by T. Greenwood
“Is she pregnant?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Just because you got knocked up and had to get married doesn’t mean that’s the only reason everyone gets married.”
“Ouch,” I said. “And you know that’s not why Gus and I got married.”
“Whatever,” he said.
“When are you going to give it to her?” I asked. “Not in front of us, I hope. That’s just cruel.”
“Why?” he said, his face falling.
“Oh my God, Mom will try to eat her or something. And Dad will cry. You can’t do that to her. She actually seems nice.”
“You think so?” he asked, hopefully. And I realized, in a weird way, he was asking my permission.
“Yeah,” I said. “And you seem happy.”
“I am happy.”
“And kind of drunk,” I said.
Nobody climbed up on the roof to sing “O Holy Night,” and there were no lesbian forays under the mistletoe, but everyone laughed and my father got out his trumpet and played some long-forgotten jazz tune. The Dickinsons won a pretty hardcore game of charades, and my mother’s cheese ball got eaten in its glorious entirety. And Avery and Veronica’s little girl, Amber, fell asleep watching a DVD of Rudolph on my parents’ bed.
After everyone was gone, I told my parents I’d clean up, and they climbed up the stairs to bed. I hung Avery’s stocking on the mantle and stuffed it with all the things I’d picked up for Christmas. Through the window, I watched Mark carry Amber to the car. And after Veronica buckled her into her car seat, Mark, cheeks as red as Saint Nicholas in the porch light, dropped to one knee as he reached into his pocket for the ring. Veronica’s hands flew to her face, and she nodded, pulling off her mittens so Mark could put the ring on her finger. I felt my throat swell, my eyes well.
* * *
Gus and I had gotten engaged one night when we’d been out adventuring. There had been a party held in a water tower, at the end of a wild scavenger hunt facilitated by one of our artist friends. We’d been told to dress up in 1920s costumes, that we’d be going to some sort of speakeasy. We’d followed the clues all over the city, finally locating a password that would gain us entrance to this crazy party. I’d found a vintage flapper dress at Goodwill, and had worn a headband with a feather in my hair. Gus had a borrowed zoot suit and a fake mustache. All night we talked to each other in affected twenties speak. How ’bout some cash? he said in that Bugsy Malone voice, and I kissed him. Thanks, dollface.
The party wasn’t nearly as amazing as the rest of the adventure had been, but it was fun anyway. There actually had been the very real danger of the cops busting us, just like in a true speakeasy, and so it was with a sort of happy dismay that we descended the dangerous ladder from the water tower at the end of the night.
We’d stood on the rooftop of a building that seemed like it could quite conceivably crumble into a pile of rubble at any moment, and Gus had grabbed my hand.
“Looks like you’ve had a little too much giggle water,” I said as he tripped over an exposed pipe. “You’re zozzled.”
I kissed him again. When he dropped to his knee, I thought he’d just stumbled. I reached out my hand to help him up. But he shook his head.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I got something for ya, see?” Gus said, never breaking character.
I remember my body suddenly flushing with heat. I had been shivering, freezing cold in that strapless dress, a phony fox stole doing little to keep me warm. But now I was hot.
We’d never talked about marriage. Not even when I’d found out I was pregnant about a month before. Somehow getting married seemed like a bigger deal than having a baby.
“What is that?” I asked, stupidly, when he pulled the tiny diamond out of his pocket.
“It’s a manacle, see?” he said.
“Gus?”
“Well? Will you?” His gangster voice gone. Just Gus. Just my favorite person in the whole world, Gus.
The ring was now sitting inside my jewelry box next to the birthstone ring my grandparents gave me when I was ten and my National Honor Society pin.
* * *
Outside my parents’ house, Veronica grabbed the keys from my drunk brother and tried to hold him up even as his feet windmilled across the slippery walk.
After they pulled away, I turned out all of the lights, unplugged the Christmas tree, and loaded the dishwasher. And as it began to hum and whir, I sat down at the kitchen table and cried.
* * *
Gus arrived midmorning on Christmas Day as my father was lighting up the barbeque in the snow-filled backyard. He’d bought some frozen meat online and insisted on grilling it despite the subzero temperatures outside.
I was busy packing Avery’s things, though she still had enough stuff at Gus’s house to last her for the next week. I hadn’t been away from Avery for even one night since she was born. As I rolled her tiny socks and tights, folded her skirts and little jeans, I wondered what I had been thinking agreeing to this. And the idea of being back on the island alone for a whole week until Pilar came home was daunting.
When Gus pulled up in a silver Prius, I thought it was just one of my parents’ friends coming to wish them a happy holiday. They’d already had three or four people stop by with gifts and cookies.
Avery must have sensed him coming though, because she was tearing down the stairs, her pinwheeling legs a blur. She didn’t even have shoes on, but that didn’t stop her from opening the heavy wooden door and running outside to greet her dad.
Gus picked her up, brushed the snow off her stocking feet, and rushed her inside.
“Crazy girl,” he said. “You don’t want to be sick when we go home!”
Home. That word was like an icicle in my heart.
“Hey, Wynnie,” he said, kissing me on the cheek. His skin was cold. He’d carried the weather inside with him. “Merry Christmas.”
“Come in. Dad’s making steaks out back.”
“Listen,” he said. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t stay long today. I’ve got Mia’s car, and I promised I’d have it back to her before six.”
Mia? My ears burned, and my chest hurt. He just met this woman and she was already loaning him her car?
“You were supposed to spend the day here. It’s Christmas.” I didn’t mention Mia, but I couldn’t, didn’t, disguise my disappointment. “We haven’t even opened presents yet.”
“I can stay until noon, but then we have to go. I’m so sorry. I was going to rent a car. But because of the holidays, the prices are all jacked up. Mia is staying in the city today but needs the car to drive to her folks’ house in Greenwich tonight.”
Greenwich, Connecticut? Nothing said WASPy rich girl like Greenwich. No wonder she was able to work only part-time at a gallery and still manage to live in the city. I took a deep breath to keep from saying something I might regret.
“Fine. Then we better open gifts now.”
* * *
None of this was what I had imagined. None of this was what that small part of me had hoped for. It wasn’t until Gus was loading Avery’s presents, which she’d unwrapped in a haste made not from eagerness but from necessity (my parents’ generous offerings and the few things I’d managed to procure online and have sent to my parents’ house), that I acknowledged I’d been hoping this Christmas would be like the other Christmases. That we’d leisurely open gifts, that we’d eat so much our stomachs hurt and lounge around watching A Christmas Story. That when the sun went down, maybe Gus and I would take Avery on a walk around the neighborhood to look at the Christmas lights.
Instead, at noon, Avery clung to my legs for a moment then let go, running after Gus and leaping into the car seat, which I’d transferred from the Honda to Mia’s car.
She rolled down the window, and I pressed my palm against her cheek, kissed her forehead, and said, “I’ll see you in two weeks, baby girl. You and your daddy stay out of trouble.”
“We won’t get in any
trouble. Daddy’s a good boy, Mama.”
I swallowed hard and kissed her again.
Gus finished loading the trunk with her presents and came around to the side of the car with a small box in his arms.
“Here you go,” he said, and for a split second I thought he was handing me a Christmas gift. Unwrapped, but boxed.
I cocked my head, confused but slightly delighted he’d thought to do something. I had considered getting him a gift but decided against it.
“It’s the negatives,” he said. “Wes spent a whole weekend developing them.”
“Oh,” I said, taking the box from him. “Oh my God. That’s awesome. I almost forgot.”
“Me too. Glad I had to get into the trunk!” he said.
“Thanks, Gus. And please tell Wes I owe him one.”
He nodded. “Sure thing. He said there’s some crazy shit in there.”
“What?” I started, but he was already ducking into the car. The engine was running, and the exhaust blew like dragon’s breath into the cold air.
“Roll your window up, Av!” I hollered as the car rolled down the driveway.
Then they were gone. And I was at home alone with my parents. Mark was spending the day with Veronica’s family, who also still lived in town. No neighborly visits were planned. And so there was no buffer. Nothing to keep my parents from asking the question they’d been waiting to ask ever since I got home.
They barely waited until I came back through the door, shivering and sad after Gus and Avery pulled away. I peeled off my coat, shoved my scarf and hat and mittens inside the sleeves, and hung the coat on the rack by the door. I kicked off my boots and slid my slippers back on. I wanted nothing more than to trudge up the stairs, look at the contact sheets, and maybe go back to bed for two weeks until Gus brought Avery back to me.
The house, the same one that had seemed so festive and alive with Avery here, now felt like it did when I was in high school. Like everyone was trying too hard to make happy. The Christmas lights, blinking stupidly, seemed to mock me. The Christmas music playing on the radio felt almost accusatory.
I started toward the stairs.
“Wyn?” my mother called. “Come here for a minute?”
Here we go.
She was in the kitchen, doing the breakfast dishes. My father, I presumed, had charged her with this task. Not the dishes, but the plea I knew was coming. He always left her in charge when the questions were hard.
I grabbed a dishrag with a gleeful-looking Christmas tree appliqued on it, and stood next to her, bracing myself.
“Listen,” she said, knowing I was liable to start in on my defense before she even opened her mouth.
I sighed.
“You probably know we’ve been talking with Larry about what will happen if the court grants the motion.”
I nodded even as tears began to sting my eyes.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but he says this time you’d need to testify. It would be a new jury. They might even take it to the next county over. Where people don’t know you. Where people don’t remember.”
I shook my head.
“He says even if the so-called new evidence isn’t that compelling, the defense would get a second chance. To spin this thing differently. Larry says he’s been a model prisoner, he’s been taking mental health classes at the prison. He’s become religious. He was a boy when it happened. A child. They’re going to look at that.”
“I was a child, Mama.”
“Nobody is arguing that. Nobody,” she said, setting down the glass she was washing. “But if you don’t testify, if they can’t see what he did to you. How he . . .” She paused. “How he damaged you . . .”
“You think I’m damaged?” I asked. The word felt like a blade.
My mother rubbed her eyes. “Of course not, that’s not what I meant.”
“Because I think I bounced back pretty well given what happened,” I said, feeling defensive and angry. The idea that I was damaged goods, somehow permanently flawed, and this was how my family saw me, was unbearable. “I finished school, early even. I went to college; I have a career. I got married. I’m a good mom,” I said. And even as I ticked off my “accomplishments,” I felt my argument unraveling. Sure, I’d finished high school in three years. Not because I was some sort of genius, but because I just wanted out of this town. Out of this house. And art school, my career, what had that become? I was painting on command, nothing more than a trained monkey. My marriage had fallen apart. Being a mom was the only thing I hadn’t royally screwed up. But Avery was only four. I still had plenty of time for that.
“You’re missing my point here, Wynnie,” my mother said softly, reaching for my hand. “Your father and I are just hoping to God you’ll change your mind. It could mean the difference between him staying in prison and being set free. I get that you don’t want to be there. That it would be difficult.”
“Difficult?” I almost choked, laughing. “Changing a tire is difficult. Climbing a mountain is difficult.”
“Please,” my mother said, her face a question. A plea.
When I refused to meet her gaze, to answer her, her tone turned cold. She picked up the glass she had set down and started scrubbing it. I worried the glass might just break in her hand.
“If not for yourself,” she said solemnly, “then for the other women he might hurt. If he were to be let out. You have to think beyond yourself, Wynnie. Sometimes, not everything is about you. You have a daughter of your own now. I’d have thought this would make you understand.”
And just like that, she’d taken that one last thing I was holding onto, the idea I was a good mom, and shattered it. I thought about Gus and me leaving Avery at the house. About her wetting the bed. About the sadness in her eyes when she talked about missing Gus.
“I’m going for a walk,” I said, feeling suddenly as if I might crawl out of my skin.
“Please don’t,” my mother said softly, her hesitation the same one I knew so well now. Every time I left the house after that day, I felt this tug. My parents not wanting me to go out the door, the irrational fear that this time I might not make it home.
But I couldn’t breathe in this house, and so I grabbed my coat from the hook by the door. “At least bring your phone then,” she said.
And so I grabbed my phone from the console table by the door and shoved it into my coat pocket. I slammed the door shut behind me. And then I walked.
* * *
It was cold outside, the kind of bone-chilling, wet cold you can feel in your marrow. I shoved my hands in my pockets and, head down, trudged forward.
My parents’ neighborhood was not far from town. I walked everywhere when I was a kid. Rode my bike in the summer. Haven was the kind of town you only see in the movies. Tree-lined streets, picket fences. The downtown village without a single chain store or restaurant. The town had fought long and hard to keep McDonald’s out. When a Starbucks was slated to open in the village, protesters filled the streets, and the Starbucks folks backed out. This was a community that fiercely protected itself. That rallied. Generally, when it came to things like raising money for a new public pool or keeping chains out, it was a good thing. But it was a mob mentality nevertheless. I shuddered to think what would happen if Robby Rousseau were set free. A public lynching would not surprise me.
I made my way downtown. When I was little, I loved this street: the trees laced with white lights, like winter fireflies captured in their branches. Antique shops and coffee shops, and quaint bed and breakfasts. My favorite bookstore, a pet store, and a comic book shop.
But it was Christmas, and everything was closed. It was almost as desolate as Bluffs Island. The lights in every shop were out except for the neon sign at the one little Irish pub on the corner. They couldn’t possibly be open, I thought. But as I approached the door and peered into the window, I could see a couple of men sitting at the bar. A bartender moved slowly behind the bar.
I opened the door, the sleigh
bells strung on the back of the door jingling. A collective turning of heads as I entered. I made my way to the bar and sat down, smiling at the bartender, who was wiping his hands on his apron. I didn’t recognize him.
“What can I get for you?” he asked.
It wasn’t until now that I was sitting that I realized how cold I was. I shivered. “Brrr . . .” I said, completely involuntarily. “God, it’s cold out.”
He nodded.
“Can I get an Irish coffee?” I asked.
“Sure thing.”
I looked down the bar at the two men who were sitting there and wondered how it was they were spending Christmas here. I smiled and they returned my smile with a couple of nods.
The bartender brought me the coffee and I put five dollars on the counter. I blew across the top and sipped, letting the hot coffee and whiskey warm me from the inside out. My toes were starting to itch and tingle. They were wet and cold.
“You Ned Davies’s kid?” he asked suddenly.
“Yeah,” I said, mystified as to how he knew that. Then I realized he was looking, though trying not to, at my neck. I pulled my scarf tighter.
“I remember when you were just a little thing. Ned used to bring you in here. You loved my onion rings.”
I had an odd, fleeting memory of sitting at a bar, dipping onion rings into ketchup. God, if he could remember this, I’m sure he could remember a lot of other things about me too.
And sure enough: “I heard that boy might get another trial.”
I bristled.
“Seems to me he should be rotting in prison for what he done.”
“Yep,” I said. What else could I say?
I finished the coffee and the bartender came to me with the coffeepot and a shot. “Top it off?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“On the house. Merry Christmas.”
“Thanks.”
“You here for the protest?” one of the men down the bar chimed in.
“What?” I asked.
“Here,” he said, pushing the newspaper he’d been reading down the bar at me. There on the front page was the headline:
