Bury This (24 page)
It wasn't that she was going mad, exactly. It was just . . . there were whispers. Tiny ones. Little voices, coming quick like ambush thoughts. They will see me. They will kill me. They are trying to kill me here. They will laugh at me. They are laughing at me. They have always been laughing at me. I'm not safe. I'm not safe here. I'm not safe here through the night. Rapier voices, slashing in and out and back into the temple, sometimes from the back of the skull. Don't you see? It's over.
They will get me.
T
here beside the lake, two black spindle trees, one outstretched upward reaching high into the infinite dusk, the other crumpled in on itself, crying into its belly, hobbled. And there, on the bench between, a raven woman. Dotsy Krause. An almost-painter with memories in brushstrokes of the Lindy Hop at the Three Deuces, of a sweltering July spent in Cape Cod, of a Wedgwood locket found and lost. Each brushstroke a pulse, the shock of it a kind of vista disappearing into the horizon, once it was there, then smaller and smaller, then minuscule, then a pinprick, then nothing.
The Lt. Colonel didn't know she would come here, wouldn't like it. But there had to be something. Looking down, seeing the hands attached to her wrists shaking. More frequent now, and stronger. Last week she had even dropped a teacup. Irreplaceable. He had brought it back from Seoul.
There must be something. A cure somehow in the wind off the dunes.
Looking out across the pitch-gloam water, as fixed as glass, Dorothy Krause had the feeling of being watched. And for a moment, above her, as she peered over into the gloom-glass lake,
that still-ice Michigan, never-light water, she thought she saw, but no, how could she . . . a rustle of light, a ghost figure, a tentative quiver. And a whisper came quick, almost from the trees . . . take me back gently, into the night sky.
I will wait for you.
And Dotsy, hearing her daughter's voice, turns in pieces to the green pine trees, searching desperate in grasps and shadows, through the elm, through the elder, through the oaks. And then realizing, yes, of course, there was no one there and never would be again.
T
he green blades of the tulips stabbing up through the dirt like half-buried knives. It had rained for two days straight, but now the sun shining over the puddles, turning dew into diamonds on the Kelly grass spears. The sun back, reassuring, never-mind, never-mind, I am here. I came back.
Dotsy hadn't known what to wear to the Kent County Correctional Facility, Holton, Michigan. She had never been, nor thought she would ever be, in such a place, and she, well, she didn't think she'd be back. Wondering, as she stepped out of the green striped taxi onto the dew-sheathed sidewalk . . . will I be back? And then deciding, No. No, I won't.
A grid. All around a grid. Squares and rectangles, laid out in gray. And, too, a barbwire frame.
There was no reason to be here. No one knew she was coming anyway, certainly not her husband. Of course not. She could leave at any moment. No one would know.
Through, through, through each door, each gate, each cage, chain metal corridors clanking open and shut. Open and shut. Locking you out, locking you in.
Dotsy descending somehow, each circle down into the next,
into a drab dishwater room, ammonia-laced. Scrubbed, scrubbed, scrubbed erasing all sins, the walls whispering regret. Take me home.
All that was required was to turn around. Turn around and this will all be over. Twenty-five years of this and still not over. These gray circles, this dust-mop cage, this the only way to make it stop.
She was alone but it was not special treatment. She was alone because it was Tuesday at two and these people have to work for God's sake. Worker class. Work or prison. You choose.
Shauna had not been expecting a visitor. Ever. And maybe that was why, over these last few months, she had the expression of a lost rabbit down the watering hole. Oh, this room, yes. This room I had not seen. This was a room for people with families. Moms. Daughters. Baby girls. Grandsons. Little boys. Fathers. Husbands. No, this room was not for me.
And yet, there across the gunmetal concrete, Dotsy sat in a chair. Comical. A woman of her age. A woman in pearls with a purse . . . here. Some sort of comedy sketch with no punch line. But then, Shauna thought, oh, yes, the punch line is me.
She had lost weight. It's not that Dotsy had ever thought about Shauna Boggs's snickering obesity, although she'd overheard the taunts. Sometimes, after the verdict, to make her feel better, the derision was proffered to her like an ice-cream cone. Eat up. We'll make fun. That's what we'll do. But it did not make her feel better, any more than vultures eating carrion by the side of the road would make her feel better. Dotsy could see nothing but the carrion.
And so Shauna was plump now. Simply plump. No longer obese. And inside that face, somewhere, were the vestiges of that
little girl who'd come over to play Candy Land, to play hopscotch, to call boys. She had worn a black one-piece swimsuit as a halter top. Dotsy did remember that. Thinking at the time, cover up! Cover up, they'll get you!
Shauna doesn't look at her when she sits down, or ever, for that matter. Shauna keeps her eyes strained on the table, the chairs, the floor. Anything other than her. Her, here. The mother.
And there is a kind of quiet made of feeling giddy or being in love or finding home. But this is not that quiet. This is a quiet of failure, of wanting to go back, of restlessness.
Figuring out that she's the only one who will be speaking. Figuring out that maybe this is stupid and she should just go home in the first place, never should have come. Dotsy tries to keep her hands from shaking, but they shake now, little tremors, all day long. Barely able to write her name, or make out a check. Good thing she's not still painting. Trembling hands, hold each other on the table. Hold still.
The guard gives her a nod, better hurry up, you're on the clock. This is not the country club. Well, of course not. Isn't that obvious? This is the place you get to go to if you'll never make it to the country club. Lucky bastards, they have no idea.
Okay, break this moment. This silence deafening, make it stop.
“Shauna.”
And there it is, her name. Gentle. Spoken in a way it had not been spoken for years. Spoken like she was a person.
But still, there is no looking up. Shauna's eyes fixed on the floor, blinded.
“Shauna, I can't carry this. Um. I can't carry this any longer.”
Expecting a reaction. What was she expecting? Tears? Revelation? Laughter? Whatever it was she had been expecting, here there was nothing. Here there were just eyes fixed on metal chairs.
Another try. Get in. Look at me, Shauna.
“I was in love, once, you know.”
Maybe there is something there in Shauna now, something stirring, but still, eyes stay staring at the steel square tiles.
“It was a kind of madness. Like trying to pour an ocean into a teacup. Funny. All it could do was spill and break.” And then a kind of laugh, stifled.
Maybe this will make her eyes get off the tile. Look here. Look at me. But no, not even this. She is gone now, isn't she?
And noticing now, for the first time, on the side of her face, a scar, four inches long, but deep, just healing. Just missed her eye. Christ, what had they done to her? What happens here? What happens here in this horrible place? This place made of nightmares, contract-built. A kind of slavery for being poor. A kind of slavery for mistakes, if you're poor. But no, they are here for a reason, Dotsy told herself. They are here for a reason. Aren't they?
Trembling hands reaching now, fumbling into the coral clip purse, an envelope-looking thing, subtle as a shoe shine. But elegant, look closer. Mother-of-pearl on the clasp. Look closer. Meticulous.
And out comes the locket. That blue silhouette cameo from days on the sound, days in the water playing stupid seashell games with Edward. That salty blue cameo from days on the levee, from days with Jeff Cody, from days on the ground.
“Have it, Shauna.”
And then, somehow a breath, “I want you to have it.”
If she'd been able to look up from the gray tile floor, look up from the grid of gray-laced white speckles, she would have. She would have lifted her eyes and met Dotsy's and then maybe there would have been tears. Of what? Gratitude? Desperation? Regret?
But, no, there was no looking up. There couldn't be. As easily as packing the sun into a basket. As easily as killing the moon. That's how easy that could be. No, there was no looking up. It was impossible. Now.
The locket now just sitting there on the table. A dumb gift. A gesture stalled. Dotsy almost wanting to take it back now. Maybe this was ridiculous.
But no. There's no want in a gift. There can be no taking in a gift. And anyway, this isn't giving. Any more than the ocean gives to the tide. Let these waters crash in out, in out, taking this burden out to sea. Someday the sand will whisper this.
The guard, nodding again, time's up. And that is that. Do it quick, do it fast, get out of here. You don't belong here, lady, in the land of zombies and miscues and never-beens. Out of here, sweet old lady, go home and bake cookies. This is not a place for you.
And Dotsy, one last look at Shauna. Strange, how she felt sorry for her, considering. Strange, how she wanted to hold her, to soften her, to comfort her, considering.
But now, with the gate and the alarm and the gray metal clanking her out, out into the bright blue sky, out into the gorgeous green glass globe, she was lighter. Dotsy was lifted, as if on a wire, twenty-five years later and now somehow not touching the ground. Out there the sky could be blue again, out there the clouds could be puff-puff-puffy like cotton candy. Out there the
smell of grass and the breeze off the lake, all these things could contrive to make happy. As simple as a clock ticking. As simple as the sound of the rain.
And inside now. Shauna standing at the gate, waiting for the electric door. The alarm will go off, so loud it scares you. Every time it scares you. Shauna Boggs, staring into the gate, past the gate, down down down into the maze upon maze, the rat-maze of choices and bad choices and missteps, in degrees of gray, charcoal, dust, endless and banning. Shauna Boggs walking by the guards, past the guards, some nodding tiny, some looking away, looking through, looking through her. Shauna Boggs, walking past the guards, quietly steeling herself, wondering which one of them will find her feet swinging in the morning light.
O
bviously, this wouldn't be possible without the help, support and advice from some very kind people. (Otherwise I would just be babbling to myself in a room somewhere.) So here goes . . . Thank you to my amazing mother and best friend, Nancy Portes Kuhnel. My whole family, Charles, Lisa, Alejandro Portes, Pats, Doug, Nancy, Bobby and Carlos. My grandparents: Lt. Colonel Charles Brazie & Arlene Brazie. Helio & Eulalia Portes. The gentleman who keeps me sane: Brad Kluck. My dear friends: Dawn Cody, Mira Crisp, Simon Eldon-Edington, Matthew Specktor, Natasha Leggero, Io Perry, Noelle Hale, Super A, Gary Wishik, Tylene De Vine, Demetrius Griffin, Amy Stokes, Niels Alpert, Jenniefer Pacelli and Haley Gore. My editor, Dan Smetanka. (Thanks for taking a chance on me.) My literary agent, Katie Shea at Donald Mass Literary Agency. My book-to-film agent, Josie Freedman at ICM. Everyone at Soft Skull. Fred Ramey at Unbridled Books, my editor on HICK. Kristen Pettit at HarperCollins, my editor on ANATOMY OF A MISFIT. Everyone involved in HICK the film: Derick Martini, Chloe Grace Moretz, Eddie Redmayne, Blake Lively, Charles de Portes, Alec Baldwin, Juliette Lewis, Rory Culkin, Christian Taylor, Ray McKinnon, Teri and Trevor
Moretz, Jon “Peepaw” Cornick, Erica Munro, Roshelle Berliner, Frank Godwin, Michael Jefferson, Pedro Portes and Tommy Brazie. Finally, I'd like to thank the one and only little prince, my sun and moon and stars, my baby boy: Wyatt Storm.
