and the girl. After Elizabeth . . . afterward . . . it was bad enough that June wouldn’t have them anymore. I didn’t want her to lose the past, too. Family’s not a thing, it’s a place,’ Shay said softly. ‘It’s where all the memories get kept.’ So he took the blame for Kurt Nealon’s crimes, in order to allow the grieving widow to remember him with pride, instead of hate. How much worse would it have been for June if DNA testing had existed back then – if the alleged rape of Elizabeth had proved Kurt as the perpetrator?