"Please. Just hear me out. I want to tell you why I ... why I look this way."
I glanced down at Claire, but who was I kidding? We could scream at the top of our lungs and not disturb her; she was in a medically induced haze. "What makes you think I want to listen?"
She continued, as if I hadn't spoken at all. "When I was thirteen, I was in a fire. So was my whole foster family. My foster father, he died." She took a step forward. "I ran in to try to get my foster father out. Shay was the one who came to save me."
"Sorry, but I can't quite think of your brother as a hero."
"When the police came, Shay told them he'd set the fire," Grace said.
I folded my arms. She hadn't said anything yet that surprised me. I knew that Shay Bourne had been in and out of the foster care system. I knew that he'd been sent to juvenile prison. You could throw ten thousand more excuses for a sorry childhood on his shoulders, and in my opinion, it still wouldn't negate the fact that my husband, my baby, had been killed.
"The thing is," Grace said, "Shay lied." She pushed her hand through her hair. "I'm the one who set the fire."
"My daughter is dying," I said tightly. "I'm sorry you had such a traumatic past. But right now, I have other things to focus on."
Undaunted, Grace kept speaking. "It would happen when my foster mom went to visit her sister. Her husband would come to my bedroom. I used to beg to leave my lights on at night. At first, it was because I was afraid of the dark; then later it was because I so badly wanted someone to see what was happening." Her voice trailed off. "So one day, I planned it. My foster mother was gone overnight, and Shay was--I don't know where, but not home. I guess I didn't think about the consequences until after I lit the match--so I ran in to try to wake my foster dad up. But someone dragged me back out--Shay. And as the sirens got closer I told him everything and he promised me he'd take care of it. I never thought he meant to take the blame--but he wanted to, because he hadn't been able to rescue me before." Grace glanced up at me. "I don't know what happened that day, with your husband, and your little girl, and my brother. But I bet, somehow, something went wrong. That Shay was trying to save her, the way he couldn't save me."
"It's not the same," I said. "My husband would never have hurt Elizabeth like that."
"My foster mother said that, too." She met my gaze. "How would you have felt if--when Elizabeth died--someone told you that you can't have her back, but that a part of her could still be somewhere in the world? You may not know that part; you may not ever have contact with it--but you'd know it was out there, alive and well. Would you have wanted that?"
We were both standing on the same side of Claire's bed. Grace Bourne was almost exactly my height, my build. In spite of her scars, it felt like looking into a mirror. "There's still a heart, June," she said. "And it's a good one."
We pretend that we know our children, because it's easier than admitting the truth--from the minute that cord is cut, they are strangers. It's far easier to tell yourself your daughter is still a little girl than to see her in a bikini and realize she has the curves of a young woman; it's safer to say you are a good parent who has all the right conversations about drugs and sex than to acknowledge there are a thousand things she would never tell you.
How long ago had Claire decided that she couldn't fight any longer? Did she talk to a friend, a diary, Dudley, because I didn't listen? And had I done this before: ignored another daughter, because I was too afraid to hear what she had to say?
Grace Bourne's words kept circling around my mind: My foster mother said that, too.
No. Kurt would never.
But there were other images clouding my mind, like flags thrown on a grassy field: the pair of Elizabeth's panties that I found inside a couch cushion liner when she was too little to know how to work a zipper. The way he often needed to search for something in the bathroom--Tylenol, an Ace bandage--when Elizabeth was in the tub.
And I heard Elizabeth, every night, when I tucked her in. "Leave the lights on," she'd beg, just like Grace Bourne had.
I had thought it was a phase she'd outgrow, but Kurt said we couldn't let her give in to her fears. The compromise he suggested was to turn off the light--and lie down with her until she fell asleep.
What happens when I'm asleep? she'd asked me once. Does everything stop?
What if that had not been the dreamy question of a seven-year-old still figuring out this world, but a plea from a child who wanted to escape it?
I thought of Grace Bourne, hiding behind her scarves. I thought of how you can look right at a person and not see them.
I realized that I might never know what had really happened between them--neither Kurt nor Elizabeth could tell. And Shay Bourne--well, no matter what he saw, his fingerprints had still been on that gun. After last time, I did not know if I could ever bear to face him again.
She was better off dead, he'd said, and I'd run away from what he was trying to tell me.
I pictured Kurt and Elizabeth together in that coffin, his arms holding her tight, and suddenly I thought I was going to throw up.
"Mom," Claire said, her voice thin and wispy. "Are you okay?"
I put my hand on her cheek, where there was a faint flush induced by the medicine--her heart was not strong enough to put a bloom on her face. "No, I'm not," I admitted. "I'm dying."
She smiled a little. "What a coincidence."
But it wasn't funny. I was dying, by degrees. "I have to tell you something," I said, "and you're going to hate me for it." I reached for her hand and squeezed it tightly. "I know it isn't fair. But you're the child, and I'm the parent, and I get to make the choice, even though the heart gets to beat in your chest."
Her eyes filled with tears. "But you said--you promised. Don't make me do this ..."
"Claire, I cannot sit here and watch you die when I know that there's a heart waiting for you."
"But not just any heart." She was crying now, her head turned away from me. "Did you think at all what it will be like for me, after?"
I brushed her hair off her forehead. "It's all I think about, baby."
"That's a lie," Claire argued. "All you ever think about is yourself, and what you want, and what you've lost. You know, you're not the only one who missed out on a real life."
"That's exactly why I can't let you throw this one away."
Slowly, Claire turned to face me.
"I don't want to be alive because of him."
"Then stay alive because of me." I drew in my breath and pulled my deepest secret free. "See, I'm not as strong as you are, Claire. I don't think I can stand to be left behind again."
She closed her eyes, and I thought she had drifted back into sleep, until she squeezed my hand. "Okay," she said. "But I hope you realize I may hate you for the rest of my life."
The rest of my life. Was there any other phrase with so much music in it? "Oh, Claire," I said tightly. "That's going to be a long, long time."
"God is dead: but considering the state Man is in,
there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet,
in which his shadow will be shown."
--FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, THE GAY SCIENCE
MICHAEL
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
When inmates tried to kill themselves, they'd use the vent. They would string coaxial cables from their television sets through the louvers, wrap a noose around their necks, and step off the metal bunk. For this reason, one week before Shay's execution, he was transferred to an observation cell. There was a camera monitoring his every move; an officer was stationed outside the door. It was a suicide watch, so that a prisoner could not kill himself before the state had its turn.
Shay hated it--it was all he talked about as I sat with him for eight hours a day. I'd read from the Bible, and from the Gospel of Thomas, and from Sports Illustrated. I'd tell him about the plans I'd made for the youth group to host a Fourth of July pie auction, a holiday that he would not be around to celebrate. He would act like he was l
istening, but then he'd address the officer standing outside. "Don't you think I deserve some privacy?" he'd yell. "If you only had a week left, would you want someone watching you every time you cried? Ate? Took a piss?"
Sometimes he seemed resigned to the fact that he was going to die--he'd ask me if I really thought there was a heaven, if you could catch stripers or rainbows or salmon there, if fish even went to heaven in the first place, if fish souls were just as good eating as the real kind. Other times he sobbed so hard that he made himself sick; he'd wipe his mouth on the sleeve of his jumpsuit and lie down on the bunk, staring up at the ceiling. The only thing that got him through those darker times was talking about Claire Nealon, whose mother had reclaimed Shay's heart. He had a grainy newspaper photo of Claire, and by now, he'd run his hands over it so often that the girl's pale face had become a blank white oval, features left to the imagination.
The scaffold had been built; throughout the prison you could smell the sap of the pine, taste the fine sawdust in the air. Although there had indeed already been a trapdoor in the chaplain's office, it proved too costly to decimate the cafeteria below it, which accommodated the drop. Instead, a sturdy wooden structure went up beside the injection chamber that had already been built. But when editorials in the Concord Monitor and the Union Leader criticized the barbarism of a public execution (they speculated that any paparazzi capable of crashing Madonna's wedding in a helicopter would also be able to get footage of the hanging), the warden scrambled to conceal the scaffold. On short order, their best arrangement was to purchase an old big-top tent from a family-run Vermont circus that was going out of business. The festive red and purple stripes took up most of the prison courtyard. You could see its spire from Route 93: Come one, come all. The greatest show on earth.
It was a strange thing, knowing that I was going to see Shay's death. Although I'd witnessed the passing of a dozen parishioners; although I'd stood beside the bed while they took their last breaths--this was different. It wasn't God who was cutting the thread of this life, but a court order. I stopped wearing my watch and kept time by Shay's life instead. There were seventy-two hours left, forty-eight, and then twenty-four. I stopped sleeping, like Shay, choosing instead to stay up with him around the clock.
Grace continued to visit once a day. She would only tell me that what had separated them before was a secret--something that had apparently been resolved after she visited June Nealon--and that she was making up for the time she'd lost with her brother. They spent hours with their heads bent together, trading memories, but Shay was adamant that he didn't want Grace at the execution--he did not want that to be her last memory of him. Instead, Shay's designated witnesses would be me, Maggie, and Maggie's boss. When Grace came for her visit, I'd leave her alone with Shay. I would go to the staff cafeteria and grab a soda, or sit and read the newspaper. Sometimes I watched the news coverage of the upcoming execution--the American Medical Association had begun to protest outside the prison, with huge banners that read FIRST DO NO HARM. Those who still believed that Shay was, well, more than just a murderer began to light candles at night, thousands of them, spelling out a message that burned so brightly airplane pilots departing from Manchester could read it as they soared skyward: HAVE MERCY.
Mostly, I prayed. To God, to Shay, to anyone who was willing to listen, frankly. And I hoped--that God, at the last minute, would spare Shay. It was hard enough ministering to a death row inmate when I'd believed him to be guilty, but it was far worse to minister to an innocent man who had resigned himself to death. At night, I dreamed of train wrecks. No matter how loud I shouted for someone to throw the switch to the rail, no one understood what I was saying.
On the day before Shay's execution, when Grace arrived, I excused myself and wandered into the courtyard between buildings, along the massive perimeter of the circus tent. This time, however, the officers who usually stood guard at the front entrance were missing, and the flap that was usually laced shut was pinned open instead. I could hear voices inside:
... don't want to get too close to the edge ...
... thirty seconds from the rear entrance to the steps ...
... two of you out in front, three in back.
I poked my head in, expecting to be yanked away by an officer--but the small group inside was far too busy to even notice me. Warden Coyne stood on a wooden platform, along with six officers. One was slightly smaller than the rest, and wore handcuffs, ankle cuffs, and a waist chain. He was sagging backward, a deadweight in the other officers' hands.
The gallows itself was a massive metal upright with a crossbeam, set on a platform that had a set of double trapdoors. Below the trap was an open area where you'd be able to see the body drop. Off to both the left and right of the gallows were small rooms with a one-way mirror in the front, so that you could look out, but no one could look in. There was a ramp behind the gallows, and two white curtains that ran the entire length of the tent--one above the gallows, one below it. As I watched, two of the officers dragged the smaller one onto the gallows platform in front of the open curtain.
Warden Coyne pushed a button on his stopwatch. "And ... cut," he said. "That's seven minutes, fifty-eight seconds. Nicely done."
The warden gestured to the wall. "Those red phones are direct hookups to the governor's office and the attorney general--the commissioner will call to make sure there's been no stay of execution, no last-minute reprieve. If that's the case, then he'll come onto the platform and say so. When he exits, I come up and read the warrant of execution, blah blah blah, then I ask the inmate if he has any final words. As soon as he's finished, I walk off the platform. The minute I cross this taped yellow line, the upper curtain will close, and that's when you two secure the inmate. Now, I'm not going to close the curtains right now, but give it a try."
They placed a white hood over the smaller officer's head and fitted the noose around his neck. It was made of rough rope, wrapped with leather; the loop wasn't made from a hangman's knot, but instead passed through a brass eyelet.
"We've got a drop of seven feet seven inches," Warden Coyne explained as they finished up. "That's the standard for a hundred-and-twenty-six-pound man. You can see the adjusting bracket above--that gold mark is where it should be lined up, at the eye bolt. During the actual event, you three--Hughes, Hutchins, and Greenwald--will be in the chamber to the right. You'll have been placed a few hours ahead of time, so that you aren't seen coming into the tent at all. You will each have a button in front of you. As soon as I enter the control chamber and close the door, you will push that button. Only one of the three actually electromagnetically releases the trapdoor of the gallows; the other two are dummies. Which of the three buttons connects will be determined randomly by computer."
One of the officers interrupted. "What if the inmate can't stand up?"
"We have a collapse board outside his cell--modeled after the one used at Walla Walla in '94. If he can't walk, he'll be strapped onto it and wheeled up by gurney."
They kept saying "the inmate" as if they did not know who they were executing in twenty-four hours. I knew, though, that the reason they would not say Shay's name was that none of them were brave enough. That would make them accountable for murder--the very same crime for which they were hanging a man.
Warden Coyne turned to the other booth. "How's that work for you?"
A door opened, and another man walked out. He put his hand on the mock prisoner's shoulder. "I beg your pardon," he said, and as soon as he spoke I recognized him. This was the British man who'd been at Maggie's apartment when I barged in to tell her Shay was innocent--Gallagher, that was his name. He took the noose and readjusted it around the smaller man's neck, but this time he tightened the knot directly below the left ear. "You see where I've snugged the rope? Make sure it's here, not at the base of the skull. The force of the drop, combined with the position of the knot, is what's meant to fracture the cervical vertebrae and separate the spinal cord."
Warden Coyne addressed
the staff again. "The court's ordered us to assume brain death based on the measured drop and the fact that the inmate has stopped breathing. Once the doctor gives us the signal, the lower curtains will close as well, and the body gets cut down immediately. It's important to remember that our job doesn't end with the drop." He turned to the doctor. "And then?"
"We'll intubate, to protect the heart and other organs. After that, I'll perform a brain perfusion scan to fully confirm brain death, and we'll remove the body from the premises."
"After the criminal investigation unit comes in and clears the execution, the body will go to the medical examiner's staff--they'll have an unmarked white van behind the tent," the warden said, "and the special operations unit will transport the body back to the hospital, along with them."
I noticed that the warden did not speak the doctor's name, either.
"The rest of the visitors will be exiting from the front of the tent," Warden Coyne said, pointing to the opened flaps of the doorway and spotting me for the first time.
Everyone on the gallows platform stared at me. I met Christian Gallagher's gaze and he nodded imperceptibly. Warden Coyne squinted, and as he recognized me, he sighed. "I can't let you in here, Father," he said, but before the officers could escort me out, I had already slipped from the tent and back into the building where Shay was even now waiting to die.
That night, Shay was moved to the death tent. They had built a single cell there, one that would be manned round the clock. At first, it was just like any other cell ... but two hours into his stay there, the temperature began to plummet. Shay kept shivering, no matter how many blankets were piled upon him.
"The thermostat says it's sixty-six degrees," the officer said, smacking the bulb with his hand. "It's May, for chrissake."
"Well, does it feel like sixty-six degrees to you?" I asked. My toes were numb. There was an icicle hanging from the bottom rung of my stool. "Can we get a heater? Another blanket?"