Lillie was almost glad that he had finally said it. Slowly she lifted her head and looked up at Pink, as if to say “There. Now do you understand?”
Pink looked at Grayson in amazement and then at his wife. His jaw slackened and he blinked a few times, as if newly awakened, and then he looked back at his son with the most chagrined expression on his face that Lillie had ever seen. She felt tears of pity for him spring to her own eyes, watching him. He had staked everything on this child. Now he had to somehow reconcile this murderous statement with this perfect embodiment of his hopes and dreams, this son.
“Grayson,” Pink said at last, his voice quavering, “I know you don’t mean that about your mother. You’re just upset.”
“Dad,” Grayson said eagerly, “I’ve been thinking about it. It wouldn’t be that hard. First of all, it’s Brenda’s gun, so Brenda will have to admit that Mom had it.”
Pink was staring at Grayson as if stupefied, a lost, haunted look in his eyes. “Son, don’t say any more.”
“Will you listen?” Grayson demanded. “It’s a good plan. We say you two got into a fight, and she pulled the gun on you. It’d be only natural for you to try and take it from her and then, it could go off, and that would be it. She’d be, you know, gone.”
Pink was trembling and his usually florid face was pale. Lillie buried her face in her hands, overcome at her own child’s imaginative rendering of her execution.
Pink cleared his throat. “Grayson, we all get carried away at times, imagining that we want to hurt the people that hurt us. It’s just a harmless…harmless thing to do. It’s just…it’s something everybody does. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“We can do it, Dad,” Grayson said evenly. “You and me. No one ever will know.”
“Okay,” Pink said abruptly. “That’s enough of this nonsense now. Give me the gun. No one’s going to shoot anyone.”
“Hey, wait a minute,” said Grayson. “I thought you and I stood together. That’s what you always said.”
“That’s right,” Pink said, avoiding his son’s eyes. “And I’m telling you I will take care of everything. No one is going to lay a hand on you. I promise you.”
Grayson narrowed his eyes and then he began to slowly shake his head. “Don’t give me that, Dad. What makes you think you can take care of it? You have no authority in this town. You’re not anybody. You don’t even have a new car. Why should they believe you over her?”
Pink’s face flushed at the cruel assessment. “That’s my problem,” he said. “Look, I’m your father. You’ll do as I tell you.”
“Don’t argue with him, Pink,” Lillie said in a low, warning voice.
Pink glared at her, as if outraged that she would align herself with him. “Stay out of it,” he said bitterly. His eyes were full of rancor toward her, as if she were entirely to blame for this destruction.
“Don’t give me that ‘I’m your father’ bit,” said Grayson. “What about all my plans and my future? You’re the one who’s always saying what a great life it’s going to be.”
“It will be,” Pink cried. “It’s going to be everything we always said.”
“Not if you’re going to let her sell me down the river. You know, all these years no matter what I did, you’d be there, taking credit for it. Always clapping a hand on my shoulder so you could get into the newspaper pictures, always putting your greasy fingers on my trophies, always trying to make it seem like you were behind it somehow, no matter what I got. When I won a game, you’d claim you were the coach. When people say I’m handsome, you beam like it was your doing. And on the best day of your life you never looked one bit as good as me,” Grayson said scornfully. “Well, let me tell you something. I let you get away with it. I let you take the credit. But fair is fair. Now you have to take the blame. It’s your turn.”
Grayson hefted the gun and started toward Lillie. For a moment Pink was frozen, as if Grayson’s words had drained the life from him. Then suddenly he sprang between Grayson and his mother.
“Grayson,” he pleaded, his voice tearful. “Maybe you don’t think much of me. And maybe all you said is true. I don’t know. I have been proud of you. And I guess, it seems, you haven’t been all that proud of me—” Pink’s voice cracked and he stopped and looked away, his body trembling. “But,” he continued, “I can take care of this one, Grayson. I’ll prove myself to you. You just hand that gun over to me and I’ll show you.”
He reached out his hand imploringly, but Grayson raised his head like an animal sniffing danger. “What’s that?”
Lillie heard it too. It sounded like a car door slamming outside. “It’s the wind,” she said.
“Is there someone here?” Grayson said.
Pink seemed oblivious to the sounds outside and to his son’s agitation. He stepped forward and shook Grayson’s arm. “Son, you have to give me that gun,” he insisted. “You have to trust me. Believe me, you’ll see I’m right. Trust me. Please, son, please. Do it for me. I can save you.”
“I should have known you’d be too weak,” said Grayson.
Lillie saw the loathing in Grayson’s eyes as his father reached clumsily for the weapon in his hand. She jumped up from the chair. “No, Pink, don’t,” she pleaded. “Get back.”
But Pink would not stop. He was concentrated on his task, a dogged expression on his wide, wounded face. Grayson endured this interference for a moment, but that was all. “You’re in my way,” he said.
“Pink, let him go,” Lillie cried, knowing the truth. “He’ll shoot you.”
But her voice was drowned out by the roar of the gunshot that exploded into him. Lillie screamed and rushed toward her husband. Pink stood still for a moment, his eyes wide with innocent surprise. He clutched the bloody gap in his chest as Grayson lifted the smoking gun. Pink held out one hand and then pitched forward toward the taut, unyielding figure of his son. Grayson grimaced and stepped to one side, and Pink fell, first to his knees and then to the floor.
In the next instant the front door slammed back. Jordan Hill leapt across the room and tackled Grayson, who was caught off guard and went down. The gun dropped from his hand as they struggled. Grayson clawed, kicked, and furiously grappled with Jordan, whose skill and weight gave him only a slight advantage over the boy’s ferocious resistance.
Lillie screamed, and then screamed again as Royce Ansley appeared in the doorway, his gun drawn. The sheriff looked at Pink’s body, glanced at Lillie, and then turned in a continuous arc to the boy that Jordan had wrestled to the ground.
In that moment Lillie saw the intention in his eyes.
She scrambled across the floor and shielded her son with her body. “No, Royce,” she cried. “Don’t kill him. Don’t. Please.”
Royce Ansley hesitated, vengeful and tempted. And then he holstered his gun. “All right,” he said. He walked across the room and roughly dragged Grayson to his feet. Jordan willingly let him go. He went to Lillie and took her hand. She gripped it tightly and clung to him. After a minute she let go of his hand and went over to where Pink had fallen. She knelt down beside him and felt for his pulse. Then, shaking her head, she gently touched his lifeless face and began to weep. Jordan crouched down beside her and drew the eyelids down over Pink’s startled expression.
“Let’s go,” said Royce, and he led the handcuffed Grayson toward the door. Royce’s black eyes were smoldering in his haggard face as they approached Pink’s body.
“Is Dad dead?” Grayson asked, his voice sounding young and wistful.
Lillie turned and looked up at him, wiping her eyes. “Yes, Grayson,” she said. Jordan helped her to her feet. She was trembling almost uncontrollably.
“I didn’t mean to shoot him,” Grayson said. “He grabbed the gun and it just went off. It was an accident, really.”
She did not turn away from him. She looked steadily into his eyes. “No, it wasn’t,” she said. Her voice did not break. It was firm and patient, as if she were correcting a child’s mistake. One tha
t would require correcting, again and again and again.
EPILOGUE
DR. CARL LUNDGREN FINISHED THE NOTES he was making and then leaned back in his chair and looked out through the barred window of his office at the bleak, rainy afternoon. The winters were like one continuous gray, damp day down here, but they did not depress him. He figured it must be his Scandinavian heritage, something in the genes, that enabled him to actually enjoy Tennessee’s dreariest season.
WW
He pushed his notes aside and rummaged through the disorder on his desktop for the folder he wanted. He did not really have to read this one. He had studied it many times in the last three years. It was one of his favorite cases.
The fact was, although some thought him warped or ghoulish for it, Carl Lundgren loved his prison work. He had plenty of cases in his regular practice, but prison work was ruining him for the run-of-the-mill neuroses of the general public. He was a family man, an even-tempered man, whose idea of reckless disregard for the law was occasionally to park too close to a fire hydrant, but he was fascinated by the people he met inside these walls. And the prisoners liked to talk to him because he was so interested in them and the bizarre lives they had led. So who does it hurt? he asked himself cheerfully.
The guard appeared at the cell block door and told Carl he had someone waiting for him in the visitors room.
“Okay,” said the doctor. “Ill be right there.” He opened the file he was holding and perused it again, so that he would have his information fresh for this visit with the prisoner’s mother. He knew she would have a lot of questions. She always did. There was just so little that he could really explain to her.
After locking the folder back in the file drawer, Lundgren left the Health Services cell block and made his way through a series of gates, which had to be unlocked for him, until he came to the visitors area.
He looked inside but did not see her. There were a couple of lawyers conferring with their clients in the beige and gray carrels, under the watchful eyes of the guards. Carl went out to the coffee machine, deposited his quarter, and obtained a paper cup of coffee. He looked at his watch. He was supposed to meet Lillie at two-thirty. She must have stepped out for a minute. When he looked up again he saw her coming down the hall toward him.
As she approached him, smiling hesitantly, he was struck again, as he had been the first time they met, by what a pretty woman she was. It had not surprised him, given the physical beauty of her son. These things tended to be genetic. But he had been eager to meet her from the first, because he knew from long experience that appearances were not the only things handed down in families. He had been most interested in knowing her, studying her, unearthing the influences that had created an aberration like Grayson Burdette. Their meetings over the last three years had proved puzzling and even frustrating to him. He had come to like her.
“Hello, Lillie,” he said, extending his hand to her.
She smiled as she shook his hand, although her worried eyes never really cleared. “Thank you for seeing me today. It means a lot to me. Did you meet with him already?”
“Just a little while ago.” Carl nodded. “I’m sorry. He hasn’t changed his mind about seeing you.”
Lillie sighed and Carl gently led her to the door of one of the meeting rooms and ushered her in.
Lillie sank down into a chair and absentmindedly twisted her wedding band.
“Did your husband come down with you this time?” Carl asked pleasantly.
Lillie looked up. “Yes. My best friend is getting married in Felton this weekend. We’re staying at my mother-in-law’s for a few days.”
“That should be nice for both of you,” he said.
“Yes,” Lillie murmured distractedly.
Carl took a seat and sipped his coffee. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did you want a cup?”
Lillie shook her head. “If he would just agree to see me. Even one time…” she said.
“He doesn’t want you to come back. He means that, Lillie. I think that you’re torturing yourself unnecessarily, coming here again and again.”
She was always upset when she came here, but today she seemed more distressed than usual. The doctor blew on the surface of his coffee and studied her anguished face sympathetically. “You know, he’s really doing very well.”
“Meaning what?” Lillie asked bluntly.
Carl knew her by now. She was one of the few mothers he had met behind these walls who actually wanted the truth. But he still had to temper it. There were certain things she was better off not knowing. “Well, he’s studying and progressing very quickly with his courses. He’s physically strong, healthy.”
She looked at him ruefully, as if his words were almost a taunt. “He’s thriving, eh?”
Carl sighed. “He’s a strong boy, Lillie. He’s learned the rules here. He’ll survive. In fact, he’ll do better than most.”
Lillie looked at him with bright, frightened eyes. “Are you treating him?” she asked. “Is there any improvement?”
Carl put his coffee cup down and looked at her directly. “I see him occasionally. But no, he’s not in treatment. He cannot change, Lillie. He doesn’t believe there is anything wrong. If he were ‘treatable,’ he would be in a hospital, not a prison. He doesn’t belong in treatment. He has…adapted perfectly to his environment. Believe me, he’ll be fine.”
“I know what you’re saying,” she said. “There’s only one way people manage to get by in a violent place like this. Much less thrive.”
Carl shrugged and sipped his coffee.
“Oh, God.” Lillie groaned. “Where does it all end?”
“Bottom line?” Carl asked. “He will probably never be granted parole.” He looked solemnly at Lillie. “You should be very relieved to hear that.”
Lillie’s eyes filled up. “I’m numb. I don’t know what to wish for anymore.” She seemed lost in her private anguish.
Carl looked at her kindly. “It doesn’t get any easier, does it?” he said.
Lillie shook her head.
“Now, why don’t you tell me why it was so important for you to see me today?”
Turning off the highway exit for Felton and retracing the familiar roads, Lillie thought as she drove along how it always made her heart ache to be in this place. Even now, after a long, bleak winter, it had its own special beauty. The fields were lavender-hued, and beneath its low bridges, the wide creek twined sluggishly through the town. Smoke rose from the farmhouse chimneys, gray against a gray sky, and it was as peaceful as she had always remembered it.
She drove on, past the cemetery, where the bare tree branches leaned out over the lonely graves. She would stop there and bring flowers for Michele, and for Pink too, before they went back up North. Bessie tended to the graves between their visits. Lillie knew that it was silly to care about that. It made no difference to Michele if there were flowers or not. But Lillie felt better knowing that her grandmother visited. They had buried Pink beside her, and, in an odd way, that comforted her too. No matter what else he had done, she had never doubted his love for his children.
She passed the street that led to her old house, but she chose not to drive by it. She continued on past the sign for Royce Ansley’s old road, but she did not go down it either. She had heard from Bomar Flood when she stopped by the drugstore that Royce had moved to Houston, and had a job as a security guard there. Lillie had testified on his behalf and been relieved that he had not had to go to prison. He lived inside his own prison, she thought. Enough was enough.
Lillie glanced at her watch. Brenda had asked her to come over and see her wedding dress if she got back in time, but Lillie did not feel up to prenuptial gaiety and girl talk this afternoon. She was truly happy for Brenda, who was marrying a young restaurateur from Nashville about ten years her junior. Lillie and Jordan had liked him right away when they met him. And, aside from her professed fear of looking like the groom’s mother in the wedding pictures, Brenda had never seemed happier
. Lillie smiled, thinking of her old friend. I’ll go over tomorrow, she thought. Maybe I’ll feel better then.
She slowed the car as she reached the fork that led to Bessie’s house, but at the last moment she turned the wheel and took the other road. She did not want to go back to her mother-in-law’s house. She did not want to face Jordan and the questions he would surely ask. She found herself driving, almost automatically, in the direction of Crystal Lake.
Because the trees were bare, she could see clear through the woods to the surface of the lake. It looked like pewter-colored silk, its shores deserted and undisturbed. Lillie got out of the car and walked through the crunchy ground cover of cold, brittle leaves to the edge of her lake. The damp air seeped through her wool coat, making her shiver, as she traversed the edge until she came to the foot of her jetty. She stepped onto the weathered boards and looked out. All her ghosts seemed to crowd around her.
She hesitated for a moment and then she walked out to the end of the jetty and sat down. The boards beneath her were cold and damp and she wrapped her coat more tightly around her. You shouldn’t be sitting here, she thought. You can’t afford to catch a cold. You’re pregnant.
It had been more than a suspicion on her part when she went to the doctor in Manhattan. She had experienced it twice before, and she recognized the first slight symptoms. Today, before she left for the prison, she had stopped at a phone booth and called the office in New York. The doctor had been delighted to make it official, removing any doubt, any hope, she might have had that it was not so.
A hawk circled in over the lake and then swooped up and soared out of sight. Lillie watched it go, envying its flight. She felt weak, and earthbound, and unable to face what lay ahead of her. Jordan would be happy to hear it. She knew that. They had agreed that they would try to have a family, but even as she had agreed to it, a secret voice inside of her was whispering no, never again.
Lillie sighed and looked despondently out at the soothing, familiar waters of Crystal Lake. She had always treated those waters as if they were a crystal ball, holding the answers she needed. But today they were dark and opaque under a lowering sky. “Grayson. Oh, Grayson,” she whispered. He was all she had thought of since she first suspected she was pregnant. Living out his life in a jail cell, cursing her, if he thought of her at all.
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