The Lavender Hour (29 page)

“Maybe later,” she said, and began oiling her arms and legs, her newly exposed stomach, still virgin white.

“Please,” I said. I kept it up until Ashley put on her earphones, flopped prone, and put on a pair of protective goggles, silly-looking things, white with black pupils painted on them. Determined to regain her attention, I kicked sand on her legs.

“Cut it out, stupid,” Ashley screamed, as if I had splattered her with acid.

Our daddy set his paper aside. “Come on, Jess,” he said. “Let's go for a swim. It's about time you learned how to bodysurf.”

“Be careful,” Lily said automatically, not looking up from her book.

As we walked down to the water, I saw women on other blankets watching him, confirming what I already knew—he was tall, good-looking, his middle-aged body muscular and fit, swim trunks revealing only the slightest thickening at the waist—and I slipped my hand possessively into his.

We were used to swimming in Nantucket Sound, where, by mid-August, it was as warm as pool water, and I always forgot how cold the Atlantic was. When the waves first licked and shocked, I screamed and hopped back, my feet and ankles numb. (I was always convinced I would never be able to go all the way in, but eventually I did, usually after I had been knocked flat by a wave I hadn't outrun.)

That day my daddy dove right in, but I inched in, jumping the waves as they came ashore, calling to him, my voice and his joining a cacophony I would forever associate with that time and place: the cries of seagulls, children's laughter, a shrill whistle coming from one of the lifeguard stands, music pouring from boom boxes. When I finally joined him, we swam out to the calm waters where the waves broke. He demonstrated the technique first. He looked over his shoulder, and when a wave started cresting several feet away, he raised his arms above his head in the diver's classic pose, and then, just as the wave was about to break over him, he dove, his body stiff, his legs flutter-kicking. The wave carried him all the way in to the beach.

It took a while for me to get the hang of it, but he was a patient teacher. Timing was everything. You had to catch the wave at the precise moment before it broke in order for the momentum to catch you and carry you in. Not carry you in so much as launch, as if you were no more substantial than seaweed.

I was on my fourth or fifth wave, waterlogged and groggy, when
a wave caught me unprepared and I was sucked under. I panicked, swallowed saltwater, and then I felt his hands take hold of me, his arms lift me up. Choking, sputtering, eyes burning, I clung to the safety of him. I wanted to go back to the blanket after that, but he insisted I catch one more wave. I hung back, mute with fear.

“One more,” he said. “Then we'll go in.”

“I don't want to,” I said.

“One more, Jess,”he said.

“I'm afraid,” I confessed.

“That's the worst reason in the world not to do something.”

“But I almost drowned,” I said.

“No, you didn't,” he said. “I was right here.”

I was close to tears, torn between my new fear of the water and my old fear of disappointing him, this handsome, strong man who was my daddy, who had lifted me high, who had never once struck me in anger.

“I won't let anything happen to you,”he said.

“Promise?”

“Promise. I'll always be here for you, Jess. I'll never let anything happen to you. You can count on it.”

H
OW COULD
parents promise things like that? I wondered now. How could anyone?

S
UNDAY, NEEDING ESCAPE,
I drove to Boston for the day. I wandered through Quincy Market and the old burial grounds near Beacon Hill, ate dinner in an expensive Italian restaurant, and sometime after midnight, returned to the Cape and the reality of the trial.

Early Monday morning, I was again at the commuter parking lot, standing off to one side of the bus shelter, eyes averted from the others waiting there. I was watching for the gray sedan the paralegals drove when a green BMW swung in at the curb directly in front of me. The passenger's side window slid down, and the driver leaned over.

“Jessie?” a stranger said.

I drew back. The woman was smiling, but that didn't ease my apprehension. She was dressed in a purple sweat suit and wore false eyelashes and eye makeup in neon blue. Her hair was bleached nearly white and teased into a beehive that defied time and style. I looked around, taking comfort in the proximity of the commuters, thinking that no one, not even a right-to-life fanatic, would be stupid enough to shoot me in front of twenty witnesses.

“Hop in,” the blonde said. “I'm supposed to give you a ride.”

I wasn't about to get into the car. Those fanatic types were clever. One of the men waiting for the bus, sensing my discomfort, edged closer, his face questioning.

“It's okay,” the blonde said. “Gage sent me.”

“Where are Irene and Robin?”

“He's sent them out on errands.”

T
HE
L
AVENDER
H
OUR

I still hesitated.

“Everything okay?” the man asked. The other commuters stared.

“It's okay, Jessie. Really. I'm Gage's wife.”

Gage's wife? “How do I know that?” I said.

The woman laughed—a short bark. “Do you think I'd lie about being married to a twerp like Gage Fisk? For Christ's sake, Jessie, just get in the goddamned car.”

I slid in and was nearly knocked out by the smell of perfume and the scent of new leather. “Sorry,” I said. “I just needed to be sure. I'm kind of freaked out by the protesters.”

“Gage told me about them. He should have called and told you I'd be picking you up, but things like that just don't occur to him. Anyway, my name's Cecilia. Most people call me CeeCee.”

“He could have tried to call,” I said, suddenly needing to defend Gage. “I had the phone unplugged all weekend.”

“Nah, he didn't try. The man expects everyone to be a fucking mind reader. By the way, no need to tell him I called him a twerp,” she said. “I was just trying to get you in the car.” She swung out of the lot and hooked a left toward 6A.

I had to smile. “Have you been married a long time?”

“Seven years.”

I tried to picture them as a couple and failed.

“I'll tell you how we met,” CeeCee said, as if I had asked this question. “A blind date. We went out to dinner, and then we went dancing. On the way home, he looked straight at me and said, 'I have to tell you, if I had hair like that, I wouldn't know whether to shave it or shoot it.'”

“You're kidding.”

“As God is my witness.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him, 'Yeah, well, now I've got a hair across my ass. And speaking of ass, I hope you don't think you're getting any.'” She threw back her head and howled at the memory.

“You didn't.”

“Swear on the Bible. Yeah, you might say it was love at first date.”

For the first time in days, I laughed.

G
AGE'S COMMENT
to the guard on Friday must have been relayed to Nelson, because when we pulled up at the courthouse, there were sawhorses set up to keep the protesters at a distance, enabling me to get out of the car. “Thanks for the ride,” I said. “And everything.”

“Good luck today, honey,” CeeCee said. “And don't you worry about a thing. Gage hasn't lost a case since I've known him, and he doesn't plan on starting now.”

She's his wife, I thought. What else is she going to say? But I felt more optimistic than I had in weeks.

Gage met me at the door. “I see you and CeeCee connected,”he said, his voice thick with pride. “She's something, isn't she?”

I agreed with this assessment.

“This will be the tough day,” he said. “Once we get through today, the worst of it will be over.” On Friday, he'd readied me for what lay ahead—Paige and Nona were scheduled to testify—and I'd tried to prepare myself.

“There's something we got to discuss before we go in,” he said, ushering me into a conference room.

“Okay.”

“Something you need to be prepared for.”

My heart stopped.

“The reason Irene couldn't get you this morning is because she and Robin were driving in to Logan to meet a plane. Your mother's here.”

“Lily's here?” I looked around, as if my mama was hiding in a corner of the room.

“In the courtroom.”

“Why?” I said, meaning how did she find out about the trial,
how did she get here, and why hadn't Lily called me, why was I the last to know.

“I tried to get you all weekend,” Gage said.

“I had the phone unplugged.”

“Well, she called me Saturday morning when she couldn't reach you. Said she'd be here this morning, asked if I could have someone meet the plane.”

“She called you?”

“Yeah. Anyway, I didn't want you to be caught off guard.”

I
SAW
her as soon as I entered the courtroom. Lily was sitting right behind the bar that separated the defense table from the pewlike seats where the onlookers sat. I looked for Jan, but Lily was alone. Beneath the tan, she looked exhausted.

“Mama.” The word was more sigh than sound.

Lily mouthed I love you.

And then the jury was led in.

N
ELSON CALLED
Paige first. I hadn't seen her since the day of Luke's funeral, and I hardly recognized her as she entered the courtroom and took the stand. My granddaddy would have said Paige “cleaned up good.” She had cut her hair and was dressed in a conservative skirt and sweater. No makeup. She looked young. Vulnerable. The grieving daughter. I cast a quick glance at the jury. Several of the women were offering Paige tender smiles. This was when I began to believe I might be totally screwed. As if reading my mind, Gage passed a note to me. No problem, it read. Right, I thought. I turned back to look at Lily, who nodded in encouragement, her eyes steady, her face filled with her belief in my innocence.

Nelson—dripping sympathy—led Paige through her testimony. If the jurors weren't empathetic when he started, they certainly were by the time he was finished. He established how difficult it had been for her to lose her father, portraying her as the
dutiful daughter. Then Paige began on me. “We trusted her,” she said. “We thought she would take care of my father.”

“And was there a time when you felt that trust was abused?”

“Yes, several times,” she said. She told the jurors about Easter, and how her grandmother had wanted to go to church and had asked if I would stay with Luke, but when she had stopped by later, her father had been all alone. She told them how I had left him to go out and buy cola and a pack of cigarettes. Together, she and Nelson gave the jury a portrayal of me: unreliable and selfish. Paige didn't testify that I'd gone to the store at Luke's request. I felt Lily's presence behind me and was both comforted by it and ashamed.

“During the months that the defendant came to your father's house, did you have opportunities to observe her with him?” Nelson asked.

“Yes, I did.”

“And what was the defendant's relationship with your father?”

“He didn't have a relationship with her. But she was obsessed with him.”

Gage was on his feet, yelling his objection. Judge Savage ordered the jury to disregard the witness's last response, but the word was now in the air. Obsessed. I could almost see it take root in the minds of the jurors. I thought of my notebook, filled with sketches of Luke. Obsessed. Nelson went on, as if there had been no interruption. “Paige, did your father at any time mention an intention of giving a painting to the defendant?”

“No. Never.”

“Now, Paige, I know that this is difficult for you, but I have to ask, did your father ever, at any time, mention that he wanted to die?”

“No.”

“Did he ever mention any intention of taking his own life?”

“No, of course not.”

“Never, in the weeks prior to his death, did he have any conversation with you about ending his life?”

“No.”

I stared at her. Luke told me he had shown her the pills. Why was she lying?

“Not once? In spite of his pain, in spite of the fact that death was inevitable, he never mentioned the possibility of an overdose?”

“He never would have done that. Never. We wanted to make use of what time he did have.” Paige started to cry. “He wouldn't have left me before he had to.”

Several of the jurors were wiping their eyes. Screwed, I thought.

“No further questions,” Nelson said.

“She did it.” Paige raised her hand, pointed directly at me. “She's the one who killed my father.”

Judge Savage instructed the DA to get his witness under control and told the jury to disregard her outburst. Too late. How could you unsay words? Unring the bell? Paige's accusation echoed in the room. I didn't dare turn around and look at Lily.

“Cross-examine?” Savage asked Gage.

Gage tried, but he couldn't change the impression Paige had made on the jurors. He attempted to question her about her drinking and whether she had ever appeared at Luke's while drunk or hungover, but Nelson objected to every question and Savage sustained the objections.

When she left the stand, the air hung heavy in the room. Judge Savage adjourned until one.

D
URING THE
break, Gage left me alone with Lily in the conference room, saying he was going to the deli across the street to pick up the lunch order. Lily hugged me, kissed my cheeks, stroked my forehead, as if I were ten again.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“For what?”

“That you came all this way.”

A look of irritation briefly replaced that of concern. “For heaven's sake, Jessie. Of course I want to be here.”

“Ashley shouldn't have bothered you.”

“She didn't. Jan read about the trial in an article online.”

“Still, you shouldn't have come.” I'm grown-up, I wanted to say. You don't have to come in and rescue me. I felt like I was back in high school, disappointing Lily yet again. Secretly I wondered if Lily was worried about what her friends would think when they heard about the trial.

Lily sighed and sat at the long table. I saw then how tired she was.