All She Ever Wanted (50 page)

Kathleen didn’t care if they all knew she was crying. The sight of her father and brothers with their heads bowed, giving thanks to God, was nothing less than a miracle. “Heavenly Father we all thank you,” she said. “Thank you for bringing Daddy home… and all of us together again. Amen.”

“Amen,” everyone echoed. There was a burst of laughter all around, and they began to eat. Kathleen thought there must be more food on the table and spread out on the kitchen counters than there had been in the house during her entire childhood. She was almost too overwhelmed to eat any of it.

After most people had finished or gone back for seconds, her father rapped on his water glass to quiet everyone down and get their attention.

“I want to say a few words to all of you while I’ve got you all in one place,” he began. His smile faded and his eyes glimmered with tears. “I didn’t kill your mother. But I was guilty of a lot of other things—stealing and teaching you kids to steal, not being a very good father or husband, cheating people out of their money. God knows I deserved to go to jail. I brought shame on myself and on my family because I was a thief and because of the way I made all of you live. I didn’t do right by your mother and you kids. But I didn’t kill her. I would never lay a hand on her.” His voice grew hushed, and it was a moment before he could go on.

“When the justice system declared me guilty of murder, I was pretty angry about it. After all the appeals were exhausted and I realized I was in it for the long haul, well, I figured there was nothing else I could do except appeal to God. I wanted Him to set me free—and He did. But not in the way I expected.” He smiled.

“The chaplain taught me about Jesus—how He was unjustly accused and executed for a crime He didn’t commit. Yet Jesus submitted to God’s will and saved all of us in the bargain. In fact, He took the punishment for my crimes. The chaplain said that our only purpose in life is to glorify God—and I wasn’t doing that. I was doing the opposite, in fact. Never mind that I wasn’t guilty of murder, I was guilty of so many other things— mainly, wasting the life that God had given me. And so, as I got to know God, I came to the conclusion that if I had to go to prison in order to find Him… then it was worth it.”

Kathleen stared at her father in amazement, scarcely believing what she was hearing. Her father—her entire family—had become Christians and turned their lives around, and she’d had nothing to do with it. She professed to be a Christian, yet she had cut herself off from them so completely that she’d never even thought to pray for them. She knew that she would have to ask God to forgive her for that. It didn’t matter how many great things she’d done for God, how many charities she’d contributed to over the years. If she couldn’t even show compassion and love—and forgiveness— to her own family, it meant nothing. It occurred to Kathleen that she had been as much a prisoner as her father, locked away from her family emotionally all these years.

“I didn’t murder your mother,” her father repeated, “but I didn’t help her any, either. And now I want to make sure my accounts are paid with all of you. I want to ask you all to forgive me. Donny…? JT…?

Annie…? ” he asked, looking at each of them in turn. They all nodded, murmuring their assurances. “Leonard and Connie…? And you, Kathleen?”

“Of course, Daddy. Of course I forgive you.”

“Thank you,” he whispered.

The room was quiet for a moment as he wiped his tears on his sleeve. Then JT said, “You probably didn’t know it, Kathleen, but Dad has turned into a fire-and-brimstone preacher.”

“So I see.” She couldn’t hold back a smile. Neither could her father.

“I’m proud to be one, too,” he said. “God gave me a ministry to the other inmates. They saw the change in me and wanted to know why. The chaplain told us we should have a life verse, and mine was 1 Timothy 1:16: ‘I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.’

“Now the funny thing is, if I had been imprisoned as just a common, ordinary thief, none of the others would’ve listened to me. But the fact that I was a convicted murderer—well, that gave my testimony real clout among all the other murderers. So you see? God really does know what He’s doing. He put me in prison to bring Him glory, and I gotta tell you, we had a genuine revival up there in Attica. Got everybody reading the Bible and going to prayer meetings and everything.”

Connie brought out a cake and half a dozen other desserts, and everybody started laughing and talking again. But her father turned to Uncle Leonard, and Kathleen heard him ask quietly, “What about you, Leonard? Did you read those books I gave you?”

“I read them.”

“So? What do you think?”

“I think Jesus would have embraced Communism if He’d lived in today’s world—well, at the very least He’d’ve been a socialist. He cared about the poor and the helpless in society. That’s all I ever wanted—fair treatment for the poor.”

“It doesn’t do much good to feed and clothe and house the poor,” her father said, “if their souls aren’t saved. Jesus wasn’t just a good man, Len. Either He’s the Son of God or He’s a lunatic for saying that He was.”

Kathleen saw that Joelle was listening to the conversation, too. She leaned close to her and whispered, “Joelle, Jesus wasn’t a socialist.”

She smiled and said, “I know what he means, Mom.”

Later, when the feast finally ended and everyone sat around talking or dozing, Kathleen joined her sister, Annie, in the kitchen to help her and the other women clean up. She was pleasantly surprised when Joelle picked up a dish towel, too. Kathleen had so much to be thankful for, and she’d felt so many old wounds healing on this remarkable day. But she still felt there were unsettled matters in her heart.

“Annie, I’m trying to remember Mom. I know it was a long time ago, but what do you remember, especially about those last days?”

“You mean… when she died?”

“No, no. I don’t want you to relive that. … I’m wondering… I-I’m worried that Mom was angry with me when she died. We had a terrible fight before I left home—”

“She wasn’t angry with you at all! Just the opposite, in fact. She said she wanted to help you.”

“Help me? How?”

“I thought she was planning a party or something for you because she swore me to secrecy. Even Daddy and Uncle Leonard and the boys weren’t supposed to know. But I don’t suppose it matters if I tell now.”

Kathleen stopped drying the pot in her hands. She held her breath, waiting, while Annie gazed into the distance as if seeing the events all over again.

“Mama borrowed Connie’s car and we went on a trip—well, two trips, actually. Both times we left as soon as Daddy and Uncle Leonard went to work in the morning and hurried to get back before they came home. It was summer, and I was home from school. I don’t know where the boys were. I asked Mama where we were going and she said, ‘We’re going to help Kathleen. She deserves my help.’

“I knew you had just left for college, so I thought we were going up there to help you move in or something. But we didn’t. First we went to Brinkley’s Drugstore, and Mama got a whole pile of change. She told me to pick out my favorite candy bar while she went into the phone booth there in Brinkley’s and made some calls. I don’t know who to or how many.

“When she came out, we got in Connie’s car and drove a long way. Well, it seemed like we went halfway to California because our family never went
anywhere
in the car except to Bensenville. But it was probably just a couple of hours.”

“Do you have any idea where you went?” Kathleen asked.

“I think it was only to Albany, but I can’t be sure. We finally stopped in front of a building that had red-white-and-blue flags all over it and a sign that said ‘reelect somebody or other.’I remember that because I asked Mommy what reelect meant, but she never answered me. She made me wait in the car while she went inside. After driving all that way I was dying to get out, but she said no, she wouldn’t be long—and she wasn’t. She came out right away with an envelope. I know it had money in it because she took me to a restaurant and pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and bought us lunch. It was the first time I ever ate in a restaurant. I wanted to order dessert, too, but she said, ‘We can only spend a little bit. The rest is for Kathleen.’I was really mad at you!” Annie laughed.

Joelle grabbed Kathleen’s arm. “Rick Trent! Mom, it had to be! Remember what Mrs. Hayworth said about him going into politics?”

“Yes! I was just thinking the same thing. That must be where the three thousand dollars came from. She probably threatened to go public with what he had done to her. That’s why she dug out his old letters.”

“What are you talking about?” Annie asked.

“I’ll explain later,” Kathleen said, brushing away her question. “What was the second trip you took?”

“Well, we did the same thing the next day—leaving right after breakfast— only this time we drove to a pretty little town by a lake.”

“Oh, no!” Kathleen covered her mouth with her hand, afraid of what Annie was about to tell her.

“What?” Annie asked.

“Go on, please. I’ll explain later.”

“She met someone by the lake, an older man with gray hair. She made me wait in the car again, but this time I was glad she did because the man got real angry at her. I saw them arguing. When Mom came back, she was shaking so badly she could hardly shift the car. I was hoping we’d eat in a restaurant again, but she tore out of town like the devil was after her. And she didn’t have an envelope this time.”

“Lorenzo Messina!” Joelle said.

“She wouldn’t be foolish enough to try to blackmail him, would she?”

Kathleen breathed. “The car in the lake?”

“Oh, Mom!” Joelle cried. “He must be the one who murdered her!”

“Who? Would you please tell me what you’re talking about?” Annie said.

“What’s going on out here?” their father asked, coming into the kitchen.

“Get Uncle Leonard,” Kathleen said. “He needs to hear this, too.”

He thumped into the kitchen with his walker to join them, and Kathleen made both him and her father sit down.

“I think Mom was trying to get money from people in her past to help me pay for college. That’s what we fought about the last time I saw her, and she swore she’d get it somehow. I never imagined…” She couldn’t finish, horrified by the thought that her mother’s death might have been instigated by her.

“Aunt Annie just gave us another piece of the puzzle,” Joelle continued when Kathleen couldn’t. “She and Eleanor drove somewhere, maybe Albany, and someone in a campaign office gave them an envelope with money in it—probably the three thousand dollars Eleanor had in her purse when she died.”

“It had to be Rick Trent, her first husband,” Kathleen continued.

“That’s why she dug out his old letters—to bribe him. Mrs. Hayworth said that he ran for Congress or something, but if Mom had ever revealed what a dirty, rotten thing he and his father had done, nobody ever would have voted for him.”

“So he killed her?” Uncle Leonard asked.

“Maybe. But I think it was probably Lorenzo Messina. Annie said that Mom took her to a little town by a lake the next day and that she argued with an older man with gray hair.”

“What was she thinking!” Leonard cried. “You don’t try to blackmail a man like him!”

Once again, the knowledge that her mother had taken such a terrible risk for her sake, made Kathleen feel sick inside. She had to sit down.

“I think I know what the two tickets to New York City were for,” Joelle said. “I’ll bet she was going to find that Bartlett guy who worked on Broadway and try to get money from him, too.”

“But she never got a chance,” Kathleen’s father said. “She died before she could go.”

“I feel awful!” Kathleen wept. “Why didn’t I come home? We could have pieced this all together thirty-five years ago if I had spoken up. I’m so sorry, Daddy! It’s my fault you were in prison!”

“That’s not true, sweetheart,” he said, taking her into his arms. “You’d never even heard about this Rick fellow or the other guy.”

“We each had a piece of the puzzle and didn’t even know it,” Annie said. “I’m as guilty as you are, Kathleen. I never told anybody about the two trips Mama took.”

“You were nine years old,” Kathleen said. “Mom made you promise.”

“Listen, now,” their father said, “no one is to blame except the guy who did it. Don’t you think the Good Lord could have brought out all these facts thirty-five years ago if He’d wanted to? But then where would we all be today, and what kind of people would we be? I’d still be a thief, I know that for sure. No, I meant it when I said that it was worth going to prison to find the Lord.”

“Well, I want to get to the bottom of it,” Leonard said. “It had to be Lorenzo Messina. I’ll go to the police and get them to reopen the case.”

“The police won’t care,” Kathleen said. “As far as they’re concerned, it was solved. Dad served time for the crime. Besides, wouldn’t Messina be long dead by now? Wasn’t he in his forties when you moved to Deer Falls in 1929? He’d be, like… 115 years old by now.”

“You always were a math whiz,” her father said proudly.

“I’ll help you, Uncle Leonard, if you want me to,” Joelle said. “I can go on the Internet and Google Richard Trent. We can find out what years he ran for office. And we can try to find out about the mobster guy, too. Maybe we can even find out who the poor guy in the bottom of the lake was.”

Annie shook her head as if the conversation was making her dizzy. “The bottom of the lake? I don’t even want to ask!”

“I’d be grateful for your help, young lady,” Uncle Leonard said. “We’ll file a lawsuit. Donald deserves compensation from the blasted government for wrongful imprisonment all these years.”

“Good luck with that,” Kathleen said wryly.

“I’ll bring my laptop next time we visit,” Joelle said. “We can find all kinds of things on the Internet. We are coming back to visit again, aren’t we, Mom?” she asked, turning to Kathleen. “Like for Thanksgiving and Christmas and stuff?”

“I would like that,” Kathleen said, with a smile. “And speaking of Christmas, Daddy…”