The Volunteer

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  “I’ve had nothing but time to think. For years,” he explains as if she’s asked, “and lately, I haven’t needed to sleep much.” After a pause, he adds, “You must know, professionally, at least, there’s no future in punishing yourself.”

  “I named you Dylan,” she says.

  He scoots his feet on the floor.

  “I see you as a little boy,” she goes on softly, “I remember how you fit into my arms, the way you smelled after your bath. Your skin was so soft.”

  He pushes his flattened hand toward the center of the table. She touches one knuckle with the tip of her index finger and then draws the whole of her palm over its back. She doesn't look at him. She’s lost in the sensation of feeling his skin again, this man, grown now, her son, whom she wishes to pull into her lap. They sit in silence. It is a peculiar silence, but somehow, for the moment at least, it is content.

  “Are you afraid?” The question has lain on the floor of Sophia’s mind ever since she was faced with the fact of him and his circumstances and what would ultimately happen to him. She can't help asking this, but it is another thing to wonder whether she can stand the answer.

  “No,” he straightens. “Not anymore. I'm not angry either even though I know I kind of lost it Saturday. But really, I’m past all that. It took me a while. I’ve spent most of my life mad as hell. There were times when I hated you.”

  “I have hated myself.” She holds his gaze. The blue of his eyes is as vivid as her memory. Thomas's eyes, and Megan’s, are this same saturated shade, this color of an ocean without bottom, without end. She would cry for the beauty that has been lost if her tears now would not be profane. She sniffs and clears her throat wishing for a tissue and when she asks him, “How did you get so wise?”

  He colors and says he read a few books and talked with the chaplain at Terrell. “But something has come just lately,” he admits, “like in the last few days, the last few hours even.” He leans forward on his elbows. “Grace has tried to tell me I'm not the man I was when I came in here, but I never believed her until now. I remember the anger, you know? But I don't feel it in here anymore.” He indicates his heart.

  He says, “I'm not talking some last minute jailhouse conversion. I’m not a martyr. I wouldn’t necessarily call what I’m doing wise.”

  Sophia isn’t certain how to respond.

  He shifts in his chair. “They’ll be coming for me soon.”

  She nods. She has an uneasy sense of something building in his mind, but still, when he bends toward her suddenly, she is taken aback.

  “Listen to me, please, will you?” He is holding her with his gaze, begging her, then asking her, “How can I put this?”

  “What is it?”

  “I need you to do something for me.”

  “What? What can I do?”

  But he only shakes his head. He says, “I’m giving up my life today—” and then he breaks off, breathing hard through his nose and when he meets her gaze again, his eyes are brilliant with what seems like some inner light. “My execution won't change what I did.”

  Sophia is moved to touch Jarrett’s wrist despite her alarm and it seems to have a quieting effect.

  His manner is softer when he continues, when he says, “What I’m trying to get across is that I’ve died already to the life I led here. I’ve found some kind of peace. I don’t know if I’m making sense. It’s just— I wish to God I’d known before that this was possible.” He seizes her hands in his. “It’s what I want you to do, now, before it’s too late.”

  “Die?”

  “Yes, to guilt, to shame and regret. It’s the same energy, do you see? The negative emotions and the positive ones come from the same source. You choose. Choose to be happy, choose to be at peace.” He waits, willing her to understand.

  But she’s confused. “You aren’t forgiving me, are you?”

  His smile is enigmatic. “The real question is, can you forgive yourself?”

  “I don't know.”

  “I need for you to, that’s the thing.”

  She raises her brows.

  “I want you to be there for my family, to be with them, to help them, even if they resist. You’re all of me they’ll have left.”

  Her eyes widen with the comprehension of what he’s asking of her, but she isn’t certain she’s equal to its fulfillment.

  “You already have a bond with Thomas. I saw that at Terrell.”

  “It’s true,” she admits.

  “And there’s Cort and Grace. They love each other.” Jarrett is stating a fact. “If Grace hasn’t recognized it, she will and when she does, she’s going to feel guilty. You have to help her get past that, okay? Let her know it’s all right. Let them both know that I gave them my blessing.”

  “It doesn’t bother you?”

  “Hell yes, but I want my kids to have a stable home and I know Cort and Grace will give them that, so on another level, I’m relieved.” He tips his head back, blinking at the ceiling, then returning his glance to her, he asks her again, “Will you tell them I’m glad for them? Will you be a friend to Grace? Talk to her, listen to her? Will you hold my kids if they need holding?”

  For all the times you never held me....

  He might have said the words, the echo of them is so distinct in her mind. “But if they don’t want—”

  “Keep trying. Promise me.”

  Sophia looks away.

  “You need them as much as they need you.”

  She knows he’s right, rather the psychologist knows that it’s through helping one another that she and the Capshaws will have the best chance of healing. But she has no claim to them. In fact who is she now to carry Jarrett’s last message? Who is she to accept the gift of his absolution? Why is she here with him on this day when he has denied his family the right? How will they respond when they know? She thinks Grace especially will hate her. More.

  Sophia wants to say all of this to Jarrett; there is so much she wants to tell him, to ask him, but before she can speak, someone calls his name, “Capshaw,” and that quickly, she knows her time with him is over.

  While Jarrett is re-cuffed, she watches his face. Words coalesce in her mind, truncated thoughts, incomplete sentences, a frenzy of mental snow; it’s all there. She says nothing. At the door, he pauses. But he doesn't turn as she expects him to and she’s crushed. But what use is it seeing into those bottomless blue eyes one last time?

  o0o

  She won’t stay for the execution. She’s too much of a coward, but when she gets into her car, she seems unable to leave town. Instead she drives aimlessly finally pulling into a parking slot in front of the café. Inside she sits in a booth beside the window, drinking coffee and listening to the chatter around her. The waitress fills her cup and says, “Maybe you should eat something, hon. You don’t look too good.”

  When Sophia says she’s fine, they both know she’s lying.

  She leaves the café and the light is mutable, vanishing, like time, and she is certain she will go home, but she isn’t very far south of town on the interstate when she spots the statue of Sam Houston looming in the distance. It looks tall enough to hold up the moon and it occurs to her that as often as she has passed it, she has never stopped to have a look at it. Why is that? Why is it that the natives of a place will ignore a local attraction that people from all over the world will come to see on purpose? In fact, to see this statue may well have provided the focal point to their day. She makes a U-turn. It is the least she can do, pay homage to this hero, this “savior” of Texas.

  Leaving her car in the visitors’ lot, she walks around the statue’s base and then stares up its height for long minutes and her mind is taken with the absurdity of its appearance here, her sense that it is ridiculously tall and completely out of proportion to its site.

  But back in her car again, she drives away forgetting what she’s seen. She’ll go home now, she thinks. But she doesn’t. She returns to Huntsville as if that was always her plan and once
she is parked again across from The Walls, she sits with her hands gripping the steering wheel staring at the clock. According to its terrible face, there are twenty-six minutes left until the execution.

  And somehow in that short time, she has to find the strength to battle the crowd that has gathered, get into the building and then talk her way onto the list of witnesses. Because she brought him into this world, it is only right that she be present to see him out.

  o0o

  She finds her old, wide-brimmed straw sun hat and clamps it on her head to shield her face from the reporters. There are other people, too, those who support the death penalty and those who don’t, both groups toting signs and shouting at one another. And still others are chanting or singing above wavering candlelight. Sophia worries she will stumble, but she manages to mount the steps and get into the building without mishap. A different uniformed clerk listens with what is probably dismay and skepticism to Sophia’s request. She dials the phone and Sophia’s knees weaken in relief when Reverend Dinkins appears.

  He takes her elbow, drawing her aside. “Are you certain you want to do this? You understand to be a witness is very difficult even for those who have done it before.”

  Sophia nods although she understands nothing.

  “All right then.” Reverend Dinkins summons a man in uniform whom he introduces as Major Jim Stevens. “You’re in good hands. Jim will explain the procedure. I would do it, but I am honor bound to be with Jarrett now.”

  Sophia nods again incapable of speech.

  “God bless,” the reverend says.

  Very quickly, as Major Stevens guides her toward the witness room, he briefs her on what she can expect. As soon as the door shuts behind her, the curtains across from her sweep open giving a view of the death chamber. Sophia gasps. Jarrett is like a figure in a crucifixion, but prone rather than erect. Belts secure his wrists, ankles and below his knees. Diagonal belts stripe his chest and waist. Needles are inserted in the tender flesh inside each elbow.

  The tie-down team has left, but two men remain with him. The warden is one, the other is Reverend Dinkins. His hand rests on Jarrett’s leg above his ankle. Sophia knows what’s happening from the briefing she was given. She also knows there are three people in the victims' witness room next door. The brother of the federal marshal Jarrett murdered and one of the marshal’s fellow officers, and Blanca Salazar, who has been anticipating Jarrett’s death every day for six years. Will there be closure for her? Sophia wonders.

  There are also reporters present, two of whom are in the room with Sophia. Before entering, she was introduced to them, but she doesn't remember their names. In any case, she was told they won’t speak to her, that they can’t. She hasn’t seen Trent Hunter, but she presumes he’s here.

  Chairs aren’t provided. Major Stevens told her to lean against the wall if she felt faint. But she won’t. Like the process of Jarrett's birth, the process of his death is inevitable. Nothing will stop it. Not an eleventh hour appeal. Those were all denied. Not her screams of horror or her shame or her collapse to the floor. Not even her own death as much as she might wish for it will make them pull the needles from Jarrett's arms.

  All she can do is be present. It is the only thing she can do for him, the last thing in his life where she has done so little and most of that was harmful. She crosses her arms, knotting her hands into fists, feeling her nails bite into her palms. Her stare fixes on a microphone that is suspended above Jarrett’s head. She knows it is there to catch and broadcast his last words, if he has any.

  When the warden asks for his final statement, Jarrett rotates his head as much as the restraints will allow and Sophia knows he’s holding the murdered marshal’s witnesses and Blanca Salazar within his gaze.

  “Before I go,” he begins and then pauses, “I am sorry,” he says after a moment and to Sophia his voice seems weary, anxious and fretful all at once. It lacks the undertone of calm that had so comforted her earlier. Her knees threaten to buckle and she stiffens them, locking the joints. She wants to see his face. She wants him to know she’s here.

  “I hope one day you can forgive me,” he says. And then his last words, softer now: “I would take it back if I could.”

  He shifts his gaze to the ceiling. Sophia thinks then he won’t turn to her. He won’t know of her presence and she’s heavy with the grief of it. She focuses her gaze on him, willing him to find her, and her heart rises when at last he does. She looks into his eyes, into his fathomless blue gaze that is turning now to another world, a place where he'll be free. He coughs three times, his chest rises and falls and then he is still.

  o0o

  It seems as if only moments have elapsed when someone appears at Sophia's elbow and whisks her from the room. In the corridor outside, she sees Blanca Salazar. Their eyes meet and Sophia thinks Blanca seems anguished, even bewildered. Sophia feels the same confusion, as if perhaps what they’ve seen has robbed them of their faith in man’s humanity. Murder in the heat of passion is one thing, a very wrong and tragic act, but calculated killing—can it be right? Sophia thinks that quite possibly the resolution Blanca was seeking isn’t what she anticipated.

  Outside, faces loom above the light of dozens of flickering white tapers. Voices chant The Lord's Prayer; a clear soprano voice soars into the final verses of Amazing Grace. Sophia stands still, feeling lost, but then as if from nowhere, Carolyn is there, and Wick, both of them coming toward her, and without a word, Sophia walks straight into their arms.

  Chapter 32

  After

  The morning after the execution, they hear on television that Jarrett offered his body to the medical branch of the University of Texas. Doing his “Heart of the Story” follow-up, Trent Hunter quotes Jarrett as saying that while he had no way of making up for the mistakes he had made in his life, he hoped that in death his body might prove useful.

  Carolyn looks at Sophia from where she is curled into one corner of the sofa, her face crumpled and sad. “Did you know he was going to do that?”

  Sophia shakes her head.

  The telephone rings, but they neither one move. They’ve given up answering. It will be someone hounding them from the press. Already calls have come in from Dateline, 20/20, and 48 Hours. But at least the local reporters have packed their gear and moved on for now for which Sophia is certain her neighbors are eternally grateful. She hears the click of the answering machine and sits poised to listen to yet another newscaster’s sales pitch, but, instead, it is Cort’s voice she hears. He says her name, then Carolyn’s.

  They exchange a startled glance.

  “We’re planning a memorial service for Jarrett on Thursday,” Cort says. “We don’t know when we can expect his body to be released, but at that time, he’ll be cremated. It’s what he wanted.” Cort stops; he clears his throat. “We want to do the service now, though. Get some kind of closure if that’s possible.”

  Sophia bites her lips. Carolyn takes her hand.

  “Martin Trumble has offered to officiate. We’d like you both to come.” Cort pauses. “I hope you’re all right.” Another pause. “I wish it had turned out differently. I hope you’ll come,” he repeats.

  “We’ll go, won’t we?” Carolyn untucks her legs.

  But it’s impossible. Sophia can’t think how she’ll ever face Cort or Grace or the children again. She’s watched their father die, can see him still when she closes her eyes. Needles inserted in both arms, life fading, blurring, leaving. At night she dreams of him and in every dream she’s running. Running so fast. Not far ahead of her, Jarrett is a tiny figure dressed in green-plaid overalls and the red sweater with the train engine from The Little Engine That Could appliquéd on the pocket. If only she could have him back. Please God, she pleads, let me reach him. But she doesn't. Not once. Not even in dreams.

  o0o

  Carolyn makes a reservation to return to Chicago for Monday of the following week. She and Larry are going house hunting. With a baby on the way, they feel they ne
ed the space. An apartment will be too cramped.

  She says, “I worry about leaving you.”

  They’re sitting on the patio waiting for the chicken casserole Carolyn made for dinner to finish baking. The light is fading and in its absence the air feels almost chilly. Sophia pulls her sweater more tightly around her. She’ll be fine, she says, although she has to wonder: Will she? Really?

  “What about you?” Sophia asks. “Are you certain about Larry?”

  “I am now,” Carolyn says. “It’s funny too because when I asked him whether he would do that to me again, keep secrets, I mean, he said he couldn’t promise me he wouldn’t. Somehow that makes me trust him. It’s weird.”

  “It’s honest, that’s why you trust it. He’s saying he’s human and subject to failure. I think we come with a radar inside that lets us know when someone is telling the truth. But sometimes, we don’t pay attention to it.”

  They sit in the stillness a while. Down the street a door slams. There is a whisper of wings overhead. Sophia catches a flash of red. A cardinal, she thinks, late to its perch. She reaches for Carolyn’s hand. “I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “No. Where there should be trust now and understanding and closeness between us there are secrets and lies all because I wasn’t strong enough to tell you what had happened to me.”

  “I wonder what might be different if I’d known. I wonder if we’d have looked for him.”

  Could they have saved him? The question hangs unanswered between them in the gray evening air.

  o0o

  On the Sunday before Carolyn is due to leave, they are in the grocery store doing the weekly shopping for the sisters when out of the blue Carolyn says they should make a pot of her dad’s famous chili.

  Sophia glances up from the carton of yogurt she’s studying. She can never remember which flavors the sisters prefer. “Whatever for?” she asks. “You’re leaving and it makes too much for me to eat by myself.”