No Defense (35 page)

“What?” Mother asked. Her back was to me as
she cooked over the stove.

“But it seems like lifetimes ago. I just
don’t remember you and me like this-relaxing together, you know,
hanging out. Not after I was bigger, anyway.”

Mother turned around, holding the cast-iron
frying pan full of eggs in her left hand, the spatula in her right,
and frowned slightly as she scraped the eggs out onto a plate. She
served me, then pulled out a chair and sat down across from me. She
looked at me expectantly.

I thought back over my high-school and
junior-high years. “You and I never avoided each other, I don’t
think,” I said. “We just spent less and less time together over the
years. It was always Daddy and me, and Jane and you. Why do you
suppose that was?”

“I don’t really know,” she said. “Over the
weekend, waiting next to Jane’s hospital bed and struggling with
the biggest decision I’ve ever had to make, I thought about you and
your sister, how you gravitated toward Newell, and Jane toward me.
I can’t pinpoint any particular event. All I know for sure is that
by the time you were twelve or thirteen that’s how our family was
divided. Eat something, please.” She pursed her lips and watched
me, waiting for me to eat.

I picked up the fork and pushed my eggs
around. “I feel responsible,” I said. I took a bite of toast.

“For what?”

“Everything, including our relationship back
then.”

“Oh, LuAnn. You were only a child. I didn’t
even realize the family had split along those lines-you and Newell,
and Jane and me-until it was too late. Relationships change
gradually. Nothing seems to change day to day, then suddenly
everything is different and you can’t put your finger on what
happened. Just like I didn’t realize Newell was in love with
someone else until the affair ended.”

I dropped my fork. “You knew about Liz
Reese?” I asked.

“I wasn’t sure
who
she was until the
trial, but I knew he had been in love with someone besides me. I
finally figured out last week who it had to be, and then I called
Junior and told him what I believed had really happened. Then
Junior called her and she testified.” Mother took hold of the cross
she wore on a slim gold chain around her neck and pulled it back
and forth against the chain. She appeared lost in thought.

“You!” Choking on the bite of eggs I’d just
eaten, I patted my chest, swallowed, and took a breath. “I can’t
believe it! Does Daddy know it was you who brought Liz Reese
back?”

“I told him Monday afternoon, after the
trial ended. And I told him I’d gladly do it again and that if he
ever hurt one of my children again I’d leave him for good.” Her
normally complacent tone was replaced by a defiant one.

“How did you know for sure what had
happened?” I asked. “How’d you figure it out?”

“It was the only explanation. In the first
place, I never believed your father’s line that he was behaving
like a fool to uphold some great principle-to make the government
meet its burden of proof. I know him too well. He would have been
the first to say, Hey, I was at work or whatever. It had to be that
he didn’t want to reveal where he was that night. All I knew for
sure was that he wasn’t with me or at home. But I also knew he
didn’t kill anyone. And I knew he was in love with someone else
around that time. It was then just a matter of listening to the
testimony.”

“Did you tell Daddy what you were going to
do before you talked to Junior?”

“Are you kidding? I didn’t want to give him
a chance to talk me out of it. He’s a very persuasive man. I don’t
think he would ever have told the truth if I hadn’t
intervened.”

“What if he were convicted? Surely he would
have said something then?”

“He was so sure he wouldn’t be, and he was
probably right. He was furious when I told him I had convinced
Junior to call Liz Reese. He thought I went to Junior
to
save him. But I told him that saving him had nothing to do with my
actions, that I went to Junior because his version of the truth was
not acceptable. I wanted everyone else to see what really happened
fifteen years ago, especially Jane and you. Newell and I had a
fight about it Monday night. He was sitting where you’re sitting
now, yelling at me.”

“What did he say? Why did he put us through
it?”

“He thought his election chances were better
if the State failed to prove its case than if he told the whole
story right up front, and he wanted to protect Liz Reese and her
daughter from the past.”

“What about us?” I asked. Again I felt about
as significant to my father as one of his fishing worms.

“He thought we could take it, he said,
especially you. He thinks you’re tough. We knew he was innocent, he
said, so he didn’t think we had anything to lose. He couldn’t
understand why that wasn’t enough.”

“I was a wreck, and he knew it! I couldn’t
take it. He could even have told us the truth and then gone ahead
with his crazy trial strategy. Even that wouldn’t have been as
horrid as the last months have been. He could have told Ben in the
beginning and stopped the whole investigation. There are so many
ways Daddy could have avoided all of the terrible things we all
went through. How could he allow Chip to put Jane through that
cross-examination?”

“He assumed she’d never testify, he
said.”

“But when she did, at that point he should
have stood up and explained how the murders really happened. Why
did he want so badly to protect Liz Reese?”

“Well, I think he still loves her in a way.
At least he feels something intense for her. She was very young
during their affair. He says he owed it to her after all she’d been
through. And her daughter, Camille, never knew her father. Newell
figured she’d be crushed if she knew the truth about Dean
Reese.”

“So he let me and Jane be crushed instead.
We’re only his daughters.” I shook my head.

“She reminds me of you,” Mother said.

“Who?”

“Liz Reese. Both of you are beautiful,
smart, assertive young women. Your father’s type. I never was.”

“So why aren’t you leaving him? He deserves
it.”

“We’ll see how your father and I adjust to
one another now. It won’t be easy, but I’m hopeful.”

“Why? He’s mean and selfish! I’d leave him
if I were you.”

“I’m not that surprised, you see, that he
did what he did.”

“You’ve always known he was such a monster?”
I asked sarcastically. “That’s great.”

“That’s just it. He’s not, LuAnn. You
idolize him. I know him. You’ve always worshiped him. I haven’t.
I’m not saying what he did wasn’t thoughtless, even cruel. But my
expectations have never been as high as yours, and I can’t let my
marriage go as easily as some.” She looked at me knowingly.

“I haven’t let mine go,” I said
defensively.

“Sure seems like it,” she said. “What are
you going to do about your marriage?”

I sighed. “This morning I decided to move as
soon as possible.”

“Move where?” she asked, startled. “And do
what?”

“I don’t know. Away, that’s all. I don’t see
how I can live here after the trial, and I don’t want to ever see
Daddy again. It would be easier to leave.”

“You are such a person of extremes, LuAnn.
You go from one extreme--adoring him-to the other-wanting never to
see him again. When you were little you always threatened to run
away when life didn’t suit you.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“It’s true. Whenever you got mad, you’d tell
us we would never see you again, pack your Mickey Mouse bag, and
walk down the block. This decision is no different, except that it
was easier for you to turn around and come home then. If you run
away now, will you ever come back, even to visit?”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead. I just
want to go. That’s all I can deal with.”

“Maybe it’s time you learned to temper your
feelings, to see the shades of gray between the black and white. I
hoped after this experience you’d be able to see your father for
what he was and is: a human being, LuAnn, just like the rest of us.
I’m not justifying or defending anything he did. It was wrong. He
and I may not make it through all this, but he’s your father, he’ll
always be your father, and you need to work out a relationship that
isn’t based on fantasy. This is your chance to do that.” The more
she talked, the weaker her gravelly voice became.

“Leaving is a more attractive alternative
right now.”

“And what about Eddie? You can’t run off and
leave Eddie,” she said.

“Maybe he’d come too. Who knows?”

“I don’t think he wants to leave Tallagumsa.
He’s happy at the college, and the cartoons he’s done here are
wonderful. Your children are content. You have the Steak House.
Last time we spoke about the restaurant you called it the perfect
job. If you throw all that away, don’t you think you’d be sorry?
Stay and work this through. Come to church with me. That would help
you, I know.”

“I knew you couldn’t go through an entire
conversation without mentioning church,” I said, smiling.

“But I’ve been pretty good about it this
afternoon,” she said, smiling back at me. “Only once in over an
hour.”

“I know that was hard for you.” I laughed.
“Maybe you’re right. I shouldn’t make any rash decisions. But you
didn’t want me to live here in the first place, remember? Turns out
you were absolutely right.”

“I didn’t want you to live here because I
thought you were coming for all the wrong reasons, but now you’re
here, and I don’t want you leaving for all the wrong reasons.
You’ll have nothing to build a life on, leaving like that. Call
Eddie today, why don’t you? Call him now.”

“Maybe later. What about Barbara Cox? Are
they ... Is he living with her?”

“I have no idea. You’re his wife, though,
the mother of his children. You go get him.”

“Mother, you are too much today. I’m so
proud of you.” I stood up and walked around the table and hugged
her. “
Go get him!
Really.”

I put my dish and cup in the sink. “You want
some help with those clothes?” I asked.

“That would be lovely,” she said.

“Why don’t I fix us both some tea first,” I
said. “Your throat could use it.”

Tea in hand, we walked into the living room.
She pointed to each pile. “That pile is for the wash, that one to
be folded, and that one needs repair. I’ll be right back,” she
said.

She returned in a few minutes and handed me
an envelope. I opened it and saw Ben’s all-too-familiar
handwriting. It was dated two days earlier. Mother sat down on the
rug across from me, sipping her tea and sorting. I read the
letter.

Dear LuAnn,

How I wish we could have seen each other
before I had to leave for D.C., but Jolene intercepted my calls and
turned me away at your door. I wanted to wait you out, but the
paper demanded my return for the time being. If I had seen you, I
would have said good-bye, kissed you, and asked-where do we stand?
I am here for you, or there; you tell me where and when and it’s
done. I suspect you have a fair amount of figuring things out to do
now after the trial.
What do you want?
When you know, call
or come. Whatever happens, whatever you decide, I miss you and love
you.

Ben

I folded the letter and put it back in the
envelope.

Mother looked at me, hoping I’d share the
contents of Ben’s note with her.

“He just wanted to say good-bye,” I
said.

“That’s all?”

“Not exactly.”

“Now I get it.” Her face fell. “You’re
thinking of moving to Washington, aren’t you?” she asked sadly.

“No! He doesn’t have anything to do with my
wanting to leave.”

Mother looked skeptical.

“Really, he doesn’t. That’s one thing I’m
sure of He’s a wonderful person, but he and I-that was all just
another gigantic mistake. When I make mistakes, I make really big
ones.”

“I agree,” she said, smiling.

I put the envelope down and picked up a
familiar looking yellow and white plaid skirt. Could it be the one
I’d worn in high school? Half the hem was ripped out. I searched
through the sewing box and found white thread, a needle, and a
thimble. I threaded the needle and began to sew.

Mother stitched up the lining of an
olive-green gabardine suit jacket.

We worked together in friendly silence as
the October sun began to drop toward the lake. The pile of clothes
that needed repair was slowly shrinking.

Soon a car came down the gravel road to the
house, and Mother and I looked up expectantly from our sewing. I
steeled myself for my father’s entrance. The last time I’d seen him
we were in court and I slapped him. What would I do now? What would
I say? I wasn’t ready for this.

Perhaps I would never be ready, but I knew
Mother was right. I had to face him and begin to build our
relationship on an entirely different basis: one in which I was his
equal, not his devotee; one in which I judged him by the same
standards I judged others. I understood for the first time that I
had to separate my well-being, success, and happiness from my
father’s not by running away but by meeting him head-on.

A car door slammed, and someone walked
around the deck At first, with the glare of the sun behind the
person, I had difficulty making out who was at the door. All I
could see were cowboy boots and washed-out jeans.

The door opened. It was Eddie. The answer to
Ben’s question.

I looked at Mother suspiciously. She smiled
and stood up.

“Did you call him?” I hissed.

“Maybe,” she said. She walked out of the
living room, down the hall toward her bedroom.

Eddie walked in and I burst into tears.

“You aren’t going to run out of the room,
are you?” he asked.

I shook my head.

He sat down on the floor next to me. We both
stared straight ahead, out toward the lake.