Black-Eyed Susans (29 page)

Keep folding.
The doorbell rings,
and Lucas is up, opening the door. Probably Effie dropping off a food bomb. I glance at
my watch: 4:22
P.M
.—a couple of hours before I have to pick up
Charlie from practice.

“Is Tessa home?” A nerve,
plucked like a guitar string, as soon as I hear his voice.

Lucas’s feet are planted deliberately,
blocking my view of the door. “And this would be regarding what?” The drawl
pulls out every bit of the West Texas in him. In slow motion, I see Lucas’s left
hand, the support hand, casually rise and rest on his upper chest. The fingers on his
right hand, clinching. The ready position for the fastest way to yank a gun out of your
pants. He’d demonstrated for me in the back yard not an hour before.

“Lucas!” I jolt myself away from
the couch, toppling three of the piles. “This is Bill, the lawyer I’ve told
you about who is handling Terrell’s appeal. Angie’s friend.” All I can
see beyond Lucas is the tip of a Boston Red Sox cap. I’m behind Lucas, pushing
uselessly against hard muscle. I feel around his waist for a gun that isn’t there.
His movements a few seconds ago, just the reflex of a wary man. I realize that while
Bill can’t see my face, he has a perfect view of my hand curled intimately near
Lucas’s crotch.

Old resentment flushes heat into my face.
This macho idiocy from Lucas is the primary reason we were drawn to each other when I
was a scared, hormonal eighteen-year-old, and the primary reason
we
broke up. He descended from a generation of men who sent hearts skittering in terror
with the one-two clunk of their boots. Who lived life like everyone was about to
quick-draw. Lucas leaps eagerly at cat screeches, car backfires, knocks on the door.
He’s a good man and a terrific soldier, the best, but as an everyday life partner,
he electrocutes the roots of every hair on my skin.

“Lucas,
move.
” I shove
a little harder.

Lucas steps aside slightly so I can wriggle
beside him.

“Bill, Lucas,” I say.
“Lucas, Bill.”

Bill sticks out a hand. Lucas ignores it.
“Hello there, Bill. I’ve been wanting to meet you. I’ve been wanting
to ask how involving Tessa at this very late date is a good thing. Don’t you think
it’s time to step away? Ride off in your BMW out there? Give Tessa and my daughter
the peace they deserve?”

For a moment, I’m speechless. I had no
idea Lucas was pulsing with this kind of anger. We were melting down, every one of us. I
step firmly onto the porch. “Lucas. Butt out of this, OK? Whatever I’m
doing, it’s my call. Bill isn’t forcing me.”

I shut the door in Lucas’s face, not
for the first time. “You can wipe off that expression, Bill.” Not exactly
what I meant to say. Not,
I miss you.

“So that’s your soldier?”
Bill asks.

“If you mean Charlie’s father,
yes.”

“He’s living here?”

“On a short leave. Long story, but
Charlie was scared after that night of the … vandal. She Skyped Lucas about it and
shortly after that he showed up on my doorstep. He has an understanding boss and was
overdue for a leave to visit Charlie anyway. I didn’t invite him, but I’m
not sorry he came. He’s on … the couch.”

“That doesn’t seem like a very
long story.” Bill’s voice is cool. “If you’re still in love with
him, just say so.”

My arms are crossed tight against my thin
sweater. I have no interest in inviting Bill inside and refereeing between the two of
them.

“This isn’t a conversation
… we need to have,” I say. “You and
me … we
can’t be a thing. We slept together for the wrong reasons. It’s not like me
to do something that impulsive
. I’m not that girl.
”

“You didn’t answer the
question.” I meet his eyes. Flinch. The intensity is almost unbearable. Lucas had
never looked at me like that. Lucas was all hands and instinct.

“I’m not in love with Lucas.
He’s a good guy. You just caught him at a bad moment.” Already I’m
wondering if Bill’s laser gaze is for real, or if it’s method acting with an
on/off switch. Useful for withering a witness, or stripping a girl down to her
scars.

Lydia had always sworn no one could reach
her vagina with his eyes but Paul Newman, “Even though he’s ancient.”
She hadn’t met Bill. I wouldn’t
want
her to meet Bill. To tarnish
this, whatever
this
is.

Why am I thinking about Lydia right now?

Bill plunks himself down in the swing,
clearly not going anywhere. I reluctantly position myself on the other end. For the
first time, I notice a large manila envelope about two inches thick, in his hand.

“What’s that?” I ask.

“I brought you something. Have you
ever read any of your testimony from the trial?”

“It never occurred to me.” A
lie. I’d thought about it plenty. The jury ogling me like I was an alien and the
sketch artist scratching long, swift pencil strokes for my hair. My father, sitting in
the front row of a packed room, petrified for me, and Terrell, in a cheap blue tie with
gold stripes, keeping his eyes glued to a blank piece of notebook paper in front of him,
the one for his notes. He never once looked at me or took a note. The jury interpreted
it as guilt.

So did I.

“I’ve pulled out a few sections
for you,” Bill says.

“Why?”

“Because you feel such guilt about
your testimony.” Bill halts the swing abruptly. He taps the envelope that now
rests between us. “Please read this. It might help. You are not the reason Terrell
sits in prison.”

I cross my arms tighter.
“Maybe you’re just thinking that the more I take myself back there, the more
I might remember something that would help Terrell.”

“Is there something wrong with
that?”

My heart begins to pound, hating this.
“No. Of course not.”

He pushes himself up and the swing bounces
and jerks in protest. “Jo told me about the tooth. I wish you’d let us know
you were going to your grandfather’s. I wish you weren’t so intent on
shutting me out. Are you planning to dig somewhere else?” He’s stilling the
swing with his hand while I get up.

“No. It was the last place. Is Jo
… mad?”

“You’d have to ask
her.”

He’s moving away, bristling with
frustration. At life. At me. I grab the envelope off the swing and follow him to the
steps. “Tell me the truth. Is there any hope at all for Terrell?”

He starts to step off the porch before
swiveling halfway around, almost knocking me back. I am already there, only inches away.
“There are a few more appeals to file,” he says. “I’m driving to
Huntsville to see him for the last time next week.”

I grip his arm. “The last time? That
doesn’t sound good. Will you tell Terrell … that I’m still trying very
hard to remember?”

Bill’s eyes are glued to my
fingernails gripping his sweatshirt, always unpolished and cut short, still crumbed with
dirt from my grandfather’s garden. “Why don’t you tell him
yourself?”

“You can’t be serious! I’d
be one of the last people he’d want to see.”

Bill removes my hand deliberately. He might
as well have shoved me down.

“It isn’t my idea,” he
says. “It’s his.”

“Doesn’t Terrell … hate
me?”

“Terrell is not a hater, Tessa. Not
bitter. He’s one of the most remarkable men I’ve ever met. He believes you
have it the worst. For a long time, he said he could hear your weeping at night over the
other sounds of Death Row. He says a prayer for you before he goes to sleep. He’s
told me not to push you.”

Terrell has heard me
crying on Death Row. I’m keeping him awake. I’m an echo in his head, like
the Susans are in mine.

“Why in the hell didn’t you tell
me this before?”

“There’s no human touch. Can you
imagine that? Twenty-three hours a day in a tiny cage with a narrow slot for food. A
tiny Plexiglas window that’s so high he has to ball up his mattress and stand on
it to see out, for a fuzzy view of nothing. One hour a day to briskly walk around
another small cage for exercise. Every second to think about dying. You know what he
says is the worst part? More than the sounds of men screaming, or trying to choke
themselves, or arguing over imaginary chess games, or incessantly tapping typewriters?
The smell. The stench of fear and hopelessness oozing from five hundred men. Terrell
never takes deep breaths on Death Row. He thinks he might suffocate or go insane if he
does. I can’t swig a deep breath without thinking of Terrell. Why didn’t I
tell you before, Tessa? Because you have enough to carry around.”

He taps the envelope I’m holding.
“Read this.”

He doesn’t wave goodbye as he backs
out of the driveway.

When I walk inside, Lucas is facing the
door, leaning against the back of the couch, dragging on his beer. Waiting.
“What’s wrong?” He’s already restacked the piles of clothes that
toppled over, a Lucas-style apology. “What did he want?”

“Nothing important. I think I’m
going to take a nap before I pick up Charlie.”

“You’re sleeping with
him.” A statement, not a question.

“I’m going to take a nap.”
I brush past him toward the hall.

“He could be using you,
Tess.”

I close my bedroom door and slide down its
back to the floor. Lucas is still calling after me. Tears prick at the corners of my
eyes.

I run my nail under the flap of the envelope
and pull out the tidy stack of court documents.

Bill might not think Tessie’s guilty.
But I know she is.

MR. LINCOLN
: Tessie, would you
say that you played unusual games as a child?

MS. CARTWRIGHT
: I’m
not sure what you mean.

MR. LINCOLN
: Let me put it
this way. You have a pretty big imagination, right?

MS. CARTWRIGHT
: I guess so.
Yes.

MR. LINCOLN
: Did you ever
play a game called Anne Boleyn?

MS. CARTWRIGHT
: Yes.

MR. LINCOLN
: Did you ever
play a game called Amelia Earhart?

MS. CARTWRIGHT
: Yes.

MR. LINCOLN
: Did you ever
play a game called Marie Antoinette? Did you lay your head on a tree stump and let
someone pretend to lop off your head?

MR. VEGA
:
Your honor, once more, Mr. Lincoln’s questioning is simply designed to distract
the jury from anything meaningful and from the man who sits in that chair on trial.

MR. LINCOLN
: On the
contrary, your honor, I’m trying to help the jury understand the environment where
Tessa grew up. I find that very meaningful.

MR. VEGA
: In that case, let
me enter into the record that Tessa also played checkers, dolls, tea party, thumb wars,
and Red Rover.

JUDGE WATERS
: Mr. Vega, sit
down. You’re bugging me. I’ll let you know when you’re bugging me, Mr.
Lincoln, but you’re close.

MR. LINCOLN
: Thank you, your
honor. Tessa, would you like a drink of water before we continue?

MS. CARTWRIGHT
: No.

MR. LINCOLN
: Did you ever
play Buried Treasure?

MS. CARTWRIGHT
: Yes.

MR. LINCOLN
: Did you ever
play Jack the Ripper?

MR. VEGA
: Your honor …

MS. CARTWRIGHT
: Yes. No. We
started the game but I didn’t like it.

MR. LINCOLN
: We, meaning you
and your best friend, Lydia Bell, whom you mentioned earlier?

MS. CARTWRIGHT
: Yes. And my
brother. And other kids in the neighborhood who were around. It was a super-hot day. A
bunch of us
were bored. But none of the girls wanted to be the victims
after one of the boys brought out a ketchup bottle. Maybe it was Lydia. We decided to do
a Kool-Aid stand instead.

MR. VEGA
: Your honor, I used
to dissect live tadpoles by the river when I was six.

What does that say about me? I’d like
to remind him and the jury that Tessa is the victim here. It’s been a very long
day for this witness already.

MR. LINCOLN
: Mr. Vega, I
have a really good answer for your tadpole question. But right now, I just want to note
that Tessie’s childhood involved games about violent deaths, missing people, and
buried objects. That art imitated life long before she was found in the grave. Why is
that?

MR. VEGA
: Jesus Christ, you
are actually testifying. Are you calling what happened to Tessa “art”? Are
you suggesting it was some kind of divine karma? You’re a son of a bitch.

JUDGE WATERS
: Up here,
boys.

Terrell and I are not breathing the same air.
That’s the first thing I think. I wonder how many puckered lips of mothers and
lovers have kissed the cloudy window that divides us.

The first thing I
feel
is shame.
Until this moment, I’ve never really examined his face. Not in the courtroom when
he was twenty feet away, not on the television when it blared our names like a celebrity
marriage, not in a grainy image in the newspaper.

His eyes are bloodshot holes. His skin is
shiny black paint. Pockmarked. A line drawn by a knife drizzles like milk down his chin.
I stare at his scar and he stares at mine. More than a minute passes before he reaches
for the phone on his side of the wall. He gestures for me to do the same.

I pick it up and press it hard against my
ear so Terrell Darcy Goodwin can’t see my hand shaking. He sits in a tiny cubicle
on the other side of the glass. The small vent above my head is pumping cold air and
drying my throat into brittle paper.

“Billy said you’d come,”
he says.