Forgiveness Road

by Mandy Mikulencak

  “You’re impartial?”

  “To the best of my ability,” Janelle said. Even though her petition for custody was made in the heat of the moment, she didn’t regret it. She did regret the additional pain it brought her daughter.

  “How could I not have known?”

  She had no answers for Caroline, but shared her guilt that no one suspected, that no one stepped in to rescue Cissy. They all shared the blame.

  “I can’t go to his funeral tomorrow, Mother.”

  “That makes two of us,” Janelle said. “Mimi will just have to understand.”

  Richard’s mother had called Janelle once since her son’s death. She’d raged that Janelle was protecting a murderer. She listened a minute or two to Mimi without speaking and then hung up. On some level, Janelle understood why Mimi had to blame Cissy. The alternative was to admit her son was a monster who killed the very spirit of his own child.

  “What if I can’t ever forgive Cissy?” Caroline looked to Janelle’s face, perhaps for reassurance that forgiveness was even possible.

  “I’m not asking you to forgive Cissy. I’m asking you to help me protect what’s left of that child’s mind and body.”

  She told Caroline a medical doctor would testify Cissy had been sexually assaulted, and a psychiatrist would recommend she be remitted to a state psychiatric facility. Janelle asked Caroline not to fight the recommendation. She agreed and allowed Janelle to hold her until the sun dipped behind the weeping willows shading the porch.

  “You should go home, Caroline,” she said as the sun set, its unrelenting heat shielded by the horizon. “I’m sure Bess will have dinner waiting for you and the girls.”

  There were just the two girls now—Lily and Jessie. What did their young minds make of the hushed conversations, the shouting matches, and their mother’s anguish? They couldn’t be allowed to know the details of the case. The thought of three very broken girls drove a stake of panic deep in Janelle’s heart.

  “How are the girls doing?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, Mother. Bess is so good with them and they love her. I just can’t be around them.” Caroline ran her palms over the front of her tee, smoothing imaginary wrinkles.

  “They need you.” Janelle touched Caroline’s back, but let her hand drop when she stiffened.

  “They need someone who can keep it together,” Caroline said. “I can’t take any more of their questions. I don’t know how to act around them. I don’t know how to act period.”

  Janelle suggested Caroline sleep over to give her the time she needed before facing her children again. Bess could take care of Lily and Jessie just for tonight.

  “Thank you, Mother,” Caroline said, and got up to go inside the house.

  The comforting scent of potatoes frying wafted out onto the porch. Janelle suspected that Ruth would be serving roast chicken, Caroline’s favorite, although she wondered how any of them had an appetite to speak of.

  Chapter 4

  The house now seemed a monstrous thing to Caroline, dark and menacing and eager to swallow her alive. The day after Richard’s death, she’d instructed Bess to shut the doors to all the upstairs rooms and to bring some linens and a quilt downstairs. Caroline now slept on the sofa, unable to enter the bedroom she’d shared with her husband for seventeen years.

  The last two mornings, she woke to find Lily and Jessie asleep on the floor next to the sofa, huddled together under one blanket and sharing a pillow. They needed her. She knew that without her mother having to tell her. But she couldn’t find the words—any words—to comfort or explain or apologize. After all, she was the only one who could have prevented the nightmare they were all now living. Or, at least that’s what her mother claimed.

  It was morning already, but probably only six or six-thirty. She faced the back of the sofa, the quilt pulled up to her ears. If Caroline could turn off her thoughts, she’d stay in that same position rather than wake to another day of unknowns.

  “Miss Caroline?” Bess nudged her shoulder. “The hearing is today. Do you remember?”

  “Is there any way I could forget?” Caroline rose reluctantly, staring at her housekeeper. “Where are the girls? Did they sleep down here again?”

  “Yes, ma’am. But I carried them up to their room an hour ago,” she said. “I drew you a hot bath and set out a fresh change of clothes so you wouldn’t have to . . .”

  Bess’s eyes were glassy, but her face remained neutral. She’d stopped her crying bouts the day after the shooting, but emotion threatened to overtake her every time she spoke. Caroline felt this made her choose her words carefully and to speak only when necessary. Except to the children. Bess drew strength from some deep, maternal place so that she could fill Lily’s and Jessie’s lives with what passed as normalcy. She cooked their favorite foods, helped them catch grasshoppers, turned the dining room table into a craft area, and sat beside their beds until they dropped off to sleep. Caroline wondered what words of comfort Bess imparted to the girls, but asking outright would have just stirred the bitterness she already felt because no one had thought to comfort her.

  “Thank you, Bess,” Caroline said. “I’ll go up right now.”

  “And, ma’am, I washed and ironed some things for Miss Cissy. Your mama called yesterday and said she would be needing some things if the judge decides to send our girl to that hospital up in Meridian. Do you want me to pack a suitcase?”

  Caroline’s first thought was to allow Bess to continue taking care of things, but she knew it was something a mother should want to do. She couldn’t shake the feeling of being judged: for her action or non-action; things she said or failed to say. But she was no longer a normal mother. How could she be expected to go through the motions? Today, though, it was required of her.

  “I’ll take care of it, Bess. But thank you just the same.”

  * * *

  Caroline sat in the tub until the water cooled. Time moved more slowly now. She was sure of it. Only the sound of the girls in the kitchen having breakfast prompted Caroline to dry off and dress.

  She hated being upstairs alone, near the bedrooms. Cissy’s was at the far end of the hall, far enough that Caroline and Richard didn’t have to listen to her god-awful counting; far enough that Caroline failed to hear anything, especially the nights she took sleeping pills or her nerve medicine.

  Her and Richard’s room was at the opposite end of the hall, across from the bathroom and staircase. Sandwiched in between were an empty bedroom and one that the younger girls shared. Although Lily was old enough to have her own room, Cissy had convinced her sisters that if they separated, they’d have to divvy up their shared toys. Caroline suddenly understood Cissy’s motivation in keeping them together: protection.

  Standing in front of Cissy’s door, she steeled herself and entered.

  The weather outside was stormy and unsettling. She didn’t know why she wished for sunlight to fill the space. Caroline had always thought the light was garish in this room while Cissy remarked how lucky she was to get the morning sun on her side of the house because it was better than an alarm clock.

  Her eldest daughter’s room was the largest bedroom, but spare. A bed neatly made. A small desk with a chess board on top. A map of the United States tacked to the wall. Two bookcases filled with Cissy’s favorite novels, a dictionary, and an atlas. Cissy didn’t care for dolls or knickknacks. She seemed to only have room in her life for reading, writing in her notebooks, and persisting with the counting nonsense.

  Bess had left an open suitcase on the bed and already laid out socks, undergarments, and pink slippers.

  Caroline gravitated toward Cissy’s orderly closet to guess which items her daughter would want her to pack, those that might bring her some comfort and sense of routine. When Caroline spoke to her mother the day before, Janelle was overly confident that Cissy would be placed in a mental hospital for observation and treatment, and not a correctional facility. Caroline wasn’t as certain, but she couldn’t allow
her thoughts to drift to the latter option. She already found it unbearable that Cissy was confined to one room in the county jail. No matter what Cissy had done, Caroline hated to think that she felt alone and afraid.

  “Ma’am? May I help you?” Bess stood in the doorway.

  “Where are the girls?”

  “With their paper dolls at the dining table,” she said. “Is that all right?”

  Caroline nodded and waved Bess in. They worked in unison, pulling slacks and dresses and blouses from the closet and folding them neatly.

  “We need more pants.” Caroline pointed to the dresser. “You know she doesn’t like dresses nearly as much.”

  After a few minutes, Caroline walked over to the window. The winds kicked up so forcefully that raindrops pelted the panes.

  “What is it?” Bess asked.

  “No one understands what I’m going through. I cannot survive this. I’m all alone.” Caroline coughed to cover a sob, gaining her composure quickly.

  Bess stood beside her, their shoulders not touching. “Ma’am, may I speak frankly?”

  Caroline wiped her face with her sleeve and nodded. She hadn’t meant to break down in front of Bess. And now she was shocked that Bess was ready to talk to her again.

  “We were wrong, the way we acted that day,” Bess said. “Not believing Cissy. Not stopping to listen to what she tried to tell us.”

  Caroline’s cheeks burned with fury. “She killed my husband,” she said. “If those things really happened . . . if Richard . . . why didn’t she tell someone?”

  “Miss Cissy said she couldn’t, to protect her sisters,” Bess said. “Dig down deep, Miss Caroline. Think about that girl. Would she ever harm someone without there being a good reason?”

  Caroline went back to the suitcase and continued packing, but Bess seemed emboldened to continue, like she’d been biding her time the last few days, waiting for the right moment to speak her mind.

  “If we was honest,” Bess said, “we’d admit that we knew. Not the full story, mind you. But we saw how different Miss Cissy was. How she acted around Mr. Pickering.”

  Caroline flinched. “I knew nothing of the sort! You overstep.”

  “The light went out in that girl a long time ago,” Bess continued. “I’m to blame, too. I saw how she pulled away from his hugs, kept her distance when she could.”

  “You should go now, Bess. I’ll finish packing,” Caroline said, trying to keep her anger in check. She was dangerously close to firing her housekeeper for impertinence, but knew the girls didn’t need any more upset at this time.

  Bess stood silent for a moment, then said, “Don’t forget to pack her notebooks. The ones with all those lists. They’re under her bed.”

  “How did you know—”

  “I dust mop this room once a week, ma’am, so if anyone would know, it’d be me. She asked me to be careful of them when I’m cleaning.”

  “I won’t have any more of your smart mouth, Bess,” Caroline said.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. I wasn’t trying to be smart,” she said. “I’ll leave you alone and bring up a cardboard box in a few minutes.”

  “The notebooks will fit in her suitcase just fine.”

  “I meant a box to hold some of her favorite books. I think she’d like to have them to pass the time. Don’t you suppose?”

  “Close the door on your way out.” Caroline didn’t need her housekeeper telling her what to do, as if she knew Cissy better than her own mother did.

  God, she needed more time to pull herself together. The hearing started in two hours. She hadn’t seen Cissy since the sheriff took her away. Caroline didn’t know what to say or how to say it. Perhaps it wasn’t the best time for them to speak. Not just yet.

  Even though Caroline knew she should go downstairs and be with the girls for a while, she couldn’t resist reaching for the box under the bed. She opened up the first spiral notebook and began reading, hoping against all hope that she’d find a way to forgive Cissy. Her eye stopped at a page listing the things that Cissy was most afraid of. The last word was written in large, block letters: DADDY.

  Chapter 5

  A hellacious rain storm pounded Biloxi the morning of Cissy’s hearing. Like water from floodgates, Janelle’s grief poured forth whenever she stopped to contemplate what would become of her granddaughter, or any of them for that matter.

  Cissy’s time in the jail had become a limbo of sorts. It was devastating to think of the girl alone for most of each day except for the deputy on shift. Yet, she was safe. No father to violate her body. No mother to blame her for taking control of her world. Janelle no longer censored the daydreams she had of Cissy remaining indefinitely in that room, never being charged with a crime, never having to be punished, never seeing the inside of a psychiatric hospital. Cissy had been right when she said killing her father wasn’t crazy. If Janelle had known about the abuse, she’d have taken care of Richard herself and gladly spent her remaining years in a prison for it.

  When she arrived at the jail, she found Cissy sitting on the bed, hands folded in her lap, her eyebrows knitted with just a hint of worry. She’d dressed in a muted, floral cotton dress and white sandals, and looked ready for church or a Sunday social. Deputy Parks had told Janelle that Caroline dropped off the clothes but didn’t stay to see Cissy. He hadn’t known what to say when Cissy asked why her mother left without saying anything, especially since she had already been in the building.

  “Fred, I mean Deputy Parks, brought me a jelly donut today,” Cissy said when Janelle sat down next to her. “Well, three actually.”

  “I could have guessed.” Janelle licked her thumb and rubbed away a sticky red spot at the corner of Cissy’s mouth.

  “Jessie would’ve just licked my face.”

  “Well, I’m not Jessie and no one should be licking anyone’s face.” Janelle appreciated the levity that Cissy managed to bring to any moment that started to feel heavy. She wondered if that was a natural talent or something Cissy had developed in order to soothe those around her.

  Janelle motioned for her to turn slightly. She twisted her locks into two neat rows down the back of her scalp, freeing her freckled face. Her granddaughter looked much younger than sixteen, not a teenager at all.

  “Is everything all right?” Janelle asked.

  “As rain,” she answered. “Let’s go soon or we’ll be late. I expect a judge wouldn’t look too kindly on tardiness.”

  Deputy Parks led them out of the jail and toward the rear door of the courthouse less than a block away. He didn’t put handcuffs on Cissy. Over the past ten days, Janelle suspected he’d come to know the gentleness in her. No one need fear this child. The storm had passed, but a quiet rain still fell. Deputy Parks struggled to keep an umbrella over the three of them until Cissy wrestled it away saying she was the tallest and it made more sense for her to carry it.

  As they entered the cavernous halls of the courthouse, the clicking of Janelle’s heels echoed and she tried walking on the balls of her feet to silence the aggravation. Cissy hooked her arm through Janelle’s and stomped her feet in unison, adding to the noise. She patted Cissy’s hand.

  Sheriff Roe had cleared the building earlier and locked the doors so the newspaper reporters couldn’t accost them in the public areas of the courthouse. Janelle said a prayer of thanks that the sheriff was such a good man.

  The setup of the actual courtroom made her think of weddings, where one side of the church was designated for the bride and her family, and the other for the groom and his. That morning, the aisle divided those who wanted Cissy to pay for a crime and those who accepted Cissy’s act as a cry for help.

  “Will Mama be here?” Cissy whispered, her hand cupped against Janelle’s ear, as if her question was a secret. “When she dropped off my clothes, she didn’t stay to say hello or anything.”

  There as a witness, Caroline had been instructed to wait in a room down the corridor until her time to speak. She acquiesced to Mr. Whitney’s
recommendation they push for Cissy to be committed. But emotionally, Caroline was in no shape to show any other support. It was best she wasn’t allowed in the courtroom.

  “Yes, dear, she’ll be here,” Janelle said. “When the judge asks her in.”

  “She doesn’t want to see me, does she?”

  “Cissy, I just said she can’t be in the courtroom until she’s called to the witness stand. Plus, she’s just very sad by all that’s happened. She’s lost both a husband and daughter, and she’ll need some time to work through the bigness of it all.”

  “She hasn’t lost me,” Cissy said.

  “I meant that figuratively, child, meaning you’ll be apart if you go stay at the hospital in Meridian for a while.”

  Cissy tapped the toes of her sandals against the wooden floor.

  “Meridian’s far away, Grandmother. Deputy Parks told me.”

  The judge approached the bench and Janelle shushed her granddaughter, delaying an explanation of why they’d chosen the facility in Meridian, 160 long miles from Biloxi. Mr. Whitney had explained the Greater Mississippi State Hospital was the best choice as it had a separate ward for young women aged fifteen to twenty-one and a few private rooms. Janelle would address Cissy’s concern about distance if the judge granted their wishes.

  Mimi had sought her own legal counsel. The woman had the idiotic idea that they could convince the judge Cissy should be tried as an adult, that the killing of her son was premeditated. She and her lawyer looked straight ahead, refusing to meet Janelle’s eye as she and Cissy took their places on the first of several wooden benches, akin to those in church and just as unkind to the bones.

  In Janelle’s opinion, Mimi had never been a pleasant woman. Her face was pinched in a permanent scowl, as if the entire world offended her in some way. Caroline had battled to gain her approval for most of her marriage, but gave up on her mother-in-law a couple of years ago when she’d overheard Mimi telling Richard that his wife didn’t know how to run a proper household or discipline her unruly daughters.