She was right in this, I knew. But the idea of making Susanne sit in front of strangers, and discuss our affair on top of her daughter’s murder, triggered the gag reflex in the back of my throat. “What about me? Should I testify?” It was not something I was eager to do, but she’d told me it was an option.
“Let’s hold off on deciding that for now. It opens you up to be cross-examined, and I don’t want to take that risk.” Standing, she gave my hand a half shake, half squeeze I understood was meant to transmit encouragement. “You can go home now,” she said, and told me to sit tight while she went to sign the papers.
When I got my belongings back, my cell phone had just enough power left to show me the multiple calls I had missed from Susanne. My instinct was to dial back right away, but then reason got the better of me and I showed the notifications to Ramona, who told me not to return the calls under any circumstances, even going so far as to say that if I did, she’d consider dropping the case. Reluctantly I agreed, but I stopped short of deleting the number from my list of recent incoming calls.
Violet came to pick me up and drive me home. “Do you think she believes I didn’t do it?” I asked, knowing I didn’t have to refer to Ramona by name.
“I think so,” Violet said. “She’s white, though, so who knows.” It was a variation on something she said often: With white people, you never can tell. Sometimes I tried to argue with her, saying that with plenty of black people you can’t tell, either, but she waved the comment off as not worthy of a response.
I was surprised and glad to see that there were no reporters outside the jail when she pulled up to let me in. But once we approached my street, I saw that they were clotted in front of the house, alerted to my arrival. On either side of the press throng stood a group of what appeared to be protestors, but until we drew closer I couldn’t tell what they were protesting—me, or my arrest?
Moving closer, I recognized two classmates from school, Lizzy and Stuart, both members of Students for Obama, which I joined last year during the campaign. Lizzy lifted a handmade sign that said INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY. She was a talented painter, but the words—on a ripped-out piece of notebook paper taped to a ruler—seemed to have been scribbled in haste. I couldn’t help wishing she’d taken a little more care. More prominent signs, lifted on the other side of the reporters, said JUSTICE FOR JOY NOW! and DON’T LET A KILLER WALK. Those sentiments, presumably not executed by artists, displayed themselves more elegantly on durable poster board.
“Fuckers,” Violet said, braking. “Do you want to go somewhere else? How about back down to your grandmother’s house? I don’t think they’ve seen us yet.”
For a moment I considered it, not relishing the idea of facing all the questions. Then I realized I didn’t want to be a coward, and told Violet she could let me out down the block and drive off.
“You sure?” She looked dubious, but I could tell she was relieved. I leaned to kiss her, aiming for her cheek, but she moved her face at the last minute and met my lips with her own. Before I could think about it, I pulled away; I hadn’t kissed anyone since Susanne, and though she’d been the one to break up with me, it felt unfaithful. “Wow, okay,” Violet said, and I could tell I’d insulted her. “It was just for luck.” She drove away without looking back to see how I fared before all the cameras.
Ramona had told me how to handle the media swarm. “I don’t like ‘No comment,’” she said. “I think people read that as guilt. You don’t have to smile, but you don’t have to look completely grim, either. Sometimes, giving them a little something leaves them less room to speculate in their stories. It’s up to you. Keep it simple, and get inside as soon as you can without having it look like you’re trying to escape.”
I paid attention to her words, but everything she told me fled my head as I walked toward them. A snowbank blocked my way to the sidewalk, and I debated climbing over it—picturing myself slipping, having it caught on camera—Accused murderer stumbles on way home from jail!—before deciding instead to walk around to the driveway, even though this meant it would take me longer to reach the house. From her downstairs window I could see Cass watching; she raised her hand in what could have been an attempt at a fist, though I couldn’t tell; she might have just been waving. Regardless, I wondered if she knew how much I appreciated the gesture. I may have hurt her feelings last fall when I declined to stay home and watch the election returns with her, opting instead to accept the invitation to join Obama supporters in the Campus Center, but when it came right down to it, there was only a handful of black people in this town, and I knew that the fist or the wave, whichever it was, meant we would stick together. A microphone from a Rochester TV station was thrust in front of my face and a reporter shouted, “Did you kill Joy Enright?”
Though I’d been warned to anticipate the question, hearing it almost forced me to my knees. My legs wanted to buckle, but I knew how this might look, so I willed myself to stay upright. “Of course I didn’t,” I mumbled, and the microphone came closer, so close I could smell the cold aluminum.
“Then what were you doing with a mask?” someone yelled from the back.
I kept my mouth shut and eyes straight ahead as I walked up to the stoop, seeing that Cass had left the window. The words Get in, get in coursed urgently through my mind, but I made sure not to go too fast, as Ramona had instructed.
“Is it true you slept with the victim’s mother? Did you ever meet her—the girl?” I could tell there was more they wanted to know, but thank God I had reached the door. Once I got inside and shut it behind me, I could no longer hear what they asked.
Last Chance Rescue
Let’s not,” Harper begged her mother, but it was too late. They’d already entered the mall, where they were carried along in the tide of exuberant children and their wincing, mission-mouthed moms.
Harper couldn’t remember the last time her mother had ventured out in person for presents, instead of ordering them online. But today, when she’d come home from school, her mother announced that she hoped Harper would keep her company when she went Christmas shopping at Madison Ridge. On the drive over, Harper understood for the first time the meaning of the phrase Be careful what you wish for. As much as she’d wanted her mother to start driving again and be normal, she felt flooded by trepidation as she sat in the passenger seat searching for parking spots while her mother drove slowly down each row. She tried to identify the source: Was it merely a dread of the shopping hordes? Anxiety at the thought of being seen with her mother, when other kids at school had not been to the mall with their own parents in years? As they made their way through the Macy’s entrance, she realized that while these reasons might be part of it, her main apprehension lay in the memories she knew would be triggered by the approach to Santa’s Village. Of course they weren’t going to join the line to give Santa their wish lists, but just seeing the excitement of the children waiting their turn pierced Harper so deeply that she felt herself gasp.
“I know,” her mother whispered, and now the stab Harper felt was one of gratitude at realizing that she didn’t have to explain herself, and that her mother felt the same way.
The perimeter of the village consisted of charities seeking holiday donations. The noisiest and most popular was the Last Chance Rescue Coalition, where kids swarmed the cages containing abandoned cats and dogs. Despite having steeled herself against thinking about the old days, Harper couldn’t help smiling and asking her mother “Remember?” knowing she didn’t have to elaborate. The day she and Joy had found their kittens at this same pet adoption fair, the December they were in second grade. Harper’s mother had taken them first to see Santa, even though (they discovered later) each of them already suspected that such a magical person didn’t exist. Then the plan was to visit the mall’s tiny indoor rink, followed by hot chocolate, but the girls said they’d rather skip the skating and visit the kittens instead.
“Okay, but we’re not getting a cat,” Harper’s mother said, and Joy an
d Harper looked at each other and smiled. “I mean it,” she added, rushing to keep up with them as they ran ahead to the labyrinth of cages and crates. They picked out their favorites—a brother and sister lying with their paws curled over each other. The handler told them that usually there was only one runt to a litter, but these two appeared to be twin runts. “Twin runts!” Harper and Joy repeated in unison, without planning it, delighted by the phrase, and Harper’s mother seemed intrigued by it, too. She told Joy to call her mother from the pay phone outside Penney’s, and if her mother agreed, she’d let them adopt the kittens.
When Joy hung up and announced that her mother had said yes, the girls leapt and high-fived each other. On the drive home, the two cardboard carriers sitting between them on the backseat, they brainstormed matching names. “Poop and Pee! Burp and Fart! Barf and Puke!” they shouted, screaming with laughter until Harper’s mother insisted they settle down. Eventually Harper suggested a food theme, and by the time they pulled up in front of Joy’s house, Chip and Salsa had names as well as homes.
Harper wanted to peek into the cages at this year’s litters, but her mother had gravitated toward the table occupied by the police chief’s wife, who had so startled Harper’s mother by stepping off the curb in front of her as she practiced driving, the day they went to the Inside Scoop. Harper was surprised to see her mother approaching Helen Armstrong, because she’d seemed so intimidated by all the “do-gooder” things the other woman had accomplished. She’d have expected her mother to avoid Mrs. Armstrong entirely, but instead she went toward her wearing a firm expression of purpose.
Spread across the table were pamphlets for a halfway house called One Day at a Time, and Helen Armstrong held one out when she saw them coming. Harper’s mother took it without looking at it. The chief’s wife told them that all contributions were tax-deductible, not to mention that they would be entitled to place their names in a drawing for two dinners at Rubio’s if they donated today.
“This is my daughter, Harper Grove,” her mother said, which of course was a non sequitur. Helen Armstrong held out her hand and told Harper she had a pretty name. Harper said thank you, not meeting her in the eye. “She’ll be testifying in the Joy Enright case. Your husband came to talk to her, a couple of times.”
“Oh. Well, hello, Harper. I’m sorry you have to be involved in something so—awful.” Mrs. Armstrong tapped her fingers against the brochures on the table, as if unsure what to do with them. “But I really shouldn’t talk about an active investigation. That’s my husband’s work, and this is mine. I’m on the board here. We have a terrible problem with addiction in this county, and we need more beds, but ODAT is a start.” Odat? Harper almost laughed at the sound of it until she realized it was an acronym. “People get down on their luck, we try to help them back up. You probably know I battled addiction myself, though it seems like a long time ago now. Everybody needs a little help now and then, right? There’s no shame in it.”
It should have been a rhetorical question, but it sounded to Harper as if she might really be seeking an answer. Harper had none, but her mother said, “Of course there’s no shame,” as if it were the most natural thing in the world for her to switch places with the police chief’s wife and assume a position of authority. In the old days, she would have fumbled in her purse and handed over a folded bill, then kept her face averted as she rushed Harper through the crowds and back toward the exit. But this was her new mother, who understood that in Harper she possessed a currency previously unavailable to her—that of importance to the town, and to the most important thing that had happened in the town in years. Instead of retreating she wrote a check, tearing it off with a sound so loud it made Harper wince, and when Helen Armstrong thanked her, she stood up a little straighter and told Harper it was time to get a move on—they had things to do.
Affectionate Interest
They disagreed about whether to tell Gil’s mother what had happened to Joy. Susanne saw no point in it. “Why would we go out of our way to make her understand something like this?” she asked him, on their way to the nursing home. When they’d gotten up that morning, neither of them had plans to leave the house (knowing how much it would take for them to get through the funeral the next day), but by eleven o’clock they were driving themselves and each other crazy and Gil suggested they go to see Emilia. He surprised Susanne a few minutes later by saying he thought they should “fill her in” on what had happened to her granddaughter. They hadn’t told her when Joy went missing, so Susanne couldn’t understand her husband’s sudden decision to inform his mother about the murder. “I’d give anything to be oblivious right now,” she said. “I mean, how many upsides are there to having dementia? This is one of them. Why not save her the grief?”
Gil told her he’d agree if he thought his mother would actually comprehend the news. As it was, he believed she would hear the words but that they wouldn’t mean anything to her. “Then why?” Susanne asked again, catching herself before adding What’s wrong with you?
“It just doesn’t feel right to keep it from her,” he murmured, and she could tell that he understood it made no sense. By the time they got to Belle Meadow, he’d changed his mind.
When they found Emilia in the Solarium, she was having her nails done by one of the aides. “I thought you were never coming,” Emilia said, when Gil bent to kiss her. “I thought I was never going home.” In the wheelchair next to her, Mr. Trujillo began making a hissing sound; at first Susanne thought it was directed at her and Gil, but then she realized that he was attempting to communicate with the resident cat, Harry (or maybe it was Hairy; Susanne had no idea which), who’d jumped down from the top of the TV. Like other pets Susanne had seen in news stories on TV, this one was famous for its sensitivity in identifying people who were about to die.
“He’s looking, he’s sniffing, he’s rubbing legs,” Mr. Trujillo reported to the room at large, like a sports announcer giving the play-by-play. “Look at him! Duck and cover, people. You don’t want to be the lap he lands in.”
Susanne felt the cat’s nose graze the back of her heels. She kicked it away, feeling her stomach turn, and the cat moved from her shoes to nuzzle Gil’s. “And we have a winner,” Mr. Trujillo said. “Two winners, in fact. I’m glad it’s not me. Someday, but not today. It’s not my time.”
“Shut up,” Emilia told him. “That’s my son and his girlfriend. You’ll be a pile of dust fifty years before they even think about going. That cat knows squat.”
“Wife, Mom,” Gil said under his breath, so low Susanne was sure his mother hadn’t heard it. “Susanne’s not my girlfriend. She’s my wife.”
Susanne understood that her husband’s look of distress had less to do with the cat smelling death on them (which she knew he didn’t believe) than the fact that his mother didn’t seem to know the difference between wife and girlfriend. She’d tried to reassure him about this on more than one occasion—Emilia often couldn’t find the right word to describe her relationship to someone, but the word she did pick always belonged to the right gender. “That’s supposed to make me feel better?” Gil asked. “That my mother refers to me as her brother instead of her son?” Susanne had stopped pointing out how things could be worse, because it was clear that all Gil would ever compare it to was the way it had been once and the way he wished it were still.
Mirabelle, the aide assigned to Emilia that day, had appeared nervous when she saw them approach. They were used to this by now; ever since the night of Joy’s disappearance, people they encountered outside the house seemed at a loss for what to say. Bring it up, or not? they seemed to be thinking. Susanne found she had no use for the ones who decided against mentioning it. For the rest of her life, she would know because she had learned in the hardest way possible that nobody wants other people to ignore it when the worst has happened.
She and Gil took seats across the table from where Emilia was having her manicure. For perhaps the hundredth time, Susanne’s gaze rested on the plaq
ue proclaiming that renovations to the Solarium had been made possible by a gift from the Donato family, whose mother, Yvette, had been a resident at Belle Meadow and in whose memory her children donated money with “affectionate interest.”
It was a phrase that had intrigued Susanne since she’d read the plaque the first time. Did it apply to her relationship with Gil? Or more aptly to Martin? Affectionate interest was present for both men, but what she felt for each of them, beyond that, was so different that she’d never put words to it in either case.
Mirabelle lifted Emilia’s hand out of the bowl of warm water and waved two colors in front of her. “Malibu Peach or Jamaica Me Crazy?” she asked, and when Emilia indicated the second, Mirabelle laughed and teased, “Jamaica me crazy, all right.”
Susanne asked how things had been at the nursing home lately, and Mirabelle said, “Oh, fine,” cautiously and as if she couldn’t be sure it was just a polite question.
“I mean since the drug arrests,” Susanne said, ignoring the warning Gil sent from the seat beside her.
“This is too purple.” Emilia held up her newly painted orange fingernail, and Mirabelle sighed as she dipped a tissue in polish remover, then rubbed it off.
“I mean,” Susanne continued, “it must have been kind of disruptive, finding out one of the staff was stealing drugs.” Diversion of controlled substances was what they’d actually charged Jason Lee with, but “stealing” gave Susanne more satisfaction to say.
And what was she trying to accomplish, by pressing the matter with Mirabelle in this way? Was it a perverse wish to revive every possible memory of Joy, including one she could more reasonably be expected to prefer remain buried? Did she think it would make her feel better to inflict discomfort upon someone else? She couldn’t be positive, although the desperation in her voice was, she was sure, obvious to them all.
How Will I Know You? Page 12
