At last he nods. “Well, I’ll try, Clara. The decision is up to him, but I’ll reach out, at least. That much I can do for you.”
I am lying on my narrow bed, attempting a bit of makeshift physical therapy, when NPR breaks to the news and announces the arrest of a Travis Goodman in connection with the Robbins shooting. I sit up so quickly that I feel lightheaded and hurriedly turn up the volume. Public records indicate that Goodman, of Charlestown, is the registered owner of a handgun of the type used in the shooting. More details are expected at a press conference later today.
Mona comes by a few hours later, guiding me into the small office at the end of the row of cells, her high cheekbones carved into vivid relief by her smile. “So you’ve heard the exciting news,” she says. “I’ve been calling the Attorney General’s office all day, hounding them. They’re doing the forensics tests tomorrow, and I’m hoping to press them for an answer as soon as that’s completed.”
“Is all of this based just off what I told you?”
“Yes and no. Goodman wasn’t even considered as a suspect before—why would he be?—but the information you gave them sent them looking at surveillance footage of gas stations and fast-food places in the area, and they spotted him. He also fits the description given by a witness who was collecting used golf balls in the woods around the time of the shooting. Your information is helping them fit it all together. This is very good, Clara. You should feel optimistic.”
I nod, but it’s become exhausting to carry around such dizzying hope, especially in here. For someone like Mona, it’s easy to carry around hopes and then discard them if they prove useless; there’s always another one to be found soon enough, common as pennies on the sidewalk.
She reaches across the table and pats my hand, offering a bright smile. “Not everyone’s rooting for your release, you know,” she says in a teasing tone. “I spoke to Shirley on the way here, and she’s beside herself. Says the transcription work is stacked up to the ceiling and nobody else can get these drawings right of plants or cow eyeballs or whatever they’re doing at the moment. Shall we pull your petition for Shirley’s sake?”
It should be a simple question, an easy laugh, but I feel too numb to answer. “I really miss my cat,” I tell her.
Her face shifts into an expression of puzzlement. “Your cat?”
“Yes, I haven’t seen her in over a month. Nobody can even tell me if she’s okay. Can you check for me?”
Now she smiles patiently. “What’s the cat’s name?”
“They call her Frankfurter, but I call her Clementine. She’s orange and she hangs around the yard. If you could just ask about her, I’d really appreciate it.”
“Yes. Well, I’ll do that.”
She gathers her things and shakes my hand. I’m led back to my cell, where a lunch is waiting for me: two thin slices of turkeyon wheat bread with a packet of mayonnaise, an apple, and a Styrofoam container of mashed potatoes made from instant flakes. A stack of the day’s mail sits beside it. For the first time in quite a while there’s an envelope from Karen Shepard. I suppose she’s realized I’ve run out of things to say, and perhaps wants to try to jog my memory one last time.
Her letter slips out into my hand, and when I unfold it two photographs fall out. I utter a little cry and pick them up, stacked one behind the other so I can take them in one at a time. In the first, Ricky is giving me a piggyback ride in the front yard of his parents’ house. I’ve got my arms tight against his chest, and I’m laughing, looking as though I fear he’ll drop me at any moment. Ricky’s expression is one of comic tension—a suggestion that what I fear is a distinct possibility. His hair is longer than I remember, and just behind us, on the porch steps, Forrest sits with a bemused expression and a cigarette between his fingers. I’ve never seen this photo before. I don’t remember the day, or the feeling.—I remember nothing about this moment, and can only guess that the picture-taker must have been a friend. Liz, perhaps? I don’t remember her ever holding a camera. I can’t guess who. But the image makes me catch my breath.
The second photograph causes my knees to weaken, and I grab the side of the tiny desk and sink down onto the stool. It’s my mother. Behind her is a wide blue sky, and a yellow silk scarf, printed with pink cherry blossoms, flutters at her neck. Her hair, styled into a Mary Tyler Moore flip but loosened by the wind, frames a face that looks tired but beautiful. She isn’t smiling, but looks as though she’s about to say something to the photographer. Behind her are the piled stones and stretches of water that I easily recognize. She’s standing on Spiral Jetty.
I’m too stunned to make a sound. I know I have seen this picture before, but very long ago, and I had forgotten it ever existed.
For a long time I look at the portraits—first one, and then the other, back and forth. Then at last I pick up Karen’s letter and begin to read.
Dear Ms. Mattingly,
Thank you so much for all the assistance you have provided to me in the creation of this book. Your help has been invaluable, and I suspect you know that, but it bears repeating. I know you do not typically speak with reporters and it is deeply significant to me that you entrusted me with your story. I will be certain to send you a copy once it is published, and credit you in the acknowledgments.
In the course of my research I have turned up two photographs I wanted to share with you. One you will recognize as a candid shot of you and Ricky, taken in March of 1984 by Gail Matthews, whom I contacted regarding the project. She was briefly the girlfriend of Forrest Hayes, and while she had basically nothing to offer in terms of insight (a fact which she acknowledged), she did send me this photo she took one afternoon.
The second is a picture of your mother. In the interest of full disclosure, I must tell you I contacted Clinton Brand for his take on the story. He was, after all, a witness for the prosecution in Ricky’s trial. I completely understand that you will probably not be pleased with this and I apologize if it upsets you. I hope you understand it is a journalist’s job to draw information from many sources, without regard to personal opinion. He provided several family photos, this being the only one I believe you would like. This is a copy, but on the back of the original was written simply, in pencil, “Mom.”
Neither of these photographs will be used in the book, which is the main reason I am sending them to you now. Copies will be held on file, but I didn’t want to deny you the opportunity to see them. Thank you once again, tremendously much.
I prop the two photos on my desk and look at them for a very long time. I try to memorize their lines, their tones, the way the light touches these people standing out in the open air so long ago. I look through the eyes of Gail, a girl I don’t even remember, and see how Ricky and I looked to the world back then. An ordinary couple, a boy and a girl. I wonder, if I have forgotten that afternoon of joy, how many others I have forgotten. And I look at my mother, or rather, through the eyes of ten-year-old Clara looking at her mother. For this my memory is perfectly sharp, perfectly accurate. She was as beautiful as I remember, and that afternoon every bit as lovely and pure.
And then the next morning, before I can grow any more attached to these pictures, I drop them into an envelope addressed to Annemarie. In it I include a note written on the back of the piece of cardstock I inscribed with a spiral the day I burned Intérieur. My letter to her is short, telling only the truth. These are the people from whom you came. This is the history and the love, the sweep of time building to the moment when you emerged, crying and singular, into the world. Those images and pinpoints in time—I cherish them, but you are the one they truly belong to. Take them, and find joy in them. This is your birth story.