reporters out there paid me five hundred dollars just for walking in here,” he said. “I told them I wouldn’t have anything to tell them when I came out, and that’s still true. But I’m not the only person in this world who, now that they know what you’ve been hiding, will ask questions about what right you have to keep something like this to yourself.”
“They’re already asking those questions, John,” Macon replied. “As for them paying you to come in here, well, do what you feel you need to do. I know how much your pension is, and it’s not enough. Everyone’s got to make a living.”
John nodded emphatically. “They do,” he said. “Each and every one of us, from the day we’re born to the day we die, we’ve got to live. And we’ve got to make a living. Times been tough lately.”
Macon leaned back in his chair. “What else is there, John?” he asked. There was less patience in Macon’s voice now. He respected the old man, thought of him as a good friend, but he saw in John’s eyes that a shade of resentment still remained there. He was still thinking of his wife, Mabel, still imagining what might have been, still imagining what he believed Ava could have done.
John stared at him across the table briefly. The old sheriff’s expression shifted from surprise to acceptance to anger to something akin to embarrassment. John took a deep breath. When he let it go, the words that followed slid out of him like an apology. “There’s this preacher coming to town.”
“We got bushels of them already,” Macon replied. “Could sell preachers by the pound if we wanted right now. Preachers and reporters, whole churches trying to set up camp out there. You name it, we got it.”
“No,” John said. “This one is different. Bigger. If I can talk you into sitting with him for a while...” His voice trailed off.
“Who is he?”
“Reverend Isaiah Brown. You’ve probably seen him on TV.”
“Can’t say I’ve heard of him. But I don’t really keep up with reverends and I haven’t really watched TV since they canceled Seinfeld.”
“I’m not the type to ask for favors,” John said, not pausing for the joke. “And I damned sure don’t beg anyone for anything—”
Macon held up a hand to stop him. “I’m not going to make you say the words,” he said. “I’ll think about it. How much will he give you for that?”
At last, the fidgeting and nervousness stopped. “Don’t know,” he said. “But I figure that’s got to be worth something.”
“Good,” Macon said.
John stood. “I’ll let him know,” he said. Then: “Just tell me, Macon. Promise me. Promise me you didn’t know. That she couldn’t have helped my wife. If you say it one more time, I’ll believe it, and I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”
The hardness and intimidation was stripped away from him. He was a man trapped between the solace that he had done everything in his power to save his wife’s life, and the possibility that, even though he didn’t know it at the time, he could have done more. Every brick of self-forgiveness that he had placed around his heart since his wife’s death was loosened, and all it would take was a word from Macon for it come to crashing down, leaving John to hate not only Macon but, most of all, himself.
“I promise,” Macon said. There was exasperation and confusion in his voice. He had known John for nearly all of his life, and yet here the man stood, ready to test the bounds of their friendship, ready to lay the blame for the death of his wife at Macon’s feet, all because of what Ava had done. But even through his frustration, Macon wondered if he would have behaved any differently. “This is all just as new to me as it is to everyone else, John,” Macon said. “If there was anything that I could have done to help your wife, anything at all, I would have done it. People have a duty to help one another, a responsibility. That’s one thing we’ve always agreed on.”
“All right,” John said finally. He made an awkward motion with his hand, something between a wave goodbye and a gesture of dismissiveness. “I believe you,” he said. “But there’s going to be people who won’t. Your daughter has started something. Something big. People in this world are looking for something to believe in, and they’re going to ask for help. When they do, if you say no—regardless of the reasons—they’re not going to like it.”
He turned and opened the door and finally left, leaving Macon to think about the future of things.
* * *
“Good news, kiddo. You’re getting paroled today.” Macon stood in the doorway of Ava’s hospital room with a small bouquet of flowers in one hand and a gym bag in the other. Floating above the flowers was a pair of balloons. One read Get Well Soon. The other It’s a Girl.
“See what I did there?” Macon asked with a grin, pointing up at the balloons.
“Carmen’s idea?” Ava asked. She sat up in the bed. Her father had never been the type to give flowers.
“Why wouldn’t they be my idea?” he asked Ava as he entered the room.
“Where’s Carmen?”
Macon placed the flowers on the windowsill. Outside the hospital the sun was high and bright. There were still reporters and people waving signs and banners in front of the hospital. “She’s at home,” he said. “She wanted to come, but it was just simpler if she stayed. Leaving the house is a little like heading out into a hurricane. People everywhere. Holding up signs. Shouting. Cheering. You name it. She and the baby don’t need to be a part of all that if it can be helped.”
“She just didn’t come,” Ava replied.
“It’s more complicated than that and you know it,” Macon said, dropping the gym bag on the foot of the bed. “I brought you some clothes to go home in. Go ahead and get dressed. We’re not in a rush, but I’d rather get this circus started.” He sat on the windowsill next to the flowers and folded his arms. “How are you feeling?”
“Fair to middling,” she said.
“Haven’t heard that in a while,” Macon replied. “Your mom used to say it.”
“I know,” Ava said. “She would have come to pick me up, no matter how many people were outside the house.” She sat up on the side of the bed and placed her feet on the floor. The cold ran up from the soles of her feet and tracked all the way up her spine. She still had trouble keeping warm since what had happened at the air show. She told the doctors about it, but they all assured her that it would be okay. They were always assuring her of the “okayness” of things, which did nothing more than convey to her that things were very far removed from okay. They saw her as a child, someone to keep the truth of things from, even if they did not know what the truth of things was. So they went on and on about how much they understood what had happened, and the more they said they understood, the more frightened Ava became. Though she was only thirteen, she knew that the bigger the lie, the more terrible the truth.
“How bad is this going to be?” she asked Macon as she took her clothes from the gym bag.
“We’ll get through it,” he said gently. “Go get dressed.”
Ava took her clothes and went into the bathroom to change. When she came out Macon was standing in front of the television—his neck craned upward at an awkward angle to watch. On the screen there was an image of the front of the hospital. The banner across the bottom of the screen read Miracle Child to Be Released. He switched it off.
“What happened to your hair?” he asked. Ava’s hair was a frizzy black mass atop her head. She had always had exceptionally thick hair—dark as molasses—and she was just enough of a tomboy that she gave it the least amount of attention that she felt she could manage. “Bring me a comb and come sit down,” Macon said, standing beside the bed.
Ava did as she was told. In the years between Heather’s death and the time when Carmen came into