The Last Breath (13 page)

16

Ella Mae Andrews, December 1993

ELLA MAE DROVE
up Main, snapping off the car radio with a flick of her fingers. If she heard one more song about the holly, jolly season, Ella Mae swore she would slit her wrists. Those damn carols reminded her too much of the one thing she wouldn’t be getting this Christmas.

Dean.

Oh, she got him every now and then, stolen moments when their families were out or when Dean and Ella Mae could get away for an hour or two. Cheap motels along the interstate, gas station bathrooms a few towns over, a secluded parking spot by Burem Lake Dam. Dean wasn’t particularly choosy, and neither was Ella Mae. But their time together was never enough, their trysts too sporadic and infrequent, and Ella Mae found herself obsessing over the next when, where, how.

Nine days. It’d been nine whole days since Dean had surprised her during one of her morning walks down by the river, pulling up next to her with a grin and a hard-on. But now that the kids were out for Christmas break, she didn’t know when either of them would be able to get away again. The uncertainty niggled and poked, especially in her quieter moments. Had Dean already had his fill of her? Ella Mae hoped not, because she was nowhere near done.

She found a spot a few doors down from the pharmacy and squeezed her Jeep in. Almost closing time, and Rogersville’s late-afternoon, last-minute shoppers clutched lists and paper bags as they hurried from shop to shop. Ella Mae waved to a few of them as she jaywalked across Main to the pharmacy.

Louise Moore, a blue-haired woman who couldn’t be a day younger than a hundred and thirty, poked at the register with gnarled fingers. She glanced up when Ella Mae pushed through the pharmacy door. “How-do, Ella Mae. Happy birthday.”

Ella Mae figured birthdays wouldn’t be so bad if people didn’t keep reminding her she was forty-five today, a number she couldn’t quite believe and would really rather forget. Lately birthdays felt more like she was counting down instead of up. Counting down until the end.

She pushed up a smile. “Thanks, Louise. Is Ray here?”

Silly question. Ludicrous, really. If Ray wasn’t at the house, he was sure enough at his beloved pharmacy, counting pills and filling prescriptions and reminding whoever would listen to take their multivitamins.

Louise gestured to the back wall, where Ray’s work station overlooked the store from an elevated platform. “You know where to find him.”

Ella Mae wound her way through the aisles, past the scented candles and collectible figurines and sugar-free candy. She rang the bell, an old-fashioned silver desk version Ray insisted added ambiance, and his head appeared above the counter.

“There’s my birthday girl.” It was Ray’s pharmacy voice, animated and singsong and loud enough they could hear him clear up by the register. “I was worried you were going to stand me up.”

“I had trouble finding a parking spot.”

Ray leaned way over the counter and winked. “’Tis the season for holiday shoppers. This place has been jam-packed with ’em all day, isn’t that right, Elroy?”

Ella Mae turned to find Ray’s assistant stocking a display of reading glasses. “Only two more shopping days left, thank you, Jesus.”

Ray laughed, shedding his white pharmacist coat and draping it neatly over a hook. He was such a completely different person in his pharmacy—cordial, lively, often even funny. Ella Mae was no longer surprised by this fact, but she found herself wishing he could make more of an effort at home. Like just about everybody else in town, she rather liked Pharmacy Ray.

After a few hasty instructions for Elroy, Ray turned to Ella Mae. “You ready for your big night on the town?”

Was she ever.

When Ray had asked Ella Mae what she wanted for her birthday, she couldn’t come up with a single thing. She didn’t need clothes or makeup or a new appliance, and other than a plain wedding band, she hardly ever wore jewelry. All she wanted was a night out. Dinner, maybe a movie in Kingsport afterward, mostly so they wouldn’t end up marking the occasion by watching old
Baywatch
reruns in the den.

The pair set off for the door, fifty feet or so at best, but a trek that took at least ten minutes. Ray stopped about a million times, to straighten a display of greeting cards, to point Otis Olsen to the cough syrup, to inquire about Mrs. Crigger’s bunions. Ella Mae waited patiently, and as she watched her husband socialize with his customers, she almost remembered why she’d fallen in love with him, coming up on a decade ago.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked once they were finally on the street.

“I thought we’d start with a drink at Hal’s, then head over to Main Street Grille. How does that sound?”

“Heavenly.” Ella Mae actually meant it.

At Hal’s, Ray’s pharmacy mood continued. He swapped greetings and clapped backs and shook hands, and he even bought a round of drinks and led the place in a loud and off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday.” Afterward, he dipped Ella Mae in a kiss that felt strange and familiar at the same time. By the time he led her two doors down to Main Street Grille, Ella Mae was flushed and giddy and more than slightly tipsy. Why didn’t they go out every night?

At the restaurant, they ended up in a candlelit booth in the back, Ella Mae on the seat facing the bar and Ray directly across.

He cocked his head and studied her. “Did you do something to your hair?”

Ella Mae brushed her fingers through a curl at her temple. “Just touched up the gray. I guess now that I’m forty-five, I’ll be spending a lot more time down at the Hair Loft.”

“Well, tell Diane to keep doing whatever it is she’s doing, because it’s working. You really do look beautiful tonight.”

Ella Mae was flattered and surprised, pleasantly so, at the compliment. “Thanks.”

The waitress stepped up with a basket of bread and their drinks. She began listing off the night’s specials, but somewhere right around the chicken-fried steak, Ella Mae became distracted by a slow burn that sparked deep in her belly. Automatically, she began searching the crowd, craning her neck to try to see over the edges of the booth.

“And for you, ma’am?”

The burn exploded up her chest, and Ella Mae’s heart thundered hard enough to shudder the fabric of her new birthday blouse. She ordered the first thing she read from the menu. “I’ll have the chicken marsala.”

“What would you like for your side?”

Ella Mae could barely hear her through the bells— ear-piercing bells, warning bells—clanging in her ears. She leaned a little to the left, craning her neck, but the waitress’s backside blocked Ella Mae’s view of the room. “I’m sorry?”

“Mashed potatoes, cheese grits, sautéed mushrooms, creamed spinach, corn on—”

“Creamed spinach will be fine.”

The waitress moved on to the next table, and Ella Mae understood the roaring in her head and the fire in her veins. Time skidded to a stop, and so did her heart. The entire room around her went about its business. A man laughed, a woman knocked over her wine, a kid shrieked, but Ella Mae barely noticed. She barely noticed, because Dean Sullivan was right there, standing by the bar with the high school football coach and a beer, his gaze glued to Ella Mae.

A wave of longing seized her so strongly she almost swooned. Almost hopped out of the booth and sashayed across the bar, shedding clothes along the way. Her body craved Dean Sullivan like her lungs craved oxygen, like her cells craved nutrients. Like her heart would bleed out without his touch on her skin.

“Are you okay?”

Ella Mae dragged her gaze back to her husband. “What? Oh, yes, I’m fine.”

“Are we?”

“Are we what?”

“Okay.” For the first time Ella Mae could remember, Ray looked uncomfortable, and worry crawled up his face. “You just seem so...I don’t know. Distant. Like you’re always somewhere else, thinking of something else. Even when we’re, you know,” he leaned forward, whispered, “intimate.”

Ella Mae reached for her chardonnay with a shaking hand. “Don’t be silly.” She forced a smile. “There’s nothing the matter with me. With us.”

After an endless moment, Ray nodded and reached for the bread, and that was that.

Somehow—Ella Mae didn’t know how—she made it through dinner. She choked down her meal and held up her side of the conversation, but just barely. After his third glass of wine, Ray was too tipsy to notice. Dessert came, loud and conspicuous, a slice of candled cake brought by a procession of clapping waitstaff. Dean sipped his beer and watched from his bar stool the entire time.

“I know you said you didn’t want a gift,” Ray said after he’d paid the bill, reaching into the inside pocket of his jacket for a tiny box, “but I got you one anyway. Happy birthday.” He pushed it across the table.

Jewelry. That much was clear from the box, small and square and tied with a red bow, and Ella Mae’s stomach flipped and kicked. She didn’t want to open it, not with Dean watching. And she knew Dean was watching. Her skin sizzled wherever his gaze roamed.

Ray grinned, hitched his chin at the box. “Go on. Open it.”

She tugged at the bow, peeled off the lid and peered inside. A golden heart pendant and chain gleamed from a white cotton cushion. Her heart turned over, but not in a good way, twisting something painful behind her breast.

“Oh, Ray. I...”

“Does that mean you like it?”

Ella Mae glanced over at Dean. Since that first afternoon when he reached for her in her kitchen, she’d seen plenty of lust and longing and desire on his face. But now she saw something she’d never seen there before. She saw jealousy.

“Put it on,” Ray said. “Let me see how it looks.”

Ella Mae did as she was told, clasping the necklace behind her neck while Ray beamed and Dean scowled. She was suddenly desperate, breathless with the need to escape. Escape Ray. Escape Dean. Escape the guilt that seared her insides and clogged her throat and blurred her vision.

But Ella Mae couldn’t do any of that. Not without telling Ray. Not without losing Dean.

So she did the only thing she could think of. She slipped out of the booth, reached for her husband’s hand and went home.

And later, when Ray took her upstairs for happy-birthday sex, she closed her eyes and pretended he was Dean.

17

BO’S HERE.

Relief hits me, as hard and fast as Dad’s liquid morphine, at the same time another wave of frustration flushes my skin. Cal and I may have orchestrated the four of us under one roof, but it’s the wrong roof. My father is still dying in a bed four miles away, without his three children by his side. I shove the coffeepot into place, stab the on button and follow Cal into the living room.

He points us to the couch with a look none of us would dream of disobeying and pulls up a chair directly across. Once we’re all settled, he leans forward, elbows planted on his knees, fingers steepled before him, and lasers us with a glare.

“Okay, this is the way it’s gonna go. The three of you are gonna get your asses over to your father’s bedside this afternoon. You’re gonna cry and carry on about how glad you are to see him, and how sad you are he’s dying. I don’t care if you mean it or not, but you’re gonna goddamn well act like you do.”

I think about my conversation with my father only yesterday, how he wanted me to leave when I couldn’t tell him, assuredly and unequivocally, that I believed in his innocence. I glance over at Lexi, her face a mixture of mockery and contempt, and suck in a breath at the words I suspect she has for our father. Cal’s lawyer-voice commands aren’t going to make her mince them, and she’s certainly not going to plead the fifth like I did.

Bo coughs into a hand. “Amy’s waiting for me at home.”

“Your wife will understand.” Cal turns to Lexi. “And, you. You’re gonna apologize for not visiting, for not writing, for not being there yesterday when he came home. And when he asks you if you believe he’s innocent, you’re gonna lie your little heart out good enough to earn you an Academy Award.”

Lexi crosses her arms and legs and leans back, but she doesn’t respond.

Bo shifts on his seat. “And I still have a ton of work to do at the lab. I’ll probably be there all night.”

“I can call the chairman of the board and explain the situation if I have to.” Bo opens his mouth to protest, but Cal doesn’t give my brother the chance. “Don’t think I don’t have his number on speed dial, ’cause I do. The Tennessee Tiger knows everybody worth knowing. Are we clear?”

Bo blinks, a rapid-fire of a few dozen flutters, and then he nods.

Satisfied, Cal turns to Lexi. “Go get in the shower. You’re riding with me.”

Lexi uncrosses her legs, plants her feet. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Oh, yes, you sure as hellfire are.” Cal stands, puffing his chest with an intensity that makes me shrink a little farther into the couch. “Now go fix yourself up.”

My sister seems less impressed. She juts her chin and lifts a casual shoulder. “Fine, I’ll go, but I’m not gonna cry, and I’m sure as hell not gonna lie. I didn’t miss him for a second, and I’m not sorry he’s dying. And when he asks me if I think he killed Ella Mae, I’m gonna look him in the eye and say I know he did, and that it’s about damn time he’s finally getting what he deserved all those years ago.”

“Don’t you say it.” Cal steps around the coffee table until he’s standing right in front of her. The air stretches tight between them. “Don’t you dare say it.”

Lexi looks up, looks him straight in the eye. “A death sentence.”

The oxygen leaves the room with an audible whoosh. Or maybe that sound came from me, I don’t know. Either way, my lungs are deflated balloons, empty and useless. My sister’s words just knocked me breathless.

Cal scrunches his face into a scowl, and his voice takes on an ominous edge. “I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that.”

“Pretend away.” Lexi pushes herself off the couch, pushes by Cal toward the back hall. “Y’all help yourself to coffee while I hop in the shower.” At the edge of the room she turns back, trains her beauty pageant smile onto Cal. “I’m actually looking forward to this visit. Will finally be able to get a few things off my chest.” She disappears down the hallway. A few seconds later, a door slams and the shower starts.

Bo and I turn back to Cal, both of us shocked silent. Cal mutters something under his breath, then points a long finger at Bo. “Gia will drive your car. You’re riding with me.”

“What about Lexi?” Bo asks.

Cal doesn’t respond, just snatches his coat from the chair and stomps toward the door. By now he’s been up against enough hostile witnesses to know they’re as unpredictable as a black bear, and can be just as vicious. Bo shrugs, passes me his keys and follows silently behind.

From what I can tell from the driver’s seat of Bo’s Honda, my brother doesn’t say a word the entire way home. Then again, Cal doesn’t give him much choice. Bo sits, staring straight ahead, his back ramrod straight the entire drive, while Cal spouts what can only be a lecture. An arms-flailing, fingers-pointing lecture. It continues unbroken, for all the five minutes it takes for us to pull onto our street.

And no. I don’t feel the least bit sorry for Bo.

Ahead of me, Cal’s Buick brakes, then banks a sudden and sharp left, executing a tight U-turn over the road and a big chunk of Bill Almaroad’s lawn. I follow suit and swing Bo’s car around, trying not to make eye contact with any of the protesters stationed along the edge of our lot with their banners and posters and slogans. What have they done now?

At the four-way stop, Cal pulls onto the grass and hits the hazards. I park behind him, yanking on the hand brake and leaving the motor running, and race to Cal’s car. Breathless and confused, I slide into the backseat.

“What?” I lean my head between Cal and Bo, who looks like he’s about to throw up. “What’s wrong?”

Bo twists around, his eyes wild. “What’s wrong? What do you mean what’s wrong? Every goddamn thing is wrong. Didn’t you see what they did?”

I shake my head. “What who did? The protesters?”

Cal slams the steering wheel with the heel of a hand. “Goddammit!” He points a finger at Bo, then at me. “Not one word of this to your father, do you understand?”

“I don’t understand anything. What’s going on?”

“I can’t.” Bo thrusts both hands in his hair and pulls, his voice lifting into a wail. “I can’t do this.”

Cal clutches a palm over Bo’s shoulder, gives it a hard squeeze. “Son, I’m gonna need you to buck up, all right? You buck up and don’t let those people see you hurt, because that’s exactly what they want. Don’t you give them the satisfaction.”

Good grief. If I’d known Bo would be so squeamish about crossing the protest line, I would’ve brought a blindfold and some earplugs. I settle on a little white lie. “Once you get inside you can barely hear them.”

Bo looks at me like I’m crazy, and then he looks at Cal.

“Your father needs you, Bo.”

My brother shakes his head swiftly, almost violently. “Sorry, Cal.”

It’s not Bo’s apology that sways Cal, I suspect, but his tears. Bo never ever lets anyone see him cry. Not when Ella Mae was killed, not when our father was taken in for questioning, not even when the gavel came down on the side of guilty. When my brother reaches for the door handle, Cal doesn’t try to stop him.

After Bo’s gone, Cal puts the Buick into gear and swings the car around, and the two of us head back to the house.

* * *

As soon as we crest the hill for the second time, I know something’s off. The protesters are lined up on the asphalt in the middle of the road, but they’re turned the wrong way, facing out instead of aiming their angry chants at the house behind them.

And speaking of chants, there are none. A scraggly man in a red scarf coughs into his hand as we pull closer, but otherwise, no one makes a sound. They simply watch.

Cal sets his mouth and stares ahead, steering straight for the driveway. The protesters hustle back, parting to let our car through, and that’s when I see it. Two words, spray painted in thick, capital letters across the front siding of the house, a bloodred reminder of why I’ve come home.

Die, Murderer.

Dread punches my stomach like a fist and shoots fire through my veins. Fire so red-hot I can barely see, breathe, think. What greater power did I offend to deserve this shit? A dying father, deadbeat siblings and now a house defiled with the most hurtful words I could ever imagine. I dedicate my life to helping others, and this is what the universe does to thank me?

I clamber out of the backseat before Cal has pulled to a full stop, gesturing with a wild arm to the house behind me. “Which one of you assholes is the graffiti artist?”

By now the protesters are huddled at the end of the driveway, Tanya dead center. No one responds.

“Which one?”

Behind me, I hear Cal step out of the car. “Let it go, baby girl,” he says softly. “This is a police matter now.”

“That’s right,” I shriek, not turning, not backing down. “The police. Because we’re calling them as soon as we get inside.”

Somebody clears their throat, and a few others look away.

I ignore the cell phones and news cameras capturing my tantrum in full color, high definition and march down the driveway. “What is wrong with you people? A man is dying in there. A man who discounted your prescriptions when you couldn’t pay and made midnight medicine runs when your kids were sick. Why can’t you let him die in peace?”

Tanya lifts her bullhorn, points it directly at my head and chants, “Life in prison means dying in prison. Send the murderer back!”

One by one, the others join in.

In that instant, I understand the phrase
crime of passion.
Because right now, I am passionately seething. At the scraggly man in the scarf and a bearded mountain man in a ten-gallon hat and a woman in Coke-bottle glasses and a guy with ridiculous fur earmuffs, all repeating Tanya’s words as if by rote. But especially, I’m seething at Tanya.

Because anyone who would desecrate a man’s last weeks with hate-filled protests in the name of God wouldn’t think twice about defiling that man’s property with graffiti.

I step right up in front of Tanya, screaming above her chant. “Do your Pentecostal pals know about you?”

She cuts off midword, putting a screeching stop to the “angry protest” record, and the hand clutching the bullhorn drops to her side. “Don’t you dare.”

I turn to the first camera lens I see. “Tanya McNeal wasn’t awfully popular back in high school, but her right hand sure was.”

Cal steps up behind me, reaches for my sleeve. “Let’s go.”

I wrench my arm from his grip, speak loud and strong into the camera. “Until she and her hand got expelled, that is, for prostitution.”

“Gia.” It’s Cal, and his tone is urgent. “Inside. Now.”

I pluck the bullhorn from Tanya’s hand, flip it around, punch the button and holler into the mouthpiece loud enough they hear me clear to Church Hill. “That’s right, y’all. The preacher’s wife was a whore.”

The protesters give a collective gasp.

“Oh, man.” A guy with a puffy coat and an iPhone aimed at my head nudges the person next to him. “I’m gonna upload the shit out of this.”

I flip him a bird. “Upload this, asshole.”

Tanya’s mouth scrunches into an ugly squiggle, and she draws a deep breath. “Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and He will have mercy on them.”

I snort. “Whatever that means.”

“It means I’ve been born again.” She smiles kindly, sweetly, but I’m not fooled. I remember the real Tanya, and she wasn’t half that nice. “It means Jesus Christ has washed away my sins, and I’ve been forgiven.”

I speak into the bullhorn. “Good for you, Tanya, but tell me. How does Jesus Christ feel about your inability to forgive others?”

She blinks, and her smile plummets.

“That’s what I thought.” I shove the bullhorn into her arms, turn and stomp past a chuckling Cal back up the drive.

“That wasn’t the dumbest thing you’ve ever done, baby girl,” he says, catching up to me on the top step of the porch, “but it was pretty damn close.”

“I know, I know.” I stop at the door and lean against the siding, shoving my fists into my coat pockets. “But some things needed to be said.”

He pulls a toothpick from his molars, twirls it between his fingers. “Like that bit about the preacher’s wife being a whore?”

“Especially that part.”

Cal pops the stick back into his cheek and grins. “And here I thought Lexi inherited all the Andrews family spunk.”

I wriggle the phone from my back pocket and slide a thumb across the screen. “Well then stick around. Because I’m calling Jimmy, and somebody goddamn well better be arrested.”

From inside, Dad’s laugh, a dry
heh-heh-heh,
floats through the windowpane. “She can stay.”

* * *

As it turns out, no one gets arrested. No one gets so much as a slap on their spray-paint-wielding wrist. Until I can prove someone trespassed on private property to commit vandalism, Jimmy claims his hands are tied.

“I kind of assumed the graffiti was proof of the trespassing and the vandalism.” I don’t bother to disguise the sarcasm seeping from my voice. My veins are still hot with adrenaline, and I have to take my frustration out on someone.

“Did you identify anyone trespassing on your property?”

I don’t answer, which Jimmy takes as one.

“Look, Gia. I’m sorry they’re there, I really am, but call me back as soon as you see anyone crossing the property line. I’ll be there with sirens blazing.”

“That’ll sure be helpful when the molotov cocktails start flying.” And then I think of something else. “Arrest Tanya McNeal, then. She has a bullhorn.”

Jimmy sighs, long and deep. “C’mon, Gia. You know I can’t arrest her for a bullhorn, but I can come down there and give her a stern dressin’-down. Would that make you feel better?”

“I guess,” I tell him after a long moment, even though I don’t. I don’t feel any better at all.

Cal isn’t much help, either. After an hour-long soliloquy about the difference between direct and circumstantial evidence, he wheels his weekend suitcase out the door and heads back to his flavor-of-the-month in Knoxville.

After he’s gone, Dad asks Fannie for more morphine then promptly conks out. With nothing more to do, I collapse on the couch.