Unexpected Dismounts

by Nancy Rue

  “Let me finish.”

  And then, of course, he didn’t, for another fifteen seconds, while I fought back a scream.

  “The rest of this—these photos, the child’s current environment—that’s all easily explained, I’m sure. I’m not worried about that.… But this … I’m going to want a full explanation when we reconvene tomorrow morning. Bring in witnesses, bring in a psychologist, whatever you see fit.… But if you’re going to convince me that this child belongs with you, Miss Chamberlain, then you’d better make me believe you are of sound mind. Bailiff—next case?”

  “We’ll talk outside,” Kade murmured to me.

  That was optimistic. I wasn’t sure I could utter a word at that point.

  We wheeled Chief to a corner down the hall and stood in a knot with our backs to the rest of the courthouse world.

  “Here’s what I’m thinking,” Kade said, “because I don’t get the sense that this judge is religious.”

  Chief nodded him on.

  “We’re not going to convince him that anybody hears God, and I don’t see Allison denying it.”

  “Can we not talk about me like I’m not here?” I said.

  “Sorry. Look, I don’t want to put you up there and ask you if God talks to you because you’ll have to say yes.”

  “Where are you going with this, son?” Chief said.

  Kade consulted the ceiling. “Okay, I’m just going to be blunt. We present it as, ‘She may be a wacko, but she’s a good wacko.’”

  Chief was already reaching for me, but I eluded his grasp and put myself in front of Kade. Right in front, so I could see straight through those blue eyes.

  “Do you believe in me?” I said.

  “Look—”

  “Just answer the question: Do you believe in me, in what I stand for, in who I am?”

  I didn’t wait for the words. I was looking for what his eyes had to say.

  They didn’t flinch.

  “Yes,” he said. “The same way you believe in me. Without proof.”

  “Good answer,” I said. “Because there is no proof. There’s only my word. If you can’t work with that, then you can’t represent Desmond and me.”

  I heard someone else step up behind us.

  “Nick,” Chief said.

  “Mr. Ellington.”

  I pulled away from Kade and leaned against the wall.

  “You got a minute?” Nicholas said to him.

  “Does he need his lawyer present?” Chief said.

  Nicholas shook his head, and Chief nodded for Kade to follow him. I waited until they were gone before I let myself cave, just a little.

  “There is one alternative, Classic,” Chief said.

  “What?” I said.

  “It depends on how much you’re willing to give up for Desmond.”

  “I’d give up anything, you know that. I can’t just let her take him off to freakin’ London and drop him off!”

  “What about your job?”

  “With Sacrament House?”

  “No,” he said. “With God. Would you give up your place as prophet?”

  I stared at him. “What are you suggesting?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m asking you the question you need to ask yourself between now and tomorrow. And while you’re at it, you probably ought to ask God.”

  I didn’t blurt out the automatic answer. There was a check in my soul, a catch in my heartbeat.

  “That’s what it’s going to come down to, Classic,” he said. “And we both know it.”

  Kade rejoined us, hands jammed into his pockets. My mind jumped back to him.

  “What happened?” I said. “Was that about Ophelia?”

  “They did a PCR-based test on my DNA. It wasn’t a match.”

  “Of course it wasn’t,” I said. “Now I have to deal with her somehow, but I’m not even relieved, y’know. I knew—”

  I couldn’t finish the sentence. Kade was very clearly struggling with something.

  “I’m sure he told you PCR isn’t conclusive,” Chief said. “But what it can do is rule you out.” He leveled his eyes at Kade. “Take a little time to shake it off. Use my workout equipment if you want. But then you and I have work to do.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I said.

  Chief turned his gaze on me. “Whatever you need to, Classic.”

  Hank met me downstairs with Desmond in tow. He was more than a little disgruntled that he’d gotten “all dressed up like a preppy” only to hang out in the lobby.

  “We didn’t get to your part,” I said.

  Hank didn’t ask me any questions, which meant I was wearing my angst all over my face.

  “We’ll talk tonight,” Hank said as we split off at the corner of St. George and King so I could get ice cream for Desmond.

  “What’s tonight?” I said.

  “Maundy Thursday at Sacrament House,” she said. “Six o’clock.”

  I wasn’t sure I could handle even my Sisters in the shape I was in. Especially Ophelia, who was now going to be faced with the fact that her accusation had been unintentionally false. Maybe Ophelia wasn’t the one I was really worried about. Maybe it was India.

  But Desmond and I showed up at the House at six, in the van because he still wouldn’t get on Chief’s bike. On the way, he didn’t ask me any questions about my day in court, and I decided that was about more than him not wanting me to go off about the whole thing. When we pulled up to the curb, I said, “Okay, so here’s what happened today, and I promise not to blow—”

  “I don’t wanna know,” he said.

  The pain in those four words shredded me. Was this how God felt all the time, watching us make such a mess out of things? Was that what I was supposed to tell the judge, that I not only heard him, but I felt pain, too? I might as well put Desmond on a plane to London right now.

  “I do got one question.”

  I pulled myself back and took a breath. “Go for it.”

  “We gon’ be talkin’ to God tonight?”

  “Probably.” I steeled myself for the usual list of excuses.

  But he considered the windshield for so long I felt like I was in a car with Judge Atwell. Finally, he said, “You think God gonna swoop down and work it out so that Prissy woman don’t take me away somewhere you can’t find me?”

  I turned off the ignition.

  “That’s what Mr. Chief said he don’t believe. He said God wasn’t gon’ put words in your mouth to keep her from takin’ me. So who I’m s’posed to believe, Big Al? Him or you?”

  I rubbed my palms on the steering wheel. Now I knew why Atwell let so much silence fall.

  If you want the right ones to come out, God, now would be a good time to put them in my mouth.

  “If you don’t even know, then why we goin’ in there to eat that bread and all?” Desmond’s voice rose with his precious Adam’s apple. “I don’t even know—”

  “Okay, here’s the deal,” I said. “You can believe both of us, Chief and me.”

  “How Imma do that when y’all sayin’ two different things?”

  “We’re not,” I said. “I’m saying we need to talk to God and listen to what God’s telling us. Chief’s saying God isn’t going to do it all for us, God’s not going to swoop down like a fairy godmother.”

  “Oh, I know God ain’t no fairy.”

  “Chief’s right about that. That’s why I listen for God to show me what to do, so I don’t mess up when I’m doing it.”

  “What about them words comin’ out yo mouth?”

  “Sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t,” I said. “Chief’s nervous that they won’t come out when I need them. He wants to have a backup plan.”

 
“What is it?”

  “What is what?”

  “His backup plan.”

  I closed my eyes. There is one alternative, Classic. It depends on how much you’re willing to give up for Desmond.

  “You don’t like that plan, do ya?” Desmond said.

  “No, pal, I don’t,” I said. “But I might not have a choice.”

  He gave the windshield another deep survey. I got the feeling his problems with God weren’t solved.

  “We better go in,” I said. “You don’t have to participate, Des. Just be with the people who love you.”

  I got out of the van before my face could betray me.

  There were more people who loved him, and me, in the House than I was expecting. Besides Hank and the Sisters, including Zelda, Ophelia, and India, Bonner was there, and Liz Doyle. Yeah, I always thought those two should get together. She was looking less frazzled than I’d ever seen her.

  “We ready for y’all,” Mercedes said from the doorway.

  The table had been moved out and another, lower one, moved in with the fresh bread and the juice in its pottery chalice and the snowy white linens ready to catch the crumbs and drops of our ritual. Everyone, including a reluctant Desmond, was gathered around it on pillows on the floor. All except Zelda. She was on her knees next to a big pitcher and a white porcelain bowl.

  At last, Zelda.

  In some ways she looked very much as she had the day she left Sacrament House. Her hair was still forced into a cruel ponytail that pulled her eyes back to her temples. Her skin was still a jailhouse pale that wasn’t all that different from her former drug-induced pallor. And the bones in her wrists still protruded like dresser-drawer knobs.

  But her eyes were someone else’s. Someone who had hope.

  “I done missed the big footwashin’, Miss Angel,” she said. “But my Sisters and Miss Liz been washin’ mine all week.”

  Liz squeezed my arm, exuding heat she couldn’t contain.

  “But they tol’ me only one person didn’t get they feet washed.” Zelda’s look was wide. Unslitted. “And that’s you. So if you’ll let me, I’d like to wash them now.”

  Some of the pain eased from me, leaving just the right space for me to say, “I would be honored.”

  So my feet were washed by the woman who’d stood in the muck of West King Street and slashed my face with her desperate claws. The one who had slammed my head into hers and spit at my back because I made her think of God. The woman who taught me I wasn’t the only one who could heal people.

  And that same night I shared in the symbolic body and blood of the one who washed everybody’s feet, all the time. I shared it with everybody, except young Ophelia. She stood back while we partook in the reenactment of the Last Supper. She wouldn’t even look into my eyes when I offered her the cup. But I could feel her pain. God’s pain.

  India, on the other hand, showed me all of her pain. She caught up to me when Desmond and I were walking down the front walk at the end of the evening. Her face was drawn so tight, no amount of elegance could smooth it over.

  I handed Desmond the keys. “Wait for me in the van, okay? And do not start it up, or you’ll never see another Oreo for the rest of your life.”

  India watched until he was out of earshot, though for Desmond that could mean Miami Beach.

  “What am I supposed to do now, Allison?” she said. She curved over her folded arms. “Hank told me about the DNA, and I tried to break it gently to Ophelia, but she just fell completely apart. She still says she’s telling the truth and she doesn’t see how she can stay now.”

  “Oh, India, no,” I said. “We can’t let her go. Do you want me to talk to her?”

  “No—no, no.” India brushed her hand against my cheek. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, honey, but you are the last person she wants to talk to. She’s convinced you think she’s a liar. And here’s what I’ve been thinking. Just because we know it wasn’t your Kade, that doesn’t mean the real rapist isn’t still out there. Are we going to stop looking now?”

  I shook my head firmly. “Definitely not. Nicholas Kent is still on it, although without more information, he’s sort of at a dead end.”

  I thought of the officers on the take, but I didn’t say anything. India probably wouldn’t have heard it anyway. Her face was a wreath of grief.

  “How do you do this all the time, Allison?” she said. “I feel like it’s happening to me. I don’t know if I can take it.”

  “Okay, look.” I curled my fingers around her wrists and pulled her closer to me. “This is Ophelia’s pain, so don’t take it on. Just let it speak to you.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  I wasn’t sure I did either, but I let it unfold the rest of the way.

  “This isn’t going to end for her until she gets it all out. You said it yourself—she gets the dry heaves, she wants it out of there so bad.”

  “Right …”

  “I think those memories are in there. They didn’t find any trace of drugs in her body the night of the rape, and her blood alcohol content was only point zero eight. I don’t think it’s that she can’t remember what happened. I think she just doesn’t want to because it’s too painful.”

  “So you want me to try to get her to go in there and pull it up?” India put her hand to her throat. “What if she can’t handle that?”

  “Don’t do it alone. Get Hank to be there, or Nita. I would, but—”

  “No, no—honey, you have enough going on. We’ll take care of Ophelia. Oh, Allison.” She put her graceful arms around my neck. “I love you. I don’t understand you and I don’t know if I ever will, but, honey, I love you.”

  “I love you,” I whispered. I hugged her back and looked over her shoulder at Sacrament House. A lone figure sat just outside the shaft of light from the porch lamp. Ophelia. Still wrapped in God’s pain.

  And what about your pain? That was the question I asked hours later, after Desmond was in bed and I was on my side porch in the swing, smelling Miz Vernell’s gardenias, missing Chief, missing the vision that had seemed so clear to me, missing the certainty that Desmond was going to be mine.

  You told me to speak through it and I would give birth. But he’s the only son I want.

  I pushed the swing harder. I gave up one son. Please don’t make me give this one up too. If there’s any other way …

  I couldn’t think anymore. Through the screen door I heard Desmond whimper in his sleep. Across the side lawn, Miz Vernell’s porch light winked out. She was done observing the crazy lady for the night.

  “Maybe I am crazy, Miz V,” I said out loud. “Maybe all this pain makes a person do and say crazy, crazy things.”

  Someone sighed. The long, slow breath was almost out before I realized the someone was me. It left me limp and drowsy on the swing.

  “All right, then, God, so be it,” I said. “Crazy it is.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  When Desmond and I arrived at the courtroom Good Friday morning, there was standing room only in the hallway outside. The first people I picked out of the crowd were the Sisters, who were hard to miss, gathered in a circle holding hands. After I got over the fact that Jasmine, Mercedes, and Sherry were within a mile of anything connected with the judicial system without being in handcuffs, I found Hank, who wasn’t hard to miss among the HOGs.

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  “Support, Al,” she said. “We thought you could use some.”

  “What are the Sisters doing?”

  “Holding a prayer vigil. They’ve been here since the doors opened.”

  I felt my face starting to crumple. “Leave it to you to think of that.”

  “I didn’t,” she said. “It was Zelda’s idea. She said them praying for her at the jail kept her f
rom—how did she put it—”

  “Flipping her stuff all the way out?”

  “That’s it.”

  There was so much I wanted to say to Zelda. So much I wanted to ask her. Where did she get the stolen car? Did she know Marcus Rydell? Was he the Satan she was talking about? Did he give her the drugs? And why on earth would he do such a thing?

  But it wasn’t just about that. I wanted to know how it felt to her when she knew God was there. I needed to know that. For Ophelia.

  Later, though. For now, it was all about Desmond.

  “You know what, Mr. Chief, we got a lot more room here than we do at home. You have got to get you some bad pipes on this thing.”

  Desmond was rolling Chief toward us, making engine sounds en route. I knew he would pop a wheelie in this venue if I didn’t intervene.

  “I’ll take over,” I said.

  “I’m going to sit out with Desmond until they call him,” Chief said.

  Anxiety lapped at me.

  “Kade’s got it handled, Classic.”

  He was Chief-right. Although Kade had bags under his eyes the size of small carry-ons, the eyes themselves were bright when he greeted me at the table.

  “Were you up all night?” I said.

  “What night?” He glanced at the still vacant judge’s bench. “We only have a minute, but I just need to make totally sure you want to go this route.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I know that makes it difficult.”

  “Big Al,” he said. “Step back and watch me work.”

  He tucked his mischievous grin away as Judge Atwell took the bench. When the preliminaries had been dispensed with and Kade stood up to speak, he was pure professionalism.

  “Are you prepared to convince me that Ms. Chamberlain has the mental stability to raise a child, Mr. Capelli?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Then you’re going to give me a rational explanation for this prophecy situation.”

  “No, sir.”

  Judge Atwell drew his chin toward his chest. “This is not a game, counselor.”

  “I fully respect the court, Your Honor,” Kade said. “I am completely serious.”