wants to see you.”
I watch the red drop swell on my hand. “I’d like to see her, but I don’t think I can.” I sound helpless as a child and hate it.
“I could drive you. I’ll come this afternoon. Or tomorrow, if that’s better.”
“No! No. I can drive myself.” But it’s a long way to Spokane, more than four hundred miles. “Maybe next week, if it doesn’t snow again.”
In the long pause that follows, I bring my knuckle to my lips and suck away the blood.
“You’ve got to help her, Bobbie. You have to come to the hearing.” His rumbling voice is gentle now; I am only imagining the menace behind his words.
“Maybe it would help you, too,” he says.
The house ticks its irregular heartbeat in the silence. I think of Lenora’s pale face in the sterile prison, then see her tanned and animated among the tangled vines of my childhood. I force deep breaths to stop the spinning in my head. “I’ll talk to Lenora about it.”
“When?”
“I don’t know!”
He waits a beat. “If you don’t come down by Monday, I’ll come to get you.”
“Don’t threaten me! And don’t come back here.”
I jab the button on the portable phone so hard it flies from my hands and clatters to the floor. My hands are shaking.
This won’t do—too much silence. I go to the living room and switch on the stereo. An old Elton John song floats through the house, a song Lenora used to love. I can hear it playing from her dusty radio on the sunporch, nestled among the leaves and loam on the potting table.
And suddenly I’m desperately homesick to see Lenora. I want to ask her if Harley Jaines has told me the truth. I’m slipping back toward that dark place where I’ve been before. Lenora is my anchor, but I abandoned her. I let her stay in prison all these years.
Could I really have changed that? Why didn’t I try?
I know I must drive to Spokane.
David will want to go with me. That’s okay. I could let him drive while I zone out, maybe sleep. Perhaps Lenora won’t look so pale and lonely this time. I could talk to her about finding my self pregnant, how wretched it is to know what I must do….
No. I mustn’t use her that way. I wipe my face on my sleeve and go back to the porch, wrap up in the afghan and stare out at the snow.
Lenora will ask questions that I can’t answer. Emotions could swamp me. I know the dangers, but the thought of seeing her is soothing and a longing grows in my chest.
So I rationalize: If I go, Harley Jaines won’t come here again. If I talk to her, Lenora will understand that I can’t testify at her hearing. That I cannot save her because it’s all I can do to save myself.
CHAPTER 6
I n my earliest memory, I am lying in a bed with bars on the sides, a crib, and watching tiny speckles of light dance on the ceiling. I’m supposed to be sleeping. Instead, I listen to the music that seeps through the wall from the next room. I hear my mother’s voice, and my father’s and another man’s. I don’t know who he is but my mother does. I can tell by her voice, though I don’t understand the words.
The music feels happy. I hear my mother laugh and then the front door closes and her voice is gone. Only the low, rumbly sounds of Daddy and the stranger drift through the wall as I doze off.
Later something wakes me—a dream. A noise, maybe. I’m frightened but not enough to cry. The light has receded into a thin stripe around the door. The music is still playing in the next room but I don’t hear any voices. I throw one leg over the crib railing and hoist myself up—then I’m tumbling to the floor. I land on my big stuffed bear and roll off unhurt. I pick him up and get the door open and go out into the hall.
Daddy and the other man are sitting on the sofa in the living room with their backs toward me. Their heads are shadows in the lamplight.
“Daddy,” I say, and both faces turn toward me, surprised. More than surprised. Frightened?
Then they both smile and my father comes around the sofa, fast, and sweeps me up.
“Well, look at you! How did you get out of bed all by yourself?” He laughs and the other man, whose face I cannot remember except for a frame of reddish curly hair, laughs, too.
Carrying me back to bed, my father kisses the top of my head. “What a big girl you ‘re getting to be,” he says. “Daddy’s smart, big girl.” His voice sounds sad.
I was fifteen when my mother finally told me the truth about my father. She didn’t mean to. She meant to keep it secret forever. If she’d succeeded, it might have saved us all.
On Friday evening after dinner, I finally tell David about Harley Jaines. We argue about whether I should go to Spokane.
“You don’t know who this guy is. He could be some kook,” David insists. “We should have him checked out. I’ll call the prison, find out if Lenora’s had a regular visitor, if there’s really a hearing coming up.”
“David, I know who he is.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Don’t let him scare you into going down there if you’re not ready to see her. I don’t want you—” he pauses, choosing his words”—to make yourself sick again.”
Crazy again.
Pinpoints of light float through my vision and blackness gathers around the edges. I curse my inability to handle a normal household argument, or any stress at all. I take a deep breath and blow it out the way a sprinter does, the way Dr. Bannar showed me. Breathe and blow. Keep the oxygen flowing.
David paces between the kitchen table and the sink, numbering the reasons I should not make the trip, while I sit huddled on my chair staring at the half-eaten food congealing on my plate, hugging my knees. Suddenly I wonder whether it is I who have shut myself in this house like a recluse, or whether he’s keeping me here. Like a specimen in a jar. Homo sapiens insanitus.
I interrupt him. The confidence in my voice surprises us both.
“David. Regardless of Harley Jaines, I need to see Lenora. I want to see her. I don’t think I’ll ever be normal again—” was I ever normal? “—until I’ve done this.”
He looks at me as if I’ve already lost it. Worry and fear show in his eyes.
I spread my hands and state the obvious. “Hiding hasn’t worked.”
He shakes his head, defeated, then he comes to stand behind my chair. Without speaking, he places his hands on my shoulders and lays his cheek on the top of my head. I know he means it as a gesture of love, and it makes me feel like an unresponsive mother.
“I’ll drive you down on Sunday,” he says. “I’ll go in tomorrow and finish setting up the new exhibit so we can stay overnight in Spokane and drive back Monday.”
My muscles stiffen but he doesn’t seem to notice.
“It’ll be all right,” he says. “I’ll take care of you.”
I picture the two of us in the car those long hours, tension hovering over us like a back-seat driver.
On Saturday afternoon, when David goes to the museum, I pack my small suitcase and load it into the Honda. I put out extra food for the birds, and leave a note on the kitchen table.
David—I’m sorry, but I need to do this alone. Please don’t worry. I’ll call tonight. Love, Roberta.
When