I sent one sentence back. I told him he could write me once a year.
At Sunday Mass, I prayed for the life of the man who killed my parents while I prayed that the man who raped me was burning in hell.
Luke worked on his degree, slopped tasteless mac and cheese onto prisoners’ trays, and earned day passes to speak at colleges and high schools about drinking and driving.
I painted. I fell in love with Mike. I sold art. I lost babies.
When Luke first came up for parole, the parents of little Zooey offered gut-wrenching personal testimony to the parole board. I had marked the day on my calendar like my dead aunt’s birthday, something to note and do nothing about.
I glanced at the postmark on the envelope and ripped it open. It was a little late in getting to me. Luke Cummings was up for parole for the second time in the intoxication manslaughter deaths of my parents and three-year-old Zooey Marshall. He was scheduled to appear very soon at the rehabilitative unit outside of New York City, where he was serving the rest of his sentence.
I wrote furiously at the kitchen table until my hand cramped up.
Four pages, five pages, six pages.
My plea to the parole board.
I read it, and instantly tore it up.
I drew out a fresh sheet of stationery, wrote one sentence, and signed my name.
Please set him free.
It’s funny, how one sentence is often all you need.
Mike arrived home late, about ten, in a bad mood and tight-lipped about anything that “popped.”
I made an attempt at conversation while he stripped to his boxers, then gave up, turned off the lamp on my side of the bed, and fell asleep. When I woke about 9 a.m., he was gone. Ten minutes later, the phone rang. I stared at the caller ID.
WARWICK, CAROLINE. A week since she had vanished.
I picked up.
“Why did you tell your husband where my house was?” I had to pull the phone away from my ear. The decibel of Maria’s voice was at least two octaves above middle C.
“Maria, I didn’t.”
“Really?” For a second, she seemed to want to believe me.
“He came alone, without that rojo cop. But he threatened. He said to stay out of Caroline’s house and to keep my mouth shut about anything I knew about Caroline’s business. That I probably had nothing to worry about from the courts if I didn’t talk.” Maria’s English was pretty darn slick and shiny today.
Mike was never one to massage his message. Maria didn’t know it, but I was certain that his real purpose was like mine: to quiz the person who knew Caroline best and make sure the cameras didn’t follow.
“That doesn’t sound like a threat. More like good advice. I suggest you take it.” I said this while thinking that Mike and I were living separate lives again, omitting key parts of our day. He would say it was to protect me. I would say the same thing.
“You people, you white people, have no idea how the world works for brown people like me.”
“Mike is a good guy, Maria. He lives by his word. He will keep your family out of this if he can. This is a good sign.”
“I like you, Miz Emily, but you are a fool. Men never live by their words, especially ones who carry guns.”
I refrained from telling her that Mike’s best friends in the ATF were every shade of brown on the color wheel, figuring that would sound patronizing. Like Sarah Palin hauling out her invisible gay friend.
Instead, I asked pointedly, “Why are you at Caroline’s house when the chief of police specifically told you to stay away?”
“Why are you being so nasty when I could tell your husband about the files you stole? About that man you killed?”
I heard a clatter, like she’d dropped the phone. Muffled voices. A man and a woman speaking urgently. Intimately.
More clatter. Maria was back on the line.
“See,” she said. “You can’t trust men. I told him not to say a word. Goodbye, Miz Emily. I don’t think we need to talk anymore.”
And then, with a touch of sarcasm, “Say hi to Belmont.”
It took me a second.
The cat.
Caroline had named her cat after a horse race.
And Maria thought I killed a man.
How many other people did?
21
My nerves were buzzing like angry little bees when I opened my door to Misty Rich an hour later. She was garbed in white jeans, gold sequined thong sandals, a black T-shirt with white letters that read REMEMBER THE MISSING, and a small white flower pinned to one side of her head, a look that could work on maybe one out of a million people.
She was the one.
“I heard about the break-in,” she said. “Are you OK?”
Several things occurred to me in the space of a few seconds.
First, how did she hear about the break-in? Second, she seemed genuinely concerned about me, despite our last, awkward parting at Joe Bob’s. Third, she had opted for fake nails to hide her habit of chewing them. Fourth, and certainly not least, who the hell was missing? Surely, the T-shirt didn’t refer to Caroline. It had a well-worn look about it.
“I’m OK. I think.” I waved reassuringly at the cop car and opened the door wider to let Misty through. She stepped over the doorframe with purpose, surveying the small living room lined with unpacked boxes. The clones had stacked them neatly aside, making them even less tempting to open. Her eyes lingered on the spanking-new security keypad by the door. I waited until she turned away before resetting the alarm.
One good thing about the pregnant me was that I didn’t hang on to grievances for long. Misty showed up. That was enough of an overture for me. I couldn’t discount the instant connection I’d felt when I first met her. It had been like that only a couple of times in my life. Lucy, my best friend. Mike, my husband. For right now, I was going to trust it. I needed to trust it. Because I wondered whether I was about to lose my mind.
I moved aside the magazines on the couch to offer a place to sit. Misty remained standing, hands on her hips like a tiny Superwoman, all bridled energy, surveying the room as if she’d already emptied the boxes and was contemplating paint colors. It was a normal, practical side of her I hadn’t seen.
“How much have you unpacked?” she asked.
“Mostly just the kitchen.”
“Are you depressed?”
“I’m pregnant.” Automatic indignation.
“My aunt was pregnant for six years in a row and ran a sewing business nine hours a day out of her utility room. This looks like the house of someone who’s depressed. At least, it is a house that is depressing. Why are these blinds shut?”
She strolled over to the large picture window and zipped up the blinds along with some dust. Then she muscled open the ancient crank-out windows. She was probably setting off an orchestra of alarms, freaking out the dudes who monitored these things in their anonymous cubicles. The keypad by the front door appeared unperturbed, its red light blinking cheerfully.
“You know, three months ago I was a working professional,” I said indignantly. “I ran an art gallery and was on a first-name basis with every museum curator in the city. I was tidy. I wiped my windowsills every other week. I scraped the crumbs off the butter in the morning.”
The word butter ran smack into a gulping sob. Misty tossed off sparkly flip-flops and pulled her bare feet up under her knees on the couch. She patted the place beside her for me to sit. A slumber party move. Instant intimacy. All at once, I was spilling everything about the stalker. The rape. Everything.
Misty inserted the right questions to speed along my catharsis. “Are you OK now?” she asked finally. “You scared me. I haven’t cried since I was twelve.” She rolled her lips tight. Maybe it was a remark she regretted.