Island Girl (34 page)
Authors: Lynda Simmons
“No,” I said just as simply, and turned back to the roses. The red and white climbers. The pink and yellow hybrids. The pair of little stone angels at their feet, and the shower of petals on the ground around them. The same kind of shower that I now knew would be covering William’s ashes on the other side of the bay.
“Then why did you say that?” she asked, and just like on the swan, I found myself looking over my shoulder, searching for my mother. Half-expecting her to come flying out the door, shaking her head and telling me no. Making me keep the story to myself long enough that the faces all faded and the details got fuzzy, and even I didn’t care anymore.
But she wasn’t there, and even after two years, I hadn’t forgotten any of it. Not a night in that prison, or a moment with my son, or a word of the speech the prosecution made when he sat me down and offered me a plea. All of it was right there, waiting for me to start dredging.
I turned away from the roses, turned back to Jocelyn, hoped she’d be able to pull me out if I dug too deep. “They think I did it because I confessed. Because I said his death was my fault.”
Her mouth drooped. “Why would you do that?”
“The prosecutor said I’d do less time if I took responsibility.”
“But if you didn’t kill him, you shouldn’t have done
any
time.”
any
time.”
“That’s what Liz said too. She said she would convince the jury that my baby was dead when I picked him up. That the most I was guilty of was sitting in a chair and rocking him because it was too late to save him. But the police didn’t see it that way. They said the least I was guilty of was criminal negligence because I didn’t call 911. I wasn’t a doctor or a nurse or anyone else in a position to say whether he was dead or not when I picked him up. I was just a mother who sat in a chair and did nothing to save her son.”
“Is that true?”
“Yes,” I said again, gathering a handful of rose petals and letting them fall through my fingers. “I sat with him and I rocked him because I knew he was dead. And if I called, they’d have come and taken him away and I wouldn’t have been able to hold him ever again. So I left a message for Liz to call home. And then I sat down and I rocked him and I sang to him until she called, and I’d do the same thing all over again. But that wasn’t a good thing to say, and the prosecution told my mother that if the jury didn’t like what I said, if they didn’t believe the baby really was dead when I picked him up, then I could go to jail for a very long time.”
“So the rat bastards offered you a plea and you took it.”
“I got two years, less time served, which equaled one more year in jail.”
“Shit,” Jocelyn said and shook her head. “I wish my dad had been there.”
“He was there. He was the one who convinced the judge to let me serve my sentence here, under house arrest.”
“I can’t believe he didn’t get you off.”
“He didn’t have a chance. Liz was my lawyer, and she was furious when I took that plea. But my mom said it was for the best. She said it wasn’t worth the risk, and Liz still doesn’t talk to her because of that, which is too bad because maybe my mom was right. Maybe I’d still be in jail right now if I hadn’t done it.”
“Or maybe you’d have cleared your name.”
“We’ll never know, will we? We’ll never know if that ankle bracelet was the best or the worst thing that could have happened. All I know is that I spent that year right here, on this street. I couldn’t go more than a hundred feet from my front door. From that house to that house. That’s why my mom closed the shop on Queen Street and moved the whole thing here. For me, so I could stop crying and go to work and maybe not go completely crazy.
“Most of my customers came with her, but we weren’t allowed to talk about the thing on my ankle or the ache in my chest or the constant tightness in my throat. And the whole time that I was swallowing antidepressants and talking about the weather or the price of gas or how beautiful the garden was that year, all I wanted to do was to stand at the gate and tell my story to everyone. Tell them all about his beautiful blue eyes, and his favorite toy. And the way he was starting to push himself up because he couldn’t wait to crawl, to walk, to discover the world just like his father. Just like Bobby Daniels who I still hadn’t stopped loving even though he turned out to be the worst kind of man a girl could imagine. And most of all I wanted to tell them that I needed to have my boy here with me. I needed him here in the garden, with the rest of the family.”
“You have bodies in your garden?” Jocelyn whispered.
I smiled and tried to swallow. “No, there are ashes. Remember?” I pointed to the little stone angels. “That’s Great-Grandma Lucy on the right, and that’s Grandma Rose on the left. I never met her. Someone pushed her in front of a subway train.”
“You sure she didn’t jump?”
My God, how I loved this girl. “I’m not sure of anything, because we don’t talk about it. We don’t talk about why Grandma Rose fell in front of that train or why I wasn’t allowed to put William’s ashes right there.” I reached out and put my hands on the earth beneath the white climber. “Right here between his grannies, where I could visit him every day and tell him I loved him and hope that one day he’d forgive me for not getting to him soon enough. For not knowing a baby could just die like that. And for not standing up for him when my mother said it would be better if his ashes stayed in the city because having that kind of reminder around day in and day out would only make me sadder.”
Jocelyn crawled over to where I was kneeling and pulled me back out of the garden. She held my hands and she looked into my eyes. “But not having him here only made it worse.”
I nodded and lowered my eyes. It was funny because for the first time in two years, I was saying it all out loud right here in the garden where I used to whisper his name because that was the only way I could do it. Because we were making a new start, with a clean slate. But he didn’t go away just because my mother said he had to. He was still right there every time I saw a little boy and I’d think,
William would be one year old now
. Or
William would be two years old now
. As much as my mother wanted to believe that ignoring him would work, I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t pretend he never happened. And I didn’t want to.
William would be one year old now
. Or
William would be two years old now
. As much as my mother wanted to believe that ignoring him would work, I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t pretend he never happened. And I didn’t want to.
“I don’t care if your mom is sick,” Jocelyn said and pulled me into her arms. “She was wrong about William. And she was wrong not to tell you she canceled the appointments too. She was wrong about all of it.”
I hadn’t realized how small her frame was, how delicate her bones, until I held tight to her and cried, burying my face in a shoulder that smelled of cotton-candy body spray and trying not to wipe my nose on her bright red hair. And she cried with me as openly as she did everything, the same way Liz had cried with me on the night that William died.
I had no idea how long we stayed that way, but when we finally broke apart, sniffing and dabbing and wishing for tissues, we walked back across the grass together, stopping long enough to watch the mockingbirds.
The lady mockingbird was still where she was when I went out biking that morning, standing half inside and half outside the cage while the male flew back and forth, never stopping. Never shutting up.
“He’s trying to get her to fly,” Jocelyn said.
I watched her peck at the sides of the cage, rattle it as though she wanted to break the whole thing down. “She doesn’t like it in there, but she’s scared to leave. She’s afraid she’ll get hurt again.”
Jocelyn shook her head. “That won’t happen. She’ll be more careful this time.”
I nodded. “Maybe.”
The lady mockingbird took a step outside, darted back in. Poked her head outside, pulled it back in, making me wonder if she’d ever learn to fly again. If she’d ever get out of that box.
“Grace?”
Mrs. Walker was at the gate, smiling and lifting the latch. And I couldn’t remember when I’d last seen anything so beautiful.
“I caught an early ferry,” she said as she hurried along the path. “I hope that’s okay.” She stopped and tipped her head to the side. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine, just fine.” I led her to the door and held it open for her. “Go on in and make yourself comfortable.”
“Shall I put the kettle on?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said, and smiled as Jocelyn came up the stairs. “Can you change that password for me now?”
“I’ll come up with one that no one can break.” She grinned and punched me on the shoulder. “And you can order the peroxide.”
I followed her inside. “Right after we take those power tools to the sale.”
RUBY
SHOW ME THE ICE FLOEThe blog for people who know what they wantBy Ruby DonaldsonNumber 24 in a seriesShhhh. Big Al is sleeping.It’s early morning, and so far so good. I know I have to go canoeing, I know I have a meeting with Lori this afternoon to work out the terms of the sale of my business, and I know I’m hungry. All good signs, proving yet again that more frequent meds are working, the marijuana isn’t hurting, and I do not need round-the-clock supervision despite everything the well-meaning people in my life want me to believe.If you follow this blog regularly, you know that I have Alzheimer’s and that I will not be hanging around for the long good-bye. This is not a popular stance. Psychiatry tells us it’s depression. Religion tells us it’s a sin. Pharmaceutical companies tell us to keep a stiff upper lip—they’re working on a miracle and all they need is more money. But to all of them I say, Up yours. I do not have a history of depression or mental illness. I do not hear voices telling me to jump off a cliff. And if there is a God, I’m certain she does not want to see us warehoused and kept alive to feed a growing industry.While I would like to believe in miracles, the truth is that Big Al is tunneling into my brain on a daily basis, leaving gaping holes where facts and names and even time disappear. Sadly, their reappearance is becoming more and more rare. So as much as the cheerleaders of hope would like me to keep the faith, the odds of this miracle happening before Al wipes me out completely are not in my favor, and I am not willing to roll the dice on my life. I plan to leave while the going is still good, and I will work toward both public and legal acceptance of this idea until the time comes for me to lay down arms and sleep.If you believe as I do that the choice to step onto the Ice Floe is ours alone to make, then join me today at Queen’s Park. We rally there at 1:00 P.M. to demand an end to the criminalization of those who would help us. An end to the tyranny of laws that allow family members to interfere, the state to find us a danger to ourselves, and judges to enforce treatments to keep us docile and controllable until we see the error of our ways and decide that life is precious and yes, by God, we want to live.This is the endless paradox for those of us bunking with Big Al. It is not illegal to take your own life in this country. And we are considered competent to make the choice to live or die as long as we don’t want to take it. As soon as we decide that, yes, we really would like to get on the Ice Floe, then we are no longer considered competent and the choice is removed. Go figure.But ladies and gentlemen, I promise that we can fight this lunacy and we can win because the Ice Floe is a viable alternative. And screw those who tell us otherwise.See you at one o’clock this afternoon. Providing we both remember.
I sat back from the laptop. Reread the entry, checking for sloppy grammar, spelling mistakes, errors in logic. Certain there were none, I clicked Exit. A box appeared.
Post?
As always, every cell in my body, every natural instinct, screamed,
Yes! Yes! Yes!
But again, as always, practicality won out. In order for Grace to live in this house with enough money and no guilt, my death had to look like an accident. Which meant there could be no record anywhere of my opinions. No references, veiled or otherwise, to my decision. It was just one more part of myself, my nature, that Big Al was stealing away.
Post?
As always, every cell in my body, every natural instinct, screamed,
Yes! Yes! Yes!
But again, as always, practicality won out. In order for Grace to live in this house with enough money and no guilt, my death had to look like an accident. Which meant there could be no record anywhere of my opinions. No references, veiled or otherwise, to my decision. It was just one more part of myself, my nature, that Big Al was stealing away.
I hit No. Do not post. And watched entry number twenty-four disappear, just like all the others. Then I got out of bed, carried the laptop to the dresser, and checked the clock: 6:10 A.M.
Over on Algonquin, Mark would be smacking his alarm clock, rubbing his eyes, and getting himself out of bed to go canoeing with me. He’d been doing it every morning since we visited the doctor, and I had to admit it was helping. He’d lost weight, his face had color, and his posture was starting to improve. He was looking good, and if I thought for a moment that I could get him to stop I would, because I missed my solitary mornings on the water. I missed solitary anything.
I’d taken to setting the alarm fifteen minutes earlier in order to write the blog entries in my room, in secret, instead of sitting in front of the television with Mark at the end of the day, pecking them out on my laptop where he could see and roll his eyes. Start the argument all over again.
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