The Last Suppers

by Mandy Mikulencak

  “I shouldn’t have to ask for what I want,” she said.

  “Well . . . I said it last night without you asking. But now, the whole conversation is about what I’m not doing right.”

  The exchange made her think they’d lasted all these years because they failed to speak any feelings aloud. Now that they had, both were doing a miserable job of it. She feared opening her mouth might result in something even more harmful being said.

  Ginny turned her back to Roscoe and stared out at the lights of the prison, the strongest being those atop the watchtowers. While almost every path through the maze of buildings was lit, the warden’s residence was shrouded in blissful darkness.

  “The size of my mouth exceeds the size of my body,” she said.

  Roscoe’s muffled chuckle eased the tension.

  “I’m guessing that’s something Miriam told you a time or two?” he asked.

  “Well, you know Mama. Words are actually her strong suit.”

  Moving behind her, Roscoe draped his long arms across her shoulders and rested his chin on her head. She pulled on his arms as if they were suspenders.

  “I asked your daddy once how he could stand her constant chatter and he just asked, ‘What chatter?’ I don’t know if he was pulling my leg or if love gave him a deaf ear.”

  She felt queer inside hearing her daddy might have loved Miriam. As a child, she just assumed her mama vexed him the same way she vexed her; that she and her father were bonded against a common enemy who was out to spoil their fun in whatever way she could. Miriam had always swooped in and demanded that Ginny clean up, or do her homework, or go to bed—anything to stop an activity her mama had not been invited to join. Even when the three of them played cards or marbles together, Ginny thought of herself and her daddy as a team trying to beat Miriam. It must have been apparent to her mama, who often stomped off in a huff when things weren’t going her way. As a child, Ginny also believed her daddy’s drinking got worse in response to Miriam’s nagging. Only as an adult could she now see the real reasons a Greenmount guard might turn to drink and why his wife might be so unhappy.

  Ginny’s face colored at the childish thoughts boiling up. Her daddy was dead and there she was, jealous he might have cared about the woman he married and had a child with.

  “I didn’t mean to spoil something you wanted to be special,” Roscoe whispered in her ear. “God knows I do love you, Ginny Polk.”

  His attempt to say the right words thrilled her and eased the jealousy about Miriam from her mind.

  “I love you, too, Roscoe Simms.”

  With eyes closed, she paid attention to the chirping of cicadas and the steady thrumming of Roscoe’s heart against her back. She longed for a camera that could capture feelings and sensations like a photograph because she worried her feeble memory would never be able to reassemble all the pieces of this important moment.

  Roscoe let her stand there against him in the silence, whereas another man might have grown uneasy or thought the moment too awkward to bear. He cradled her expectations as well as her body.

  “Ready for bed?” he finally asked.

  She nodded and followed him into the house. They stopped at the bottom of the staircase.

  “I need to put away some things in the kitchen,” she said. “Be up in a minute.”

  He gave her hand a quick squeeze and took a few steps before turning back.

  “Ginny? We have any cornflakes?” he asked.

  “Thinking about breakfast already?”

  “Nah, I meant to tell you earlier. Sam says all he wants tomorrow is a box of cornflakes, milk, and lots of sugar. If we have that on hand, you don’t have to run to town tomorrow.”

  The humming in her ears grew loud, as if the cicadas they heard outside now swarmed the room. Still cooling on the stovetop was Aida’s pork neck stew, yet all Samuel wanted was cereal for his last supper. Do a good job, his grandmother had instructed.

  “Ginny? The cereal?” Roscoe pressed.

  “Um . . . yes, I think so. Almost a full box.”

  “All right then.”

  Roscoe made it to the top of the stairs before she sat down on one of the dining room chairs. Ginny leaned over the table and rested her cheek on her arm. Cornflakes. Goddamned cornflakes had dispelled the magic she’d felt with Roscoe in the yard. The memory of the night she first told Roscoe she loved him would always include death row inmate Samuel LeBoux.

  Chapter 7

  Execution days were generally of two types: the kind where the energy of the guards and prisoners was ramped up so high you expected a riot; or the opposite, when things were so damn still the place appeared to be a ghost town. There was no rhyme or reason for it, just that the two types existed and you wouldn’t know which until the day of.

  Today, the prison was the latter. The men at breakfast seemed to renounce speech altogether. Even trays, cups, and spoons went mute, failing to clank against tabletops. Dot lowered her normally boisterous voice to match the solemnity in the air.

  “I’m just saying if I was you, I’d serve the boy his grammy’s stew with some spoonbread and forget about the damn cereal,” she said.

  That was Ginny’s belief as well, but her stomach churned in warning. In the past, it’d been perfectly normal for her to go against Roscoe’s wishes for the right reason. Now, pushing him seemed a bad idea. Not that he’d retract his feelings, but she owed him more. Like thinking things through. In truth, though, she was bound to do something one day that would raise his ire again. Why not today? Especially since Aida’s request seemed worth it.

  Dot made it seem so clear-cut. “The boy deserves more than cornflakes,” she’d said, and those words bolstered Ginny’s feelings.

  “And would you tell him about his little son?” The photograph rested in her apron pocket, heavier than the paper it’d been printed on.

  “’Course I would,” she said. “That was his girlfriend’s wish. You ain’t doing it on your own accord.”

  The unsettled feeling wouldn’t leave Ginny. Perhaps it was just how one was supposed to feel on execution day.

  * * *

  Since Dot said she could handle things in the kitchen, Ginny walked over to the death row cellblock. The door to the Waiting Room stood open, so she let herself in and made her way to the corner room. It was just as stifling as the day Samuel told her to mind her own business. Not a sound came from the prisoners’ cells. What was Samuel doing at this very moment?

  The creak of the door sent shivers through her body. John, the lead guard of the unit, stepped in.

  “What are you doing here, Ginny?” His voice was as low as Dot’s had been, as if he, too, felt some reverence was in order.

  “I don’t know. I have a peculiar feeling about today.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. Seems to have hit Roscoe pretty hard as well.”

  John using Roscoe’s first name didn’t strike her as strange. They were friends. And John knew Roscoe had feelings for her. She and John would have both been less familiar if anyone else had been around.

  “Why do you say that about Roscoe?” she asked.

  John pulled at his collar and then put his hands on the back of the chair. “Maybe I shouldn’t be saying anything.”

  Ginny sat down at the table and motioned for him to do the same. He looked back at the door as if someone might object.

  “John?”

  He sat down. “Roscoe’s in there right now with Sam, reading Bible verses.”

  “That’s not unusual. He often reads to the men.”

  “Yeah, but he’s come every day for the last three weeks. And when he leaves, he carries with him a weariness like I’ve never seen before. Like he’s dreading this boy’s death more than others.”

  Roscoe hadn’t shared this with her. They rarely spoke about Samuel except in regards to his last meal. And those conversations weren’t pleasant or lengthy. Had she been so wrapped up in the details of Aida’s wishes and the damn pork neck stew that she ha
dn’t seen a change in Roscoe?

  “Weary, huh?” she asked.

  “With every year that goes by, it seems those executions get harder and harder for him. Which is natural, I suppose. If I didn’t have my wife to talk to about it, it might drive me a little crazy. Although some of the boys around here look forward to it like it was the World Series.”

  Ginny had volunteered to witness every execution and take down the prisoners’ last words, although all she had to do was drop off a tray of food and leave. Every one of her actions seemed wholly separate from the act of killing. She assumed Roscoe felt the same detachment. They hadn’t talked about it, not the way John and his wife did.

  “Didn’t mean to upset you, Ginny.”

  “Oh, you didn’t. I just went somewhere else for a moment.” She smiled to reassure him. Usually, she was inclined to squeeze a person’s hand, but thought it too forward, even with John. Samuel had recoiled when she reached for him that day in the corner room.

  “You know, Roscoe could be upset about a hundred other things besides Sam,” he said. “He’s had a lot on his mind lately, including the damn Superintendent of Corrections. Sorry I said anything.”

  “No, I’m glad you did.”

  “You staying for the walk-through? We’ll be starting any minute.”

  The walk-through was rehearsal for the night of the execution, although each man knew his part by heart. Still, some wardens were superstitious that without the walk-through, things might not go smoothly. It couldn’t be risked with the press and public present, and especially if family members of the death row inmate attended. Death by electric chair was horrific enough. A botched execution would be disastrous given folks’ negative feelings about prison goings-on in general.

  Ginny had heard the words so many times they were etched in her consciousness: “A jury of your peers has found you guilty of the crime of murder. A judge has imposed a sentence of death as your penalty. As warden, I am charged with carrying out that sentence according to the laws of the State of Louisiana. At this time, do you have a statement for the witnesses present?”

  Most men had little to say. Some apologized to their own families or to the families of those they’d harmed. Others wept and whispered prayers for mercy. Only once, in her presence, had anyone screamed out he was innocent: that was Silas Barnes, her daddy’s murderer.

  “I think I better just go,” she said.

  “You want me to tell Roscoe you were here?” John asked.

  “No, please don’t. He has enough to worry about.”

  * * *

  Some summer days, the residence could feel almost cool inside. The large oaks in the yard shaded the porch and front rooms, and fragrant lilac bushes blocked sunlight from the kitchen. She tried to guess whether the inside temperature was ten or fifteen degrees cooler than the outside, but realized it didn’t matter one bit as long as it was cooler, period.

  The air held remnants of last night’s pork chop dinner and the stew she’d made and put in the icebox. Ginny still hadn’t decided whether to bake cornbread or spoonbread to go with the stew. Spoonbread was denser and wouldn’t crumble in the broth as quickly. Yet, most folks associated cornbread with family gatherings.

  “Stupid woman!” Her frustration echoed in the empty house.

  Samuel would be dead in a few hours and she was comparing recipes like a spinster at a county fair baking competition. Maybe there was something wrong with her that she couldn’t feel the gravity of the situation as Roscoe and John did. What did a goddamned recipe matter?

  Roscoe worried that seeing the execution of Daddy’s killer broke her. But it was always more of an observation. He never probed further, trying to needle out what was unhinged in her mind. Ginny envied John and his wife, lying in bed at night, the two of them able to sort through their feelings. Hers had never been looked at squarely. Yet she’d allowed them to drive her actions all these years.

  The weariness John described seeing in Roscoe overtook her as well. She wanted nothing more than to climb the stairs to the master bedroom, strip down to her undergarments, and lie down on the top of the voluminous bedding, sinking down until it swallowed her whole.

  Instead, she walked into the kitchen to search the pantry for yellow cornmeal.

  * * *

  With the oven on, the room felt as sweltering as the prison yard. As soon as Ginny mopped the perspiration from her face with a dish towel, beads of moisture formed on her brow and trickled off her nose onto the counter.

  Her dress had lost its starch hours ago and instead clung like a desperate child. She leaned away from the stove to stir the stew, wishing her arm was longer. Yet, when the spoonbread came out of the oven, she scooped a serving into a bowl for herself despite the heat. For a split second, Ginny regretted taking any. It was Samuel’s, after all. But she couldn’t help herself.

  After dotting it with cold, salted butter, she doused it generously with maple syrup. The dish reminded Ginny of her mournful baking period after her daddy’s funeral. Even savory dishes somehow ended up sweet. Ginny’s fear of toothaches had been so grave she brushed after every meal and sometimes in between. Her mama would admonish her for ruining the taste of perfectly good food. But even if Ginny hadn’t brushed like a crazed person, Miriam would have scolded her about something else—like the fact she seemed unable to gain weight and her mama couldn’t keep it off.

  The dining room was slightly cooler, so she put a place mat on the cherry tabletop and sat down to eat the sweet, cornmeal custard with a spoon from the good silverware in the hutch. Each bite became a silent meditation.

  Gone was the usual fervor she felt on execution days. She’d not yet retrieved the wooden tray from the pantry; the tray that carried steaming plates of food covered with bowls or dish towels to keep them warm on their trip from the stove to the corner room. Ginny stopped using the metal trays from the prison’s cafeteria. They seemed cold and punitive. The wooden tray also held tall glasses of tea or lemonade with extra ice, or a cup of coffee if that’s what the prisoner preferred. With two guards present while the prisoner ate, she didn’t think a real plate or glassware posed a danger, and Roscoe finally gave in to her wishes.

  She’d gotten expert at balancing the heavy tray during transport, her hands gripped tightly around the metal handles, so not a drop of food or drink was spilt. The tray had been painted white at some point in its history but was now worn at the edges like it was a much-loved family heirloom. Except for execution days, though, it remained high on a shelf, as if being tainted by death gave it only one purpose.

  With her thoughts so scattered, Ginny found herself scraping her spoon at the empty bowl. Eating the steaming-hot spoonbread only added to her flush. She needed a bath something fierce. It’d have to wait. The stew needed tending. It had begun to stick, but not scorch. She turned down the flame beneath the pot and went to the pantry to retrieve the tray.

  A lone lightbulb hung from the pantry ceiling. Roscoe had affixed a long piece of twine to the chain because she was too short to reach it. Yet, the damn fool had put the tray on the highest shelf. Instead of getting a chair to stand on, Ginny tested her weight on the bottom shelf and it held. She moved her foot to the next shelf, holding all the while to a higher shelf. The top shelf tilted toward her, sending the wooden tray and several empty pickling jars onto the floor and her on top of it all.

  “Lord Almighty, what’s that racket?” Dot called from the kitchen.

  Ginny’s eyes grew wide. Like a child who suddenly remembered to cry after being startled, she began to sob.

  “You’re not a stupid girl,” Dot said, extending her hand. “But some days, it seems you try mighty hard to convince me otherwise.”

  “Why . . . are . . . you . . . here?” Ginny’s words were interspersed with great draws of air and more tears.

  “To help you.”

  “I’ve never needed help with the last suppers.” She wiped her hand across her dripping nose and noticed a finger had been cu
t by the broken pickling jars.

  “Today’s different.” Dot picked up the broken tray, one of its handles a casualty of the fall. “Now go wash up. You might even have time for a bath.”

  “How will I carry the food?” Reeling with emotion, Ginny couldn’t think of a substitute for the tray. Its role seemed essential to the last suppers.

  Dot moved loose strands of hair from Ginny’s face, then tugged at her chin gently. “Calm yourself. There’s a crate of peaches in the corner of the kitchen. We’ll empty it and it’ll do fine.”

  At Dot’s touch, Ginny wanted to fall into her arms and disappear. She daydreamed that Dot would then rock her gently and tell her she didn’t have to bring the meal to Samuel after all. She’d lead Ginny to the sofa and insist she lie down. Dot would hum soothing hymns until Ginny dozed.

  Tiny pieces of glass that were stuck to the back of Ginny’s damp dress now dropped to the floor with delicate clinks, bringing her back to the task at hand. She brushed off those that remained. Small hiccups, brought on by her earlier sobbing, peppered her breathing as it finally slowed. The bath was probably a good idea after all.

  * * *

  The peach crate was bulkier than the wooden tray but had higher sides and handholds cut out. With leaden arms, Ginny loaded up a mixing bowl with spoonbread pushed to one side and then filled it full of pork meat torn from the bone and a generous helping of the thick broth. No sense bringing just one serving in case Samuel wanted more. Nestled against the bowl were a glass of tea and a glass of lemonade since she failed to ask his preference.

  Although the bath had refreshed her physically, her spirit seemed heavy as she prepared the meal for transport.

  “You want to bring the cornflakes and milk just in case?” Dot asked.

  “Now, why would you go and say that?”

  Ginny felt wrung out, through and through. While she didn’t think Roscoe would make a scene about the stew and her completely ignoring Samuel’s wishes, his consternation might prove too much to bear. And now, she no longer felt confident in her decision.

  “Hells bells, Ginny. I only meant it didn’t hurt to bring the cereal just in case he really does prefer it to his grandmother’s dish. Can’t he have both?”