“I’ve changed my mind and decided to get involved in the Terrell Goodwin execution,” I say. “I’ve spoken with the new attorney on the case. A famous forensic scientist is going to reexamine the evidence. She swabbed my DNA this week.”
A short silence. “That’s good, Mom. You need to be absolutely sure. You’ve been worrying about this a lot lately. People are getting released on DNA stuff all the time now. Our science teacher told us that Dallas has freed more innocent people from Death Row than almost every other state. People just think we kill everybody.” I hear her crumple up the hamburger wrapper.
“Don’t toss that on the floor,” I say automatically. To myself, I think: Is that because we have more innocent people on Death Row?
“And Angie,” Charlie adds. “She was nice. She was, like, totally convinced. And she said that none of it was your fault.”
“I’ll be in the news again.” Meaning, Charlie won’t be immune.
“I’ve been through it before. My friends will take care of me. I got this, Mom.”
The naivete of it almost makes me want to cry. At the same time, it is hard to believe that Charlie is three years younger than I was when I testified. She seems so much more prepared.
I pull into our driveway and switch off the ignition. Charlie is rustling to get her stuff, but I don’t turn around. “Never, ever get in a car with someone you don’t know. Never walk alone. Don’t talk to reporters.” My voice sounds sharper than I’d like in the tiny, closed-up space. “If I’m not home, turn the security system on as soon as you close the door.”
It’s ridiculous to deliver these worn-out instructions for the thousandth time, but I’d become too complacent. I have vowed ever since Angie’s wake to know where Charlie is every single second. A few days ago, I turned down a freelance design project in Los Angeles to build a staircase out of old cars and recycled glass. It would have carried our finances for the next two years.
“Mom.” She packs as much teen-age patronization in those three letters as will fit. “I got this.”
Before I can respond, she’s tumbling out of the car, loaded up like a soldier entering battle, jogging to the front door with her house key in hand. She’s in the house in seconds. Prepared, like I taught her. Innocent, and not.
The question that neither of us ever asks out loud: But if not him, then who?
I follow her slowly, fiddling with my phone. I almost trip over the duffle she dumped in the foyer, think about calling out to her, stop myself. I head to the small desk in the living room where my laptop sits, call up the email I just sent to my own address, download, hit print. Listening to it regurgitate a couple of feet away, I think Charlie’s right-our house needs a more efficient grasp on technology.
The printer spits out three grainy pictures of wilting flowers. Charlie’s door is already closed when I pass by.
A few seconds later, I am on my tiptoes, pulling from the top shelf of my bedroom closet the shoebox boldly marked, Tax Documents.
The killer has planted black-eyed Susans for me six times. It didn’t matter where I was living. He likes to keep me guessing. I’m sure about this now.
He waited so long between plantings sometimes that, before Angie, I was able to convince myself on most days that the right killer sat in jail. That the first black-eyed Susans were the work of a random stalker, and the other times the whims of the wind.
This box, made for ASICS running shoes, size 7, marked Tax Documents, contains the photographs I snapped every time anyway. Just in case.
I set the box on the bed and lift the lid. Right on top, the one taken with my granddaddy’s old Polaroid Instant camera.
That first time, right after the trial, I had thought either I was crazy or that black-eyed Susans had suddenly sprung up in October under the live oak in our back yard because of a bizarre weather pattern. Except the ground looked disturbed. I dug up the wildflowers by myself a little frantically with an old kitchen spoon.
I didn’t want to tell anybody because life in my house was returning to some semblance of normal. I was done with therapy. Terrell Darcy Goodwin sat in jail. My dad was dating for the first time.
The spoon struck another surprise in the dirt that day-something hard, orange, and plastic. An old prescription bottle. The label ripped off. Childproof cap.
Charlie has turned up her music. It strains through the wall, but can’t drown out the words on a scrap of paper curled up in a little orange bottle.
Oh Susan, Susan, lovely dear
My vows shall ever true remain
Let me kiss off that falling tear
I never want to hurt you again
But if you tell, I will make
Lydia
A Susan, too
Tessie, 1995
After he leaves the office, my fingers brush over three stubby charcoal crayons; the cool metal coil binding a drawing pad; a Dixie cup of water; a few brushes, a narrow paint box with a squeaky hinge. The doctor has repeated the order of the paint colors four times, left to right. Black, blue, red, green, yellow, white.
As if what colors I choose will make a significant difference. I am already thinking of swirling the colors to make purple and gray, orange and aqua. The colors of bruises, and sunsets.
This is not the first time I have drawn blind. Right after Mom died, Granddaddy was constantly trying to distract me from grief.
We sat at his old cedar picnic table. He punched a No. 2 pencil through the center of a paper plate, a de facto umbrella, so that I could grasp the pencil but not watch my hand draw. “Making pictures in your head is primal,” he said. “You don’t need your eyes to do it. Start with the edges.”
I remember the faint blue flower border that etched the paper plate, that my fingers were sticky with sweat and chocolate, but not what I drew that day.
“Memories aren’t like compost,” the doctor had said, as he guided me over to his desk. “They don’t decay.”
I knew exactly what he wanted out of this little exercise. The priority was not to cure my blindness. He wanted to know why my ankle shattered into pieces, what implement etched the pink half-moon that hung under my eye. He wanted me to draw a face.
He didn’t say any of this, but I knew.
“There’s infinite storage space up here.” He tapped my head. “You simply have to dig into every box.”
One more self-help bite from him before he shut the door, and I would have screamed.
I can hear my father outside the door, droning blurry words, like a dull pencil. Oscar has settled into the cave under the desk, his head resting on my cast. Pressure, but nice pressure, like my mother’s hand on my back. The doctor’s voice floats through the door. They are talking about box scores, like the world is running along just fine.
My head is blank when the charcoal begins to rub insistently against the paper.
The click of the door opening startles me, and I jump, and Oscar jumps, and my pad slides and clunks to the floor. I have no idea how much time has passed, which is new, because ever since I went blind, I can guess the time of day within five minutes. Lydia attributes it to a primitive internal clock, like the one that reminds hibernating animals to wake up in the black isolation of their caves and venture back into the world.
I smell him, the same Tommy cologne that Bobby always liberally sprays on himself at Dillard’s. My doctor wears Tommy Hilfiger, sounds like Tommy Lee Jones. Everything Tommy.