Waiting for Morning (29 page)

She reached under her bed, pulled out a small plastic bag of pills, and dumped them on her bedspread. Her mother would be home in two hours, maybe three. She stared at the heap of
pills and ran a finger through them. If she took them now, she would be unconscious in fifteen minutes, but death would take a while longer. Maybe an hour, maybe more.

Jenny knew how long it took her to die depended on the number of pills and how quickly her metabolism worked. Factors she couldn’t control. If she did it now, she might even be dead before her mother came home. But if not, she needed to have the door locked so she could buy a little more time. That way, though her mother might find a way to break into the room, she wouldn’t have enough time to save Jenny’s life.

The pills were multicolored, coated with a gelatin for easy swallowing and digestion. Sleeping pills and some outdated pain medication she’d found in her father’s medical bag. The Internet had taught her that there was little mess with pills. That meant her mother wouldn’t have a lot of trauma.

Jenny hesitated. She was so close, so desperate to be with Alicia and Daddy. Suddenly she heard the voice. It spoke to her often these days and it always said the same thing:
Take the pills. Take the pills. Do it, Jenny. Take the pills
.

If she did it now they could be together in one hour. She drew a deep breath.
God, give me the strength
.

The pills looked ominous, dozens of them heaped up in the center of her bedspread. Jenny picked up a small handful and rolled them around in her palm.
Don’t be mad at me, Lord.… You know I love you
.

Suddenly there was a soft thudding sound. Then another and another. Three thuds, coming from Alicia’s room. Jenny dropped the pills and stared at the wall. Three thuds. The signal she and Alicia had used all their lives.

I love you
.

Jenny’s hands began to tremble and then her arms, until finally her scalp was tingling. There was no one in the next room. The sounds echoed in her mind, and she wondered if she had heard them or only imagined them.

Jenny willed herself back to last Christmas when she and
Alicia were in their rooms, racing to clean them before dinner. But it wasn’t Christmas past. It was Christmas present.

“Alicia …” Tears spilled from her eyes and she squeezed them shut. “I love you too.”

Jenny wasn’t sure how long she sat that way. Eventually she fell asleep, huddled against a mound of pillows, her hand resting on the wall that separated her room and Alicia’s.

The beach was empty that afternoon, and Hannah figured it was because most people had better things to do. She and Matt walked along the pier slowly, gazing out to sea. The day was cool and overcast, not quite seventy degrees, and a breeze blew off the Pacific Ocean. Hannah was glad for her bulky sweatshirt.

Matt was so easy to be around. During the drive he’d talked about a few other cases he was working on, and the time had passed quickly. Now, as they studied the succession of waves hitting the shore, a comfortable silence fell between them.

“Your case is coming along.” They stopped walking and Matt leaned against the white wood railing. “I wasn’t sure if you wanted to talk about it.”

Hannah nodded. “Is it looking strong?” She folded her arms and studied him, making sure that several feet separated them.

He gazed back out to sea. “I keep looking for a loophole, a weakness, some way the defense will be able to convince the jury this wasn’t murder one.”

“And?”

“I don’t see one.” He turned toward her, and his eyes held a wealth of sincerity. “It’s a strong case, Hannah. I really think we can do it.”

She gazed through the slats of wood that made up the pier, looking down to the water below. When she was a little girl she’d always been afraid of the slats, afraid she’d fall into the ocean and drown. The slats didn’t bother her now. She was in
way too far over her head to worry about drowning. She lifted her eyes to Matt’s. “I’ve got four victim impact panels lined up for January and February.”

“They’re making a difference. I’ve seen you on TV a couple times now.”

Hannah glanced up, eyes wide. She’d been on TV? “You have?”

“Yes. You look determined—and beautiful, in a tragic way. And very angry.”

He thinks I’m beautiful
. Hannah’s gaze fell, and she chided herself for enjoying the thought.

“People watch that kind of thing, they read it in the paper, and pretty soon they start to see drunk driving a little differently. After hearing your story, some of them will be fed up. Once the public takes on that sentiment, murder one is only a matter of time.”

An ocean breeze blew Hannah’s hair back, and a chill ran down her neck. She gritted her teeth. “Good.” She pictured Brian Wesley locked in a solitary, rat-infested cell. “I wish they still did hangings in the public square.”

Matt raised his eyebrows and his voice grew soft. “Is that what this is all about?”

“What?” Hannah snapped. “I hate Brian Wesley. Surely you of all people understand that.”

“I understand.” Matt’s gaze fell for a moment and then found her eyes again. “But I don’t like what I hear in your voice.”

“Oh, please.” Hannah didn’t have patience for this. “Brian Wesley is the reason we’re doing this. You know that.”

Matt thought for a moment. “I want to see Brian locked up, but only because that’s the punishment he deserves. He’s not the reason we’re pushing for murder one.”

“He’s
my
reason.”

Matt shook his head. “He’s just one drunk driver, Hannah. We want to change the way people look at drunk driving on
the whole. Then maybe we can prevent the kind of thing that happened to your family.”

Hannah paused. Matt was right, of course. That should be the reason. Still, that wasn’t what motivated her to get up before a crowd and bare her heart about the collision.

Picturing Brian Wesley in prison was what motivated her. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Hannah—” Matt interrupted her thoughts. He rubbed his hands together to keep them warm. “Is everything okay with Jenny?”

She shrugged and began walking again. She could feel the hard, angry lines creasing the skin around her eyes, and she pressed her lips together.
I bet I don’t look beautiful now
. She shook the thought away. There was no point worrying about how she looked. Smiles came from the heart. Her face was a direct reflection of her feelings.

She thought about Jenny. “At first … after the accident, Jenny was mad at me. Not Brian Wesley. She doesn’t hate him like I do. She never has. She hated me, and we fought all the time.” Hannah’s heart ached as she remembered how quickly her relationship with Jenny deteriorated after Tom and Alicia’s deaths. Hannah searched for the words. “But now, I don’t know … it’s like she’s given up. She’s thirteen years old and she acts like she’s finished living.”

Matt’s expression changed. “You don’t think—”

Hannah caught the look in his eyes and shook her head. “No, nothing like that.” Hannah didn’t mention the school principal and her concerns that Jenny might be thinking about suicide. “Jenny’s a very stable girl. But she and Alicia were so close and now … it doesn’t seem like she knows how to go on.”

Matt nodded as he walked alongside her. They were approaching the end of the pier. “I had this strange feeling earlier that I was supposed to pray for her.”

“Really?” Hannah felt a twinge of anger. She didn’t want to talk about prayer this Christmas day. That life was behind her.

But Matt nodded and went on. “I prayed while I was getting ready and the whole time I felt that something bad was about to happen to her.”

Hannah rolled her eyes. “Great. Figures that’d be the kind of thought you’d get about Jenny. When God is against you, he doesn’t pull any punches does he?”

Matt was quiet and they walked the last few yards to the end of the pier. A seal splashed near the pilings below, and they watched him for a few moments. “God isn’t against you, Hannah.” Matt’s voice was quiet, and she had the distinct impression he was trying not to start an argument.

She braced herself against the white railing and stared up at the cold, gray sky. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t believe there is a God anymore. Not after what happened.”

“It’s a fallen world. People get hurt. Injustice happens.” Matt rested his back against the railing and faced Hannah. “That’s because of mankind, not God.”

She wanted to scream at him, to push him away. How dare he tell her it wasn’t God’s fault? “He could stop it. If he’s really a great and mighty God, then he could have caused Tom to be ten seconds slower that afternoon. Or made Brian drive ten seconds faster. Something. But he didn’t keep it from happening and that’s—that’s why I stopped believing.”

“Sometimes he has a different plan.”

Hannah sighed and moved forward, leaning her body on the railing and gazing down at the churning sea below. “I never
wanted
a different plan. Only Tom and Alicia … all of us—” Her voice caught, and she sank down on a nearby bench. Tears spilled from her eyes and she wiped them dry.

Matt knelt on one knee next to her and ran a hand soothingly over her shoulder. “It’s okay. You can cry. The Lord understands …”

She tried to shut out the words. She had heard enough about the Lord. “Please, Matt …”

“I know, I know. You’re not ready.”

Matt’s voice was like an anchor in what seemed to be the greatest storm she’d ever faced. Still she disagreed with what he was saying. “I’ll never be ready. God abandoned me, and that’s not the kind of God I used to believe in.”

“Hannah, the Lord never—”

“No!”

“Give me a chance. The Lord does understand. John 11:35 says—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” She buried her face in her hands, shutting out both the sound and sight of Matt Bronzan. “Please, Matt.”

There was silence, and when Hannah opened her eyes, Matt was standing again, leaning against the railing, studying her. “Okay. No talk about God. But don’t let yourself drift too far away. You might not be able to find your way back.”

As though I’d want to …

She wiped the tears off her cheeks. She’d been gone long enough. She wanted to get home, back to Jenny and the miserable existence that was their life these days.

Matt seemed to sense her thoughts. He stuck his hands deep into his pockets and straightened. Hannah pictured Tom and remembered how he had moved so similarly, with the same athletic grace.

He reached out his hand. “Come on, let’s get you back home and see how Jenny’s doing.”

The sound of the front door opening brought Jenny instantly awake. She glanced around the room and felt her arms. She was alive, but she couldn’t remember why. Then she saw the pills scattered on her bedspread and her heart sank.

She had fallen asleep.

Now her mother was home and it was too late.

She gathered the capsules and quickly dropped them in the plastic bag. She could hear her mother’s footsteps making their
way closer to her room. Leaning over her bed she tossed the bag of pills far underneath. She didn’t know what had made her fall asleep, but she wasn’t going to worry about it. There would be other opportunities.

And when they presented themselves, she would be ready.

Twenty-four

He has besieged me and surrounded me with bitterness
and hardship. He has made me dwell in darkness
like those long dead
.

L
AMENTATIONS
3:5–6

January blended into February and then into March while Hannah kept herself too busy to worry about Jenny or the impending trial or anything but the victim-impact panels. The media ate it up, reveling in the story for all its human interest elements and ground-breaking possibilities. Before the end of March, Hannah appeared on two local television talk shows and
Good Morning America
. They showed pictures of Tom and Alicia and talked in reverent tones about Hannah’s strength, her determination to see that justice prevailed.

“A day is coming,” Hannah would tell them, “when I will finally be at peace. That will be the day Brian Wesley is convicted of first-degree murder.”

Sometimes Hannah wondered about Brian, where he was, what he was doing. Once she asked Carol about it over lunch, but the woman didn’t seem the least bit worried.

She shook her head. “It isn’t healthy for you to worry about this.” Carol hesitated. “Remember back a few months ago … I asked you to read Lamentations? Have you done it?”

Hannah sighed and set down her club sandwich. “No. And I don’t plan to. If I remember, Lamentations is in the Bible, and I’m not interested in reading the Bible anymore.”

“Hannah—”

“Please, Carol. Between you and Matt, I’m beginning to
think there’s a conspiracy. ‘Poor Hannah, throwing away her faith when she needs it most.’ I don’t want to be your project, Carol. If there is a God, then he might as well take the stand right next to Brian Wesley. Because when it comes right down to it, God allowed this. He could have stopped it. So why in the world would I want to read Lamentations, or anything else God has to say?”

Carol seemed flustered. She sipped her apple juice, as though giving herself time to gather her thoughts. “I … well, I’ve been praying about it. I feel there’s a message for you there, Hannah. Every time I ask the Lord … when I don’t know what to say to help you … Lamentations comes to mind.”

Hannah picked up her sandwich and brought it to her mouth. “Let it stay there, Carol. I’m through with Scripture.” She took an angry bite, chomped it, and swallowed. “Now what I really want to know is what’s happening with Brian Wesley?”

Carol glanced down at her plate and poked at the remainder of her sandwich. “I don’t know.”

Hannah continued. “I keep thinking of that day in court when he had a Bible under his arm. If it was a Bible. I mean, it’s possible he’s going around thinking he’s some kind of Christian or something.”

Carol looked up and spoke in a quiet voice. “Would that bother you?”