“But if he does? If he’s found not guilty?” she asks.
“Then we get him,” somebody from across the circle says, but Melissa doesn’t look in that direction, doesn’t see who the voice belongs to, because she only has eyes for Raphael now. Raphael with his blue eyes behind the designer glasses staring back at her, Raphael with the pulse in his forehead and a tightening jaw. Yes, there are bad thoughts behind those bright blue eyes. No doubt about it.
“He’ll be in protective custody, or he’ll be placed somewhere nobody knows. It hurts,” she says, “it hurts missing her and if, if Joe were to get away I’d kill myself, I’d . . . I’d just kill myself.”
Fiona puts an arm around her and Melissa fights the urge to shrug it off and shoot her. Most of the people in the room are leaning forward now.
“Stella,” Raphael says, and Melissa holds a hand up to her face and Fiona grips her a little tighter.
“I need a bathroom,” she says, and she slips out from beneath Fiona’s arm and gets up and rubs her belly and heads toward the back of the hall. People try talking all at the same time. She can hear footsteps following her. She makes it to the bathroom and splashes water onto her face to streak her makeup so it looks like she’s been crying. Then Fiona comes into the room.
“Are you okay, honey?”
“I’m fine,” Melissa says, and wipes at her face.
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Raphael said it was time for things to start wrapping up,” she says. “Everybody seems worried about you, and I get the idea you’re not the first person to have run in here crying. Can I get you a coffee? Oh,” she says, then looks at Melissa’s stomach, “perhaps some water instead?”
“I’m fine.”
“The others are talking about a protest on Monday,” her new best friend says. “They’re going to the courthouse to support the death penalty. I want to go, but don’t think I will. I should go, but . . . but I think it’s all just too much for me. I’m not sure if that makes sense. Does it?” And, without waiting for an answer, she goes into her next question. “Can I walk you to your car?”
“I want to clean up first,” Melissa says.
“I don’t mind waiting.”
“I’m fine,” she says. “Really, please, don’t worry about me. I think I just . . . just need to be alone for a little bit.”
“Of course,” Fiona says. “I know how you’re feeling.” She opens the door, pauses in it, and turns back. “I don’t really know if I got anything from any of this,” she says, “but I think I’ll come back next week. Will I see you here too?”
Melissa nods.
“Maybe bring your husband,” Fiona says.
“I will.”
“Okay, well, I’ll see you later,” she says, as both women walk out of the bathroom.
Others are heading their way to use the bathroom, others are heading out of the hall, Raphael is stacking chairs. Some are drinking coffee. Everyone she passes stops to talk to her to ask if she’s okay. She tells them she’s fine. The others are talking about the protest on Monday. She has left her jacket over her chair, so she walks toward it and toward Raphael.
“Are you okay?” Raphael asks, and up close he smells of musky aftershave and reminds her a little of her father—only a much handsomer version. It makes her realize how much she misses her parents.
“I’m sorry about my outburst,” she says.
“I’m sorry about your sister.”
“I’m sorry about your daughter.”
Raphael nods. No doubt he’s sorry too. He carries on stacking chairs, but does it in a way that he doesn’t put his back to her.
“Do you ever think about how it would feel to hurt the man that took her away?” Melissa asks.
The chair Raphael has in midair he returns back to the floor. He puts both hands on the back of it and faces her. “Let me ask you something,” he says. “Why are you here?”
“Why is anybody here?” she asks. “To find some sense of understanding. Some closure.”
“There is no closure,” he says. “Often there’s no understanding either.” He stares at her and she stares back, and she’s impressed at how well he’s hiding the darkness behind his eyes, but it’s there. No doubt about it. “But these are just things we say because we need to hear them. What I’m specifically asking is why are you here? Who was your sister? Was she a victim of Joe’s?”
“Yes,” she says, and immediately knows she has made a mistake. He’s going to ask her who her sister was.
“Who?” he asks.
“Daniela Walker,” she says, going with Daniela since she met and killed Daniela’s husband earlier today, which means there’s one less person to be able to call her a liar.
He doesn’t pause, doesn’t show any signs that he knows she’s lying. “I’m sorry about Daniela,” he says.
“Why did you really start this group?” she asks.
Now he does pause, just for a fraction, but long enough to make her doubt whatever he’s going to say. “To help people,” he says. “Why do you think I started it?”
“To help people,” she says. She wishes she could just come out and ask him to help her kill Joe. He’s the perfect candidate. Would it be that simple? “I guess I came along because I wanted somebody to tell me that no matter what happens, Joe will be brought to justice.”
His jaw tightens again as he slowly nods. “He will be.”
“Are you voting for the death penalty?” she asks.
“Yes,” he says. “We’ve been organizing a protest over the last month,” he says. “We spoke about it while you were in the bathroom. You’re welcome to come along.”
“You’re protesting against it? I thought you said—”
“We’re protesting against the people who are protesting against it,” he interrupts. “There’s going to be a gathering outside the courthouse of people not wanting the death penalty reinstated. We’re going to be there to be heard too. These people, these humanitarians, they have no idea what it’s really like.”
“Yeah, I know,” she says. “And if the bill is passed and Joe is sentenced to death, it could take ten years.”
“That’s quite possible,” he says. “Probably even likely.”
“Can you live with that?” she asks.
He frowns and angles his head slightly. “Are you suggesting an alternative?”
“I’m just after closure,” she says, treading carefully.
“And what does your husband think?”
“He left me,” she says. “He says I haven’t been the same since my sister died.”
He looks her up and down, at the pregnant stomach, and no doubt he’s thinking her husband is a bastard. “When Angela died,” he says, “Janice left me too. A thing like that, well, marriages often don’t survive.”
“If you could be the person to do it,” she says, “if you were the one to pull the lever or push the button or do whatever it is to finish Joe, would you do it?”
“No,” he says, and he picks the chair back up and puts it into the stack. “I wish I could, but it’s not who I am.”
She rubs at her belly again. This has been a huge waste of time. Three days left and fate led her to the wrong place. It’s her own fault for believing in fate. And she feels stupid for seeing something in Raphael that obviously isn’t there.
“I should be going,” she says.
“It was nice meeting you,” he says.
She grabs her jacket and heads to the back of the hall. Her stolen umbrella has been stolen. She wonders if that’s the universe finding balance. Others are leaving the parking lot—some are standing under the edge of the building chatting, and some of them are smoking. Others are still inside using the bathroom and sipping coffee. It’s still pouring with rain, and the wind has picked up and tugs at the umbrellas of the others out here. She walks carefully to her car and unlocks it and gets in, the jacket protecting her upper body, but her pants are soaking wet. She hates driving in the pregnancy suit, so she takes it off, an awkward procedure that takes about half a minute because she didn’t take her jacket off first. Nobody can see her through all the rain inside her dark car, and even if they could nobody would know what she was doing.