by Rilla Askew
The lawyer said he would talk to the D.A., they could work out a deal—a year in county and five years’ probation, the felony assault and battery charge reduced to simple assault, the resisting arrest and contempt charges dropped altogether. It was risky to go to trial, the lawyer said. People’s opinions ran hot and cold; you couldn’t tell how much that immigration business was going to influence a jury. Better take the deal, the lawyer said. Some deal, Brown thought. A year under the thumb of Arvin Holloway versus the possibility of ten years in the state pen for aggravated assault. He thought he ought to talk to Sweet before he made his decision.
He had expected to do that last Sunday, but when he’d emerged from the darkness of the jail into the glaring visitation yard, he’d found only a row of church people lined up at the fence to see him, Brother Oren, Clyde Herrington, Ida Coley, a handful of others. It was the preacher who told him that Sweet had had to go to Watonga for Dustin’s custody hearing the next day. “She’ll be here next week,” the preacher had promised. Tomorrow, Brown told himself. She’ll be here tomorrow. Her and Dustin.
The fact that his old neighbor Clyde Herrington showed up last Sunday had affected Bob Brown deeply. He’d stood there looking at him trying to recollect what they’d fought about. Some niggling point of doctrine, some wrongheaded interpretation of Scripture Clyde had . . . security of the believer? Was that it? He’d walked over and laid his open palm against the steel fence. “I appreciate you coming,” he’d said, and Clyde coughed once, nodded. Then the preacher started a prayer while Brown’s gaze searched the alley, the parking area, the VFW lot next door. He knew she wasn’t coming, but he couldn’t make himself quit expecting somehow.
Across the cell young men were lining up at the bars to greet the visitors from Prison Ministry on Wheels, joking, catcalling to other inmates down the hall. A year in jail, Brown thought. Probably it was no more than he deserved. Sin of pride. Sin of anger. Sin of not doing right by his boy. Still, he wanted to talk to Sweet about it. She’d be the one having to take care of things. He needed to find out if there was any word about Misty. He needed, above all, to see Dustin. The longing to see his grandson throbbed in his chest. Oh, he dreaded the night ahead. How he missed talking things over with Jesús. He missed Jesus. It was too loud here in the main run to hear yourself think, much less pray.
Saturday | March 8, 2008 | 9:30 P.M.
Sweet’s house | Cedar
She didn’t hear his bare footsteps in the tiled hall; she was leaning over the coffee table, heaving, holding the soft book tight against her belly, when she sensed his small wiry presence waiting at the end of the divan. She didn’t know how long he’d been there. Sweet sat up straight, wiped her face. She cleared her throat. After a moment she set the Bible back on the doily. “You’re up,” she said. She dug a Kleenex out of her pocket, blew her nose.
“Is Misty okay?”
Sweet was startled. Then she realized he’d heard her earlier on the phone. “Oh, yeah. Sure, honey. She’s fine.” Sweet tried to calm her shuddering breath. “Come sit down.” She picked up the elastic bandage. Dustin made his way around the coffee table and sat on the other end of the divan, then scooted over next to her, held out his arm. Carefully she wound the bandage around his wrist, between thumb and fingers, across the palm, around the wrist again. “Maybe we can leave it off soon,” she said. “They said just till the swelling’s gone.” She secured the Velcro, touched his wrist. “Is that too tight?”
“No, it’s good.” He felt it with his other hand. “Maybe when Grandpa gets out, we can drive up to Tulsa and see them. You know, like last summer?”
“We’ll see.”
The boy settled his bandaged arm on his chest. “We went by to see her, me and Señor Celayo. She wasn’t home though. It looked like she might not be back for a while, so we left.”
“Is that right,” Sweet said evenly. Dustin had talked so little about the time he’d been gone. If she asked questions, he would simply shut down, say nothing, and so she’d learned not to ask. After a little while, he said, “Señor Celayo never got to see his sons.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that, honey. They can go to Mexico and visit him down there.”
“No,” he said softly. “It’s too hard. That’s why he didn’t see them in so long. Their families are all here. En Los Estados Unidos. If his sons go to Mexico to see him, they might not be able to get back.”
“Well,” Sweet said after a moment. “I tell you what. Let’s you and me take a ride to Tulsa tomorrow. After we go see your grandpa. I’ve got a little errand I need to run for your sister. Would you like that?”
The boy shrugged. His eyes were on the silent television. “What’s going to happen to him?”
“Who? Your grandpa?”
“Both of them, I guess. Grandpa and Señor Celayo.”
“I don’t know, hon. We just have to wait and see.”
“You always say that.”
“Well, it’s because we do. Nobody knows the future.”
Dustin sighed a deep terrible sigh, his thin chest rising and falling in a tremendous swell. She took his hand, opened and closed the fingers a few times. “You’re going to be right as rain before you know it.”
“I made it worse. I kept forgetting. If we’d hit a bump or something, I’d grab the back of his coat.”
“How did—?” But she stopped herself. What good would it do to ask how the injury happened? He would only dart away behind his eyes, answer nothing. And, anyway, she knew, just as she’d known without knowing that Terry was the one who’d turned Daddy in. In some ways she knew this truth even more surely; she could almost see her son twisting Dustin’s hand, bending the fingers back, twisting until Dustin screamed. She knew when it happened, too: the afternoon she drove off to the Poteau Walmart and left the two boys alone. She knew, because she knew her son’s character, just as she knew that he would always bully Dustin, he would always hurt Dustin, because he himself was afraid, because Dustin was small, he was flinching, he wouldn’t fight back. And the hardest part, the most sickening part, was the slow steady realization, which had been coming for such a long time now, that she did not like her son. She loved him, yes, but she did not like him; she couldn’t like a kid who was so whiny and self-pitying, and mean. God knows she had tried to raise him right, she had tried, but he—
You raise not the child you want but the one you’ve been given.
Carl Albert was the one she’d been given. And what had she done? She’d sent him away. In her mind’s eye she saw Misty Dawn in the church nursery clutching her daughter so fiercely. Sweet had sent her own son to a motel in Poteau to stay with his dad. And why? So he wouldn’t beat up on Dustin? Well, whose responsibility was it to fix that? Hers. She was his mother. Sweet was trembling again, her chest burning. She let go of Dustin’s hand. She didn’t want him to feel her shaking. He withdrew it and cradled it with the other against his stomach. After a moment, he leaned his head back against the divan, watching the television through half-closed eyes.
But you could look at it another way, couldn’t you? Dustin was the one she’d been given. By all circumstances, by all this long hurtful terrible mess. At least for the time being, he was the child who was here. Sweet reached over and brushed a few cut hairs off his shirt. “That’s a good-looking haircut, you know it? If I say so myself. Your granddaddy’s going to be impressed when he sees you tomorrow.” Dustin didn’t say anything. She picked up the clicker. “You want me to turn the sound up?”
“No,” he said. “I like it quiet like this.”
Acknowledgments
I’m grateful to State Representative Brian Renegar of McAlester and Senator Richard Lerblance of Hartshorne for their generous time and attention in helping me understand how laws get made in Oklahoma. My thanks also to Oklahoma State Representatives Scott Inman, Jeannie McDaniel, Randy McDaniel, Randy Terrill, and Emily Virgin for th
eir helpful conversations and good insights. Warm thanks to court reporter Jill Mabry of Latimer County for her help in clarifying aspects of preliminary court appearances. A very special thank you to Armando Celayo, Corey Don Mingura, and Allie Wilson for their help with Spanish language and Mexican culture, and to my friend Anne Masters for being part of the journey. My deep appreciation, always, to my first readers, Paul Austin, Ruth Brelsford, Steve Garrison, Eustacia Marsales, Constance Squires, and Karen Young for their willingness and wisdom.
About the Author
RILLA ASKEW received a 2009 Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is the author of four novels, has been nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and is a three-time recipient of the Oklahoma Book Award.
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Also by Rilla Askew
Harpsong
Fire in Beulah
The Mercy Seat
Strange Business
Credits
Cover design © by Daniel Rembert
Cover photographs: road © by Laura George, sign courtesy of Bigstock
Copyright
This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other names, characters, and places, and all dialogue and incidents portrayed in this book are the product of the author’s imagination.
KIND OF KIN. Copyright © 2013 by Rilla Askew. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Epub Edition JANUARY 2013 ISBN: 9780062198815
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-219879-2
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