She knew they had rules about bringing things in, but she prayed they could look the other way. The warden was killing a man, and he had made a show of this little bit of kindness, so certainly he could see fit to say yes. She took from her bag a bottle and set it down gingerly, almost like a beg-your-pardon for it being there against the rules.
The bottle rested between them, and the warden walked a bit closer and turned it so the label faced outward like the rest of the ingredients. He smiled a bit then, looking from the label to her, the pattern in the design the same as the embroidery on the apron she carried. Good branding. Her smile in the photograph was clockwork, perfected after years of showing her teeth because she had to, and then because her enterprise made it worthwhile.
“I understand. I got no qualms with it, considering.”
He was decent enough, but Rachel could tell the warden wanted no part of this. The letter in two places said he would understand if she said no. She could just send a recipe, and they’d honor his wishes. But if she’d said no, she would still know Thomas Elijah Raymond’s execution date, and she would probably look at the clock well aware of the hour. She would have wandered there in her mind even if she had said no to making this drive.
“We pick a fine time to pay attention, don’t we,” she said. Rachel was looking away, but the edge to her voice was unmistakable.
The warden said nothing.
She paused before she spoke again. “Nobody looking after him for years, and he’s got all kinds of eyes on him now. More this evening, I suspect. Spectators.”
“Witnesses. The family of the victim.” He pressed the clipboard flat against his waist, a stance that seemed automatic. “He doesn’t deny what he did.”
“I’m thinking about what we’re about to do. Me and you both. Trying to wake up and go about my business tomorrow and thinking back on this here.”
A hand on the counter then, like candor needed a different sort of balance before the words came freely. “You’ll probably feel worse about this tomorrow than you do today. I always do.”
“Why do it then?” she said.
And there they were on the other side of the nicety. She saw in the warden a decent man, but maybe that was part of the problem. What decent folks were willing to go along with. He was quiet for a minute, and he breathed in and out with too much intention. He glanced away in a room with no windows, and he seemed too accustomed to conjuring some good memory, a little daylight stored away for days such as this one. The ease in his face said as much.
“My wife reminded me this morning that we ate at your place awhile back. We were on our way to see some of her people in Tuskegee. Enjoyed it immensely — just a good meal on a good afternoon. I didn’t mention it to Raymond, because it’s rude to reminisce on things. Get casual with the outside world. Do you remember him?”
She shook her head. “So many kids over the years, it’s impossible to say.”
“Well, in any case, you’re appreciated.”
“Please tell your wife I said thank you. To you as well. Like you said, it doesn’t sit easy, so — well, thank you.”
It was quiet for a while again, except for the lights and the freezers, and the sound of Lionel’s wedding band against the countertop, a little sonar to bring him back to whatever was next on his clipboard.
“You sure I can’t get you some coffee or something?”
“No thank you. You’ve done just fine with the mixer.”
The warden excused himself then, and as he made his way down the corridor, the metal doors swung to silence. Rachel was alone again, her mind holding vigil. She had lied to the warden about Raymond. How could she not remember?
The boy couldn’t have been more than six or so, because she remembered him sitting at the table with what looked like his grandparents, coloring the children’s menu with the Crayolas she passed out in sardine cans. His family was on the way to Huntsville, the space center they said, and he had lined up the salt and pepper shakers, the Louisiana Hot, and the Heinz bottle as rocket ships taking off from the tabletop. To get dessert, he had to promise to finish the green beans, alone on the plate where the chicken had been, the wing and drumstick reduced to gristle and bone. He chewed with purpose but not enjoyment, like he was practicing handwriting with his jaws. But the booth they chose was across from the cake display, so he did a bit of window-shopping while he finished the last of the beans. Rachel was on the other side of the glass loading the shelf of red velvets. She remembered him studying his options. He didn’t like the green beans one bit, but he’d kept his word and intended to make the most of it.
He asked for the molasses cake, while his grandparents had red velvet and buttermilk pie. They thanked Rachel as they left, and then she looked away and didn’t see the boy fall to the ground. A child on the floor raised no alarm at first. Kids were prone to go from dillydallying straight to sprinting and stumbling. And the tantrums. But something was wrong because when Rachel finally noticed the boy on the floor, his eyes were widening as he struggled to breathe.
In the commotion, his people thought he was choking, but there didn’t seem to be any obstruction in his throat. He held his mouth open wide, still searching for air. Rachel got to the boy first, the allergy syrup from the first aid kit in hand. He coughed up the first dose, but she gave him more while his grandmother rocked him, his grandfather fanning with a napkin. By then the boy was breathing easier, and the gentle wheeze faded a bit.
After taking several deep, full breaths, the boy cried some and peered around. He hadn’t lost consciousness, but his eyes looked beyond them, apparently seeing nothing. Then he finally recognized them — Rachel, his grandparents — and it seemed he had to lock eyes on everyone gathered around him to fully return to the world. And then it was over, the scare behind them.
Rachel was always careful about nuts and other common allergies. But the boy’s reaction to molasses was a rare occurrence. People like to sue over such things, but these folks sent her a letter of thanks. She would find out later that the grandparents were guardians, new to his care, and they hadn’t known about his condition. She wondered then about his parents, what tragedy or rift had brought him to the care of his elders.
It was a blessing to discover his condition in caring company. Beneath the cursive of the grown-up handwriting, the boy had signed his name: JoJo.
In what she read about him during his trial, she discovered that his grandparents had died. He had made his money as a day laborer, and Thomas had killed a man who refused to pay him. He had gone through the victim’s pockets for the money he was owed. Murder in the commission of a robbery.
There would be no clemency. As part of the death decree, the state of Alabama would use three chemicals for his lethal injection. After the first drug, he would lose consciousness. The second would shut down his muscles. The third would stop his heart.
What Rachel carried in her bottle would do the same, answering the young man’s request for a final and private mercy. All he asked for was the cake like the one that showed him what his body could not take, what in the right dose might knock him unconscious or even kill him. Molasses had stopped his breathing once, but he’d been a boy then. She knew it wouldn’t be enough for a man, so she had turned to her garden.
She had years ago planted a small plot of cassava in her greenhouse and used it for her baking. The lined skin of the cassava felt as rugged as cypress knees, but the flesh, handled carefully, was a wonder to be fried or roasted or used in her baking. She took the time to learn how to prepare it safely. Cassava carried its poison in the coarse skin and the leaves, the parts exposed to the world. And perhaps that was how it should be, a shield to survive in a certain kind of world — to thrive even. To carry out JoJo’s request, Rachel had saved what was meant to be discarded, the cyanide in the pot liquor, thickened with the starch of the root.