The Volunteer

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  “Yeah, well, like you said, that was a mistake.”

  “You had the right idea, Thomas. I think you know it too.” Cort spares Grace a glance as if he is seeking her opinion. “You and Brian might feel better, if you cleared the air.”

  “But you just said he doesn’t want us there. You’ve always said Mom shouldn’t force us.”

  “I know, buddy, but that was before.”

  “You should make your peace, Thomas. He’s your dad,” Grace is pleading.

  “So? He'll be dead in two days and him and that stupid codex’ll be forgotten.” He smirks. “Like ancient history. Right, Bri?”

  “Thomas, that’s enough.”

  Megan drops her Barbie and presses the tip of her index finger to one side of her tiny nose staring worriedly at her mother. Brian rests his forehead on his drawn-up knees.

  “I heard some stuff about my dad recently that I didn’t know or necessarily like,” Carolyn spares Sophia a glance, “and now I wish he was here so I could talk it out with him.”

  “Yeah, but it’s not like your dad asked to die. He wasn’t sitting around all like oh, I’m a loser, I hate my life, please kill me.”

  “Thomas, who is to blame that you drove Luke’s family’s car drunk?” Grace cuts in and her voice is like ice.

  “I don't see how what I did has anything to do with—”

  “Luke was injured, wasn’t he, as a result and you feel responsible; you feel badly about it.” Before she can think it through, Sophia takes up Grace’s line of reasoning. She wants to lend support; she wants not to lose Grace’s trust or their friendship that was not more than an inviting promise. “We talked about this, Thomas. Suppose Luke’s injuries had been more serious or even fatal?”

  “I’d wish I was—” he hesitates— “dead, I guess.”

  “So, you can understand how your dad must feel, right? Sick inside for his mistakes, the way you feel, the way I feel for mine. You can see that there are circumstances that might cause you to lose your desire for life.”

  The pause seems to encourage Sophia to go on. “When you tried to see your dad, what was that about?” she asks.

  “You know.” He glances pointedly in his brother’s direction.

  Brian keeps his face hidden. It is Cort, seated next to Brian and rubbing circles on his small back, who looks up at Sophia, who shares her commiserating glance, one that contains elements of worry, of doubt, and when they look at Grace, her mouth is flat and her eyes are grim. Sophia’s heart turns over.

  “You know,” Thomas repeats shifting his glance back to Sophia’s.

  “I know that you feel as though you’re to blame and that it’s your responsibility to fix it for everyone. I know you’re very angry with your dad, but you can’t change—”

  “The past, I know. You said that before. But I’m sick of everybody telling me I have to see him, forgive him. I don’t even know what that means.”

  “What your uncle said, about clearing the air, that’s what forgiving does. It clears the air. It won’t change what happened, but ultimately, if you work at it, forgiveness will alter your focus. It will free you and allow you to move on. I struggle with the whole idea, too,” Sophia adds. But then she wonders: who is she to counsel Thomas? When she can’t so much as set one foot on the path she’s telling him he has to take?

  He pushes his hands over his head. “You don’t know what it’s like going there, seeing him in—in there—” and when his voice breaks, he stops and braces his hands on his hips, chest heaving.

  Megan goes to him and looking up into his face, she whispers, “Don’t cry,” as if she means to keep his tears their secret and when she circles his leg with her arms and rests her cheek against his hip, he fits his hand gently over the crown of her head.

  The silence that falls is as fragile as a bird’s wing and it is suddenly broken when Brian jerks to his feet, urgent and shouting that he doesn’t want to see his dad, that he never will, and that quickly he’s gone from the room.

  Cort exchanges a look with Grace and then follows Brian.

  “Mommy?” Megan whimpers.

  Grace opens her arms pulling Megan onto her lap.

  Sophia closes her eyes.

  “Mom?” Carolyn sits beside her.

  She wants Sophia to take charge, but Sophia only wants to crawl away. Crawl from the face of this dilemma set in motion by one wanton act of self indulgence so many years ago. She can scarcely recall the boy’s face. More vivid is the memory of his breath hot on her collarbone, the sweaty grip of his hand when he’d parted her thighs. That act, one careless act had set this entire calamitous chain of misery into motion....

  “What about you?”

  Sophia meets Thomas’s heated stare.

  “I think Mom’s right. You should see him. You should clear the air.”

  “It’s more important for you, Thomas. You’re his son.”

  “You’re his mother.”

  She searches his eyes a long moment. “All right, then,” she says.

  “You’ll go?”

  “If you do,” she answers.

  Thomas swallows, clearly astonished. He had not anticipated that Sophia would call his bluff.

  “So, is it a deal?” she asks

  And even as he nods his consent, regret is a flavor like dust in her throat. They are all looking at her. Grace from over the top of Megan’s head, Cort from where he has reappeared, without Brian, in the doorway, Thomas from his vantage point near the fireplace and Carolyn beside her. Now regret is tempered by an even graver concern: Do they think she can save him, this man who is her son, and in her experience at least, newly risen from the dead?

  Do they assume his life will be retrieved a second time? She opens her mouth to caution them against entertaining such expectations or any expectation, but then she closes it again. Who is she to say what the outcome will be?

  Chapter 30

  Terrell Unit

  Friday, October 15, 1999 - 2 days remain

  Sophia climbs into Grace’s SUV behind Cort who is driving and she is almost breathless with anxiety. Why has she made this bargain? Does she believe as Grace does that she owes an explanation? Is she merely curious? What will she say to the man? What can she say? She doesn’t even know what to call him.

  Jarrett?

  She had named him Dylan.

  Grace settles into the front passenger seat. In view of the media threat, she’s been persuaded to leave Brian and Megan behind in Carolyn’s care. Brian proved to be truly ill in any case, whether it is nerves or an actual virus, and Megan is just too young. Carolyn was glad for an excuse not to go and Sophia is relieved for her too. If only she could stay behind and watch the children. As much as she felt compelled earlier to bring this visit about, she never intended to be part of it. It’s a fool’s errand if ever there was one. She bends forward, touching Grace’s shoulder. “You do realize the government will probably have someone listening.”

  “We’ll have to take that chance,” Grace says.

  “Jarrett already knows.” Cort meets Sophia’s glance in the rearview mirror.

  Grace says, “What would anyone gain, here or in South America, by making trouble now? Thomas and Brian are just children, they were even younger children six years ago.”

  Sophia settles back. Next to her, Thomas sits with his hands knotted on his thighs, staring out the car window. Perhaps he is as overcome by regret at their bargain as she is.

  Grace turns to Sophia and for the first time in the long afternoon, she meets Sophia’s eyes. “When we get there, follow my lead. Don’t look around. Just do as the guards say. You left your purse at the house?”

  Sophia nods. At Grace’s earlier instruction, she has brought only her driver’s license, tucked into her pocket.

  Cort finds Sophia’s gaze. “It’s rough going in the first time.”

  But it was worse than rough. Much worse.

  o0o

  They aren’t allowed to park until the car is
searched, not only the trunk, but under the hood as well, and then they’re asked to show ID’s. When they are finally cleared to enter the building, Sophia is struck by the smell: an amalgamation of sweat and depression, mold and futility under a pervasive and suffocating odor of disinfectant. Thomas is behind Sophia as she follows Grace who follows Cort. They are like ducklings, like lambs, led through a metal detector and a door and yet another door. Every sound is magnified, an echo banging off the concrete walls. The light is vague, industrial, unkind. Sophia’s blood turns to ice, but she doesn’t know whether it is the result of her own fright or if it is truly cold. She cannot imagine living in here for one day much less a year or five or for whatever is left of her life.

  At a desk, they’re handed yellow badges that say D.R. Visitor No. 22116. Jarrett’s number, Cort explains. And when Sophia’s hands are shaking too badly to pin the badge to her shirt, Grace does it for her and Sophia is comforted by the warmth of Grace’s breath on her cheek.

  They are led outside again and Cort points out the building that houses death row, but Sophia keeps her gaze on the heels of Grace's shoes that are flat, almost not there. Like ballet slippers, she thinks.

  o0o

  Jarrett expects to find Martin Trumble waiting when he’s told he has a visitor, but instead on the opposite side of the Plexiglas, he sees Thomas standing behind Grace, who is seated. Jarrett’s throat narrows even as tears of gratitude, of relief, sear the undersides of his eyelids. He blinks impatiently. Goddamn it, Capshaw, don’t lose it. He’s aware of Cort’s presence, too, and a woman whose identity he tells himself he doesn’t know. Of course he does know and a part of his brain is both astonished and perturbed that she is here. But his focus, his heart’s focus is on his son. His son who has come to see him at last, who is whole and alive. Jarrett realizes he has worried since the accident that Thomas’s injuries were more severe than the cut and black eye that Grace described. But she had not said how much he’d grown, two, maybe three inches at least. And when did he start needing to shave?

  Grace unhooks her receiver and Jarrett does the same.

  “How did you manage it?” he asks, his gaze on Thomas. Jarrett can’t believe he’s here, can’t get enough of looking at him.

  “Sophia. Dr. Sophia Beckman.” Grace indicates the woman who is standing next to Cort. “Thomas is here because of her. You’ve heard? Did they tell you?”

  “Yeah.” He looks at Grace now, feeling pissed, feeling ripped in half. “I didn’t want you coming back here. This— She doesn’t change anything.” He flicks a long enough glance at the woman to see that she’s scared. A visit to death row has that effect.

  “She brought your son. There are things to say.” Grace’s tone is clipped. “Don’t waste precious time.”

  She hands the phone to Thomas and Jarrett manages to speak, to ask, “How’s it going, T-bone?” using the nickname Thomas picked up in elementary school when he was nothing more than a scaffold of sharp angles. When he was convinced he’d be that way forever. Now the shape of that small boy, the one who rode Jarrett’s shoulders, who for a little while, thought his old man could lick the world, has all but disappeared. The round cheeks and small chin that fit into the palm of Jarrett’s hand are only memory. This isn’t that kid, the one he remembers. He doesn’t know this kid. This near-man, whose rage is palpable, radiant.

  Jarrett lays down the phone; he bends his head into his hands. He says, “This is a mistake.” He’s addressing Grace, but it’s Thomas who responds.

  Who pushes around his mother and shouts, “Brian’s at home puking out his guts. Do you want to know why?” He doesn’t give Jarrett time to answer. “He thinks it’s his fault. He thinks you’re going to die because of what he did.”

  “No!” Jarrett picks up the receiver. “No,” he repeats.

  “We should have told.”

  “No,” Jarrett says again.

  “But if Brian had left the codex alone, left it in the car, you could say where it is now and they wouldn’t—”

  “It wouldn’t change anything. It was all over the night I went back to the restaurant.”

  “Why can’t you say you hid it? Why can’t you play them the way you do everybody? Say you’ll give it back if they let you live?”

  No, buddy. It wouldn’t work and I don’t want to live like this anyway. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s shit, Jarrett.” Thomas slams his fist into the Plexiglas. “You’re shit.”

  Grace, in tears, fishes vainly in her purse, ostensibly for a tissue. Jarrett is aware of Cort when he steps up behind her and cups his hands over her shoulders. Jarrett meets Sophia Beckman’s eyes. She seems sorry too, but he doesn’t need her pity.

  He addresses Thomas. “When I'm gone you and Mom and Brian and Megan will finally be able to get on with your lives. It's the best thing I can do for you. It's the right thing. There's no sort of life for you with me in here. There never will be.”

  Silence.

  “C'mon, Thomas, you've got to see this, that there can be a time, certain circumstances can occur, when a person's life becomes a burden, an unnecessary burden to themselves, to the people they love.”

  “It's suicide.” Thomas's voice is softer.

  “It’s the law. The State’ll do it anyway sooner or later. What’s the point in waiting? It won’t alter the fact that I’m guilty.”

  Thomas starts to object, but Jarrett raises his hand. “Listen to me. Whenever something dies, anything, a tree, an animal in the forest, a person, it’s to nourish the life that remains. You are that life. You and your mom and sister and brother. It’s my gift to you. My life dies to nourish yours. So that you can go on, free of my mistakes, free of any reminders. It’s all I can give you now.”

  “But why, Jarrett? Why?”

  He shakes his head. “I don’t know, T-bone. Why did you drive your buddy Luke around drunk?”

  Thomas opens his mouth, closes it, looks at the floor.

  “Yeah, see, it’s like that. I don’t have an answer either and I’m sorry, so sorry.”

  Thomas lays the receiver on the counter, almost gently, and backs away. And Jarrett watches the woman move to Thomas’s side; he watches Sophia Beckman put her arms around his son and hold him like she can keep him together. Keep him from shattering into bits.

  “We all do stupid things, thoughtless, regrettable things,” Jarrett hears her say. “Sometimes we can never sort out why. We just have to accept what’s happened and pray we have the courage to deal with the consequences.”

  Thomas shudders visibly, but he doesn’t argue; he doesn’t fight her embrace, and Jarrett’s envy is visceral. He is held in its fist, shaken by it. He wants to yell at her to get away, just get the hell away.

  Instead when Cort gets hold of the receiver, Jarrett doesn’t let him speak, but flares out at him. “What the hell do you think you’re doing bringing her here?”

  “It wasn’t—”

  “How come I had to hear about her from Hunter, huh? Like all the other jerks in the street? Jesus Christ, Cort, you couldn’t call, write? Something? What were you thinking?”

  “I’m not thinking, okay? I’m a little bit stressed, all right? You are too, I know, don’t say it, but goddamnit, it’s not like I asked for any of this. I didn’t get a heads up either.”

  Jarrett leans back, blowing out a forceful stream of air; he hazards a glance at the woman. Her face is shiny gray and damp. He gestures toward her. “She needs to sit down.”

  Grace stands and Thomas guides the woman into the chair. She sits gingerly, avoiding Jarrett’s gaze. He can’t imagine what he’s supposed to think or feel, much less say.

  “I'm sorry.” Her mouth makes the words.

  Cort puts the receiver into her hand.

  She holds it but it is visibly trembling against her ear. “I never meant for this—” she begins, but then she stops and can only stare at him.

  She’s an attractive woman. Someone who’s been gently handled by life. Unlike
his adoptive mom, Jarrett thinks. They’d be about the same age, but Arlene had looked a good fifteen years older; she had looked road-hard. But then she hadn’t been gently used by life, had she? Maybe she wouldn’t have won Mother of the Year, but she’d been the only mother, the only adult, to give a damn about him. And she’d spent the last years of her life blaming herself for every bad thing that had happened to him. But here this woman sits, what the law would claim is his natural mother, with her degrees and her money—

  Jarrett thrusts his face at her. “Why have you come here? Don’t you think I’ve had enough hell because of you?” He jerks his glance from hers and doesn’t hear anything but her breath for several moments. He’s aware of Thomas, watching, listening to Jarrett blame her.

  He wants to end this and he’s about to shout for the guard when she says, softly, “I was a mess. I hadn't even graduated high school. I thought they were good people.”

  “They who?” He brings his gaze back to her. “You left me with strangers, with nothing but the clothes I was wearing. For God’s sake even a puppy comes with papers.”

  Her eyes well with a kind of helpless anguish Jarrett recognizes, that he knows from his own experience, but the idea that they might share any similarity only serves to enrage him. He thinks he would pound a stake through her heart if he could. He thinks her heart is as black as coal and as hard. Bitch, he thinks. But then he wonders of what use is his anger? When has it ever made a difference to anything but his blood pressure?

  Questioner: “So you have the two energies, you have the violence and the love.” Krishnamurti: “It is the same energy, sir.” The lines from the book L had given him appear in his mind. There is no way the fury inside him could be altered to resemble the love and regret he feels for Thomas, for Grace.

  The woman is trying to give the receiver away. “This wasn’t a good idea,” Jarrett hears her say, “I shouldn’t have come.”

  Thomas takes the phone. His eyes lock with Jarrett’s “She made a mistake, like me, like you.”

  Jarrett bows his head. He hears respect for the woman in Thomas’s voice. He hears trust. He hears that Sophia Beckman has come to mean something to his son. Enough that Thomas’s outlook, even his core beliefs as to whether it’s possible to feel safe in a world where a boy can lose his father to stupidity, to insanity, might hinge on this woman’s continuing presence. Jarrett can’t take that from Thomas; not when he’s already taken so much.