“Not for you. For Grace and the kids. We could take it over this afternoon. I’ll make Aunt Floy’s Confederate Cornbread and a salad too. What do you think?”
“I think it's not a good idea.”
“Why not? It's what people do when someone dies. They take food to the family. Comfort food. We had enough of it at our house after Dad died.”
“That was different.”
“You mean because he wasn't executed?”
Sophia looks away.
“C'mon, Mom. You know better than to blame yourself.”
“Intellectually, yes. I know it’s the right idea.”
Carolyn takes her wrist in a tender grasp. “Would it help if I were to tell you that Jarrett’s family doesn’t blame you?”
“How do you know?”
“Cort and I have talked; I’ve talked to Thomas too. They’d tell you themselves, if you'd let them.”
“I can't, Cecie. I just can't.”
Carolyn shrugs. She takes the container of Yoplait peach yogurt out of Sophia's hand and returns it to the shelf. “Dannon is what they like,” she says. “Strawberry and blueberry.” She puts the proper containers into the shopping cart as she speaks, making neat sharp movements.
“I know you're upset with me.”
“I’m upset by how little you care for yourself.” Carolyn’s eyes flash. “You keep waiting for someone else to forgive you and there is no one who hasn't already. There's just you. Only you are left to forgive yourself.”
They say little to one another on the drive into Houston to deliver the sisters’ groceries. Frances lets them in and leads the way to the kitchen. Sophia sets the bags she's carrying on the counter and when she asks where her mother is, Frances points into the backyard. “She's moving the birdfeeder again, trying to outfox the squirrels. I keep telling her not to waste her time, but you know how she is.”
Sophia doesn't answer. She wishes she could outfox her mother and leave without having to speak to her.
The food is nearly all put away when Esther finally comes in. Dusting her hands briskly, she says, “I fixed them. I know I've got that feeder this time where those little buggers can't get at it.” Then looking around at Carolyn and Sophia, she feigns surprise. “Well,” she says, “I'll declare! You're alive after all.”
Sophia opens the pantry door and goes inside it for no reason.
Raising her voice, Esther says, “It’s all over the news about how you stayed to see it when that boy was killed.”
“So what if she did, Grandmother?”
“Well, she had to know it wouldn't come to any good end.”
Sophia comes out of the pantry and looks at her mother, at her back bent over the sink. “Exactly what would have been a good end, Mother? In your mind?”
“If you’d done what I said, stayed at Edna Gladney and put him up for adoption in the proper fashion.”
Sophia gathers the tissue-thin sacks into a ball and stuffs them into the wastebasket that's full. Lifting it out, she knots the plastic ties.
“This is the last one,” Frances says, shaking out a fresh plastic liner and passing it to Sophia.
“I'll get more next time.” Sophia picks up her purse. She glances at Carolyn. “Are you ready?”
Carolyn nods. Her brow is furrowed and her jaw is mutinous and Sophia has the sense she will say something, perhaps start something. She gives her head a brief shake and motions her into the hall. Frances's voice follows them to the front door.
“Sister, when will you stop blaming her?”
“When she stops blaming me. It's not my fault she abandoned that child or what happened to him. I taught her right from wrong.”
Carolyn spins on her heel. Sophia grabs her elbow. “Leave it, Cecie,” she murmurs.
“You know not to listen to her, Mom,” Carolyn says. They are nearly home and Carolyn is driving.
Sophia leans her head against the seatback. Yes, she knows, she thinks. But her heart refuses to yield to reason. In a way that she can never explain, it seems wrong to strive for closure, as if in recovering, it would look as if she were dancing on Jarrett’s grave.
o0o
The house is quiet when they return to it, both outside and in. For the first time in days, the message light on the telephone isn’t blinking. “Imagine that,” Sophia says. “Maybe they have finally given up.”
“No,” Carolyn says. “They just moved on. There's another execution tonight.”
Sophia meets Carolyn’s gaze; she’s holding the word “Good” in her mouth and she’s appalled at herself.
o0o
It’s raining when they leave for the airport. Sophia is driving this time. Carolyn turns on the radio, turns it off. She says, “I hope it isn’t going to be bumpy.”
“How’s the nausea?”
“Better. This morning at least. Of course who can say once we’re airborne? I refuse to use one of those barf bags.”
“Look in my purse. I think I have a peppermint. It might settle your tummy.”
Carolyn opens Sophia’s purse and rummages through the pockets. She finds the mint, unwraps it and puts it in her mouth. “Mom? What would you say if I told you Larry and I might not marry until after the baby is born when I can fit—” She stops.
“Cecie?” Sophia prompts.
“I don’t care about the dress though, or whether I have the gorgeous wedding. What if we come home? We could be married in the garden. Do you think that would work?”
“I think that would be fine. I’d love it.” She would, Sophia thinks. She truly would.
They’re at the gate, waiting near the jetway when Carolyn asks again if Sophia will be all right.
“Cecie, you have to stop this. Please.” Sophia is exasperated. “You’re not to worry about me. Not another second. I can't stand it.”
“You're glad I'm going, aren’t you? I'm suffocating you.”
Sophia smiles. “Between you and Phil, I can scarcely breathe.”
“But it’s good, talking to Phil? It’s helping?”
“Yes.” She had sought him out in the days following the execution knowing she couldn’t work through the backlash of her emotions alone.
“I guess it’s hard taking your own medicine, huh?”
“Let’s just say I have a better understanding of the patients who complain to me about having to talk so much about themselves.”
Carolyn reaches for Sophia, hugging her tightly. “I love you, Mama,” she says. “I wouldn't trade you for anything.” She steps back, looking mischievous. “Sometimes, I think—oh my God, I could have had Esther as a mother.”
Laughing, they catch each other’s hands and when a pleasant voice announces final boarding, Sophia watches Carolyn disappear. The house will be so quiet now, she thinks. How will I stand it?
o0o
The phone message light is blinking when she returns from the airport and she steels herself, but the voice she hears is Cort’s, sounding friendly. He’s worried about her and wonders if she would mind if he dropped in. He laughs and says he has thought of scheduling an appointment. He says he's helping Grace sort through things that she’s finally found a buyer for the house and she’s considering an offer for the restaurant, too. They’re going to simplify their lives, he says, and his tone suggests something so intimate and loving that Sophia closes her eyes, and for a moment, instead of Jarrett dying on a gurney, she sees his family, Grace and Cort, Thomas, Brian and Megan, gathered around a table in a cozy dining nook, the motley remains of a meal and assorted dishes scattered among them. They’re all talking and laughing at once. It is a lovely warm image. She remembers what Jarrett told her: that he wanted Cort and Grace to be together. He had asked Sophia to carry the message to them, but how can she?
A second message from Wick Bowen echoes Cort’s concern. He says he’s uncertain what he should do. “If you don’t call soon,” he says, “I’ll assume you’d rather I wouldn’t.... Oh, hell, Sophia, will you just call me? Please?”
/> Shutting off the machine, Sophia presses her fingertips hard to her eyes. Her throat aches; she can’t breathe. She’s outside within moments, racing across the backyard. The cold cuts her breath into tiny puffs. Flinging open the moon gate, she rushes down the length of the pier, sits and thrusts her legs over its rough wooden edge, chest heaving on great gulps of air. Air that is laden with flavor, the tang of something crisp and clean and good. Like apples, she thinks, although so far as she knows there isn’t an apple for miles. The water is smooth and wears the soft gleam of vintage flatware. The sky reflected on the water’s surface is the same color but without the sheen. This, at least, never fails to provide solace, a refuge. It never changes. And yet, she knows it is always changing. With time. With the seasons.
She thinks of the life that is here, supported by mere acres. The fish and toads, water bugs and red-eared turtles. Deer come at dusk. Geese arrive in fall and return briefly in spring. Birds and rabbits, squirrels and raccoons forage here, breed and die here. Plants come from the earth and fall back to it like the silence. Generation after generation. Endless cycles of life come and go and make no apology, ask for no explanation.
The trick to survival is resilience, she thinks. What is that quote from Rilke? Something about how everything in nature will hold to what is difficult. The trick is acceptance. Surrender. Forgiveness. That hardest thing. A breeze comes ruffling the water, carrying a sound of footsteps coming down the pier toward her. Sophia freezes.
Someone says her name and she turns. “Grace?” she says. She gets stiffly to her feet, doesn’t know what to do with her hands and plunges them into her pockets.
Grace is carrying a dish of some sort like a pie plate covered in plastic wrap. “Thomas told me about this place,” she says. “He said it was beautiful.”
“Yes.”
Grace holds out the dish. “I brought you and Carolyn a pie. Apple. Jurgen makes them for the restaurant every fall. Apples are so good this time of year, don't you think?”
“I’ve been imagining that I could smell them. Do you want to go to the house? I can make coffee. Carolyn has gone home to Chicago, but we could have a slice.” She’s babbling. She can hear herself and catches her lip.
“I'd like to stay here,” Grace says, “if you don't mind.”
Sophia nods and they sit shoulder to shoulder, the pie to one side. Sophia feels her heart tapping nervously against her ribs.
“I've thought and thought about all that’s happened,” Grace says. “How we all came together. It is such a fantastic twist of fate, don’t you think? Certainly I had no intention of talking to a therapist.”
“I know. It’s very difficult to unfold your life story for a stranger. It makes a person feel so vulnerable, open to attack, and you’ve had so much of that.”
Grace shudders. “The media has been just awful. I hope you haven’t paid attention to anything they’ve said.”
“It’s hard not to.” Sophia looks out over the water.
“The thing is you weren’t more than a child yourself. You had no resources, nowhere to turn.”
“I allowed other people’s ideas of what was right to take precedence over what I knew to be the truth and by the time I knew better, it was too late.” She turns to look at Grace. “I hope you won’t blame yourself that you can’t forgive me.”
“But how can I not, when Jarrett did?”
Sophia’s mouth loosens.
“After your visit, he wrote to me,” Grace says. “He said you brought him peace. He thought you showed courage coming there alone.”
“He is the courageous one.” Sophia feels Grace’s gaze on her.
“It would mean the world to him if we could be friends.” She pauses. “It would mean the world to me. You’re what is left of him.”
“But you mustn’t feel obligated, not even on his account. It’s so much to forgive. I would never blame you if you can’t. I don’t think he would either.” Sophia holds Grace’s gaze. “I mean that sincerely.”
“I admit I’ve been angry and I’ve found it convenient to point my finger at you, to say Jarrett’s situation was your fault. But blame?” She shrugs. “It’s so pointless. I think you’re the one who characterized it as self-defeating, didn’t you?”
The wind flutters strands of hair across her cheek and she draws them back, tucking them behind her ear. “There’s been enough of blaming. Enough for ten families,” she murmurs.
o0o
At dawn on the first Saturday in December, they walk single file to the lake. Sophia, holding Megan by the hand, is in the lead. Wick and Thomas are behind her, then Brian, Cort and Grace. Larry and Carolyn, who is well into her third month of pregnancy and happily showing it, are last onto the pier. When any one of them speak, it is in whispers.
The sky overhead is flushed, a watercolor infusion of pink and lavender. The breeze is crisp, the morning air perfect for their plan. Thomas holds the urn. Sophia beckons him forward and he comes to stand beside her. Then she turns for a moment to look at the rest of the family, her family, assembled behind her. Megan leans against Cort’s legs. His hands rest on her small shoulders. Brian is tucked against his right side. And Grace, on Cort's left, has linked her elbow through his. While there is still a certain tightness in her expression, a lingering wariness that mirrors Sophia’s own, Sophia also thinks that she and Grace share a similar feeling of hopefulness for the future, perhaps even the prescience of coming joy.
Larry and Carolyn are facing each other. He’s looping the fluttering end of her chenille scarf once more around her neck and their expressions are so filled with love and delight in each other that Sophia’s throat constricts. They’re very pleased with themselves and the new life they’ve begun.
A marriage is no guarantee of happiness, Sophia thinks. But then what in life is certain? Only the present moment, this moment that she holds in her hands.
“Now?” Thomas asks, twisting the cap from the urn.
She turns to him and smiles. “Yes,” she says. “Now.”
-o0o-
Reading Group Questions
and Topics For Discussion
1. Was Jarrett’s experience of prison life, and life on death row in particular, consistent with your sense of what it would be like to be confined in that manner? Were your feelings about incarceration altered by the story?
2. What of your feelings about the death penalty? If you believed in it prior to reading The Volunteer, did you change your mind, or vice versa?
3. Do you think it’s fair that the murder of a law enforcement officer draws an automatic death penalty, while the death of an ordinary citizen may and often does not?
4. Shortly after Jarrett marries Grace, he goes alone to visit his mother. He’s worried about his marriage and his dealings with Grace’s father, and while he does allude to his concerns, while he does seem to feel she might save him, he can’t bring himself to admit to his fear. What is stopping him, do you think? Suppose he had been able to tell his mom how terrified he was, do you think she could have talked sense to him? Could she have caused him to change his mind about what he was doing?
5. Do you think Jarrett understood the ramifications of his activity? Do you think he realized the danger inherent to smuggling artifacts? To what degree do you feel he was used as a pawn by Grace’s father and Rafe Salazar? Do you consider the smuggling of artifacts to be as serious as smuggling drugs and/or people?
6. Sophia became an unwed mother in the 1950’s. Contrast societal and sexual mores from that day to current day. What are the key differences, the changes that have come about in the last fifty to sixty years that have made the most difference? Contrast the options available to a young girl in this situation in the 1950’s with that same girl in such circumstances today.
7. After Sophia disobeyed her mother by leaving the home for unwed mothers, and then her aunt’s home to live “in sin” with an older man, her mother washed her hands of Sophia and her grandchild. Do you think she was right t
o do this? Should parents be responsible if their children refuse to take advantage of the means given them to recover from their mistakes? Would you label what Sophia’s mother did a form of “tough love”?
8. How does forgiveness figure into the novel? Who seeks it? Which characters walk away without the benefit of it and why? Who was deserving and who wasn’t? If you were Sophia, could you have forgiven her mother?
9. It’s clear that Sophia was irresponsible, even abusive, of her child, but over the course of the story, did your feelings about her change? Could you relate to her, have sympathy for her circumstances. Do you consider her a victim of society and that-day’s morality? Do you think she would be considered a victim today?
10. In what ways did Sophia’s early experience with men, and her early experience as a mother, effect her relationship with her husband and daughter?
11. If either Jarrett or Sophia had had stronger parental guidance do you feel it would have made a difference in their lives? Would they have been stronger people and if so, in what ways? Do you feel they gained inner strength, ultimately, as the result of the crisis situation they shared?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barbara Taylor Sissel is a freelance writer, book reviewer, and editor, and the author of two other novels, The Ninth Step and The Last Innocent Hour. A one-time editor for a small regional press, Barbara has written extensively for the public relations field. Her short stories and articles have appeared in a number of venues.
An avid gardener, Barbara is currently working with numerous clients on a variety of projects and writing a new novel. She has two sons and lives in The Woodlands, Texas. For more information on past and forthcoming books, you can visit her website at www.barbarataylorsissel.com
If you enjoyed
The Volunteer
you’ll love
The Ninth Step and The Last Innocent Hour(available in e-book format in the fall of 2011)
The Volunteer Page 30
