“All these years I thought it was romantic, but the truth was right in front of me all the time. Aurora saw it first. Winona tries not to believe it. And airheaded Vivi never saw it until now. If you were crying, it wasn’t for the reason I thought. You don’t know a damn thing about love, do you?”
“If you’re talkin’ about that Indian—”
“Enough,” Vivi Ann snapped at him, surprised to see him recoil at the force of her voice. “I won’t let you talk about him.”
Before Dad could answer, the door burst open. She heard footsteps thundering through the house and a voice calling out her name.
Aurora came into the family room. “Vivi Ann,” she said. “I just saw the news. Are you okay?”
Vivi Ann looked at her father, and in that last, quick glimpse, she felt the final brick in her childhood wall tumble free. For the first time, she wasn’t just looking at him; she was seeing him. “I feel sorry for you,” she said, noticing how he flinched.
Walking past him, she linked arms with Aurora. Together they walked through the house and out into the salmony-pink early evening.
“What the hell was that about?”
“He’s an asshole,” Vivi Ann said.
Aurora grinned. “It’s about time you figured that out.”
“How did I miss it?”
“We see what we want to see.”
Vivi Ann hugged her sister, whispering, “Thanks for coming over.”
“How are you?”
“I knew this would happen. Hoped otherwise, maybe, but I knew.”
“And Noah?”
Vivi Ann sighed. “He won’t handle the news well. He let himself believe.”
“What will you say to him?”
The idea of the conversation was overwhelming. “I don’t know. Words are cheap when you’re waiting.” She cut herself off, unable to finish that thought. “I guess I’ll tell him I love him. What else is there?”
I hardly had time to get amped up over the news that my dad’s DNA didn’t match the sample from the crime scene when Aunt Winona tore the shit out of everything by saying that the prosecutors were fighting to keep him in prison.
But he’s innocent, I said.
If the DNA had convicted him, maybe it would have freed him, she said, but there had been lots of evidence against dad.
It’s still going forward. Aunt Winona filed her motion and the prosecutors filed theirs and next week we’ll all be in court to see what happens, but I can tell what’s what. Aunt Winona has talked to lots of lawyers and they all say the same thing: keep trying but don’t hold your breath. The prosecutor told the newspaper that maybe dad killed that woman in a jealous rage cuz some other guy banged her.
They have a guilty answer for everything.
It’s funny, Mrs. I., even though you haven’t been reading my stuff all year, I still feel like you are. I’d give anything right now for one of your dorky questions like Who am I? or What do I want out of life? Or How do you make friends?
All that school shit is way easier to think about than my real life. I wish I could sit down and talk with Cissy. She always makes me feel better about this crap. But her assface dad still thinks I’m this terrorist and won’t let us hang out after school. It makes the time go slow between school days.
The good news is I don’t lose my temper any more. At least I didn’t when I figured my dad was getting out of prison.
Who knows what I’ll do now?
Tonight when I was feeding the horses, Renegade came up to the fence and shoved me with his nose and made me fall. It was totally bizarre cuz usually he just stands back and watches me throw the hay to him. He’s the only horse we have that doesn’t seem to care about food. After he knocked me into the mud puddle, I yelled at him and threw a flake of hay right at his face.
That’s when my mom walked up to me. I told her that horse was a whack job, and she said, Did I ever tell you about the day I rescued Renegade?
You said he was all starving and shit, I said. I was still pissed off about everything, about the sucky courts and my dad who wouldn’t see me and the horse that knocked me on my butt. I was mad at mom for lots of stuff. I guess I’ve been mad at her for a long time.
She rested her arms on the fence’s top rail, looking at that raggedy black horse as if he were something special. Your dad could make that horse dance Swan Lake if he wanted to, she said. I never saw anyone who was better in a saddle.
I wish I knew the right word for how it felt to hear that. All I know is that it was like seeing the next generation of a video game before anybody else. I said You never told me that before and she said there were lots of things she should have shared with me.
She told me that when I was little I would cry every morning until my dad picked me up. He whispered something to you, she said. I never knew what it was, but you waited for it. Mom was smiling when she said that everyone used to call me a daddy’s boy, and that she didn’t think that had changed.
I said I guess he wasn’t going to get out of prison and Mom just nodded and so I asked her if she’d known that all along. She said it was the kind of thing you could never really know but that she was proud of me for trying so hard.
So how come I feel so crappy, I asked, if I did the right thing?
Mom put her arm around me and said life was like that sometimes.
We stood there for a long time and just stared at Renegade, who never even moved toward his hay.
Why doesn’t he move? I finally asked. Why is he so crazy?
He’s spent a long time waiting for Dallas to come home.
It was totally bizarre, but when she said that, it was like I already knew it, and when I looked at the horse’s face, I saw something like sadness in his eyes.
That’s why he’s so banged up, Mom said quietly. It takes a toll on you, waiting.
I said I wish I knew how to stop.
Mom said me, too, little man. Me, too.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Winona was a wreck. For the past twenty-four hours she’d been working nonstop: rereading the transcripts, rehearsing her oral arguments, getting ready for what could well turn out to be the single most important day in her life.
Even a month ago, she would have been certain about the outcome of today’s proceedings. Then, she’d had the kind of confidence that came from a belief that the world worked in a predictable way, that endings could be foreseen based on an understanding of the events that came before.
Now she knew better. The prosecution’s dogged determination to preserve the conviction had proven Vivi Ann’s point. They had even thrown in a ridiculous argument about the requisite finality of verdicts—as if reliability were somehow more important than fairness. There might be an animal called absolute truth, but it couldn’t be caged and certainly didn’t roam the halls of justice. In her research for Dallas’s case, she’d read about more than one hundred men who’d been freed from prison in the past five years based on DNA testimony . . . and even more who hadn’t. Those unfortunate souls were all too often in Dallas’s position: DNA evidence neither tied them irrefutably to the crime nor wholly exonerated them. It amazed—and shamed—Winona how inflexible district attorneys and police could be once they decided on a defendant’s guilt. Often no amount of evidence could dissuade them, and so they kept fighting, making specious, ridiculous arguments that kept innocent people in prison for decades.
“Breathe,” Aurora commanded beside her.
“I’m going to faint.”
“No, you’re not. Now breathe,” Aurora said again, more gently this time, as she guided her to the long, low table on the left side of the courtroom. “Good luck,” she whispered, and she was gone.
Winona sat down, looking through glazed eyes at the yellow legal pads, boxes of files, and stacks of pens in front of her. An open laptop stared bleakly back at her. She could hear the courtroom filling up. She wanted to turn and look, but knew it would only heighten her anxiety. Too many of her friends and neighb
ors would be there; they’d come to be calmed, to be told that the system had worked.
Then she heard a door open and the rattle of chains. The courtroom went quiet.
Winona finally stood and turned.
A pair of uniformed guards were leading Dallas toward her. He was dressed in the new blue suit she’d purchased for him, with his hair drawn back into a loose ponytail. Even in chains, with his steps shortened and his wrists manacled together, he managed to look defiant. It was those pale gray eyes that did it. She saw the way he searched the faces in the crowd until he saw Vivi Ann; only then did his angry defiance soften.
Vivi Ann stood perfectly erect, her shoulders drawn back, but when she saw Dallas, everything about her melted. It looked as if only Aurora and Noah, who held her tightly between them, kept her from sinking slowly to her knees.
Dallas shuffled up to Winona, shackles clanking, and sat in the chair beside her. “She looks . . .” His voice trailed away. “And Noah . . . my God . . .”
“Do you want me to bring them here to talk to you? I’m sure—”
“No.” It was barely spoken. “Not like this.”
Winona touched his hand, and he flinched, reminding her how long it must have been since someone last touched him in an attempt to comfort.
The judge strode into the courtroom, taking his seat at the bench. “Be seated,” he said, putting on his glasses and glancing down at the papers. “We are here for oral arguments on the defendant’s motion to vacate the judgment and sentence and to dismiss the case.”
Sara Hamm stood. “Sara Hamm for the state, Your Honor. That is correct.”
“I’ll hear from the defense,” the judge said.
Winona released her hold on Dallas and stood up. “Winona Grey for the defendant, Dallas Raintree. As you can see from the pleadings, our motion is based on new evidence, specifically the testing of DNA found at the scene of the crime. At trial . . .”
For almost an hour, she pled her case, citing legal precedent as well as moral imperatives. In conclusion, she said, “It is a travesty of justice, what our legal system has done to Dallas Raintree. It’s time to right an old wrong and exonerate him.”
The courtroom erupted into noise. Everyone was talking at once.
The judge hit his gavel and said, “Silence.” Then he looked at Sara. “The state’s response, Ms. Hamm?”
The prosecuting attorney stood up, looking as calm as Winona looked harried. “Your Honor, the record in this case is clear and cogent, and no interpretation of this DNA evidence can lead to exoneration of the defendant. If it did, we would have joined the defense’s motion. The state has no interest in keeping innocent men in prison. Quite the contrary, but in this case, a jury studied the evidence in its totality and found Dallas Raintree guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And what was that evidence? Let me go through it.”
For nearly two hours, Sara Hamm wielded her evidence like a blunt object. When she was done, she looked up at the judge. “So you see, Your Honor, the right man was convicted in 1996. The state asks that the conviction be upheld.”
Winona’s throat was dry. It took remarkable effort to sit there in silence, watching the judge read through the pleadings.
Finally, the judge turned the last page and looked up. “I see no reason to take this under advisement. The facts and arguments seem clear. The defendant’s motion is denied. Prisoner is remanded into custody.” He banged his gavel; it sounded like thunder. “Next case.”
The courtroom erupted into noise again.
Winona sat there, stunned.
“Nice try,” Dallas said. “Tell Vivi—”
And then the guards were there, taking him away again. She could hear Noah calling out; he was probably trying to push through the crowd, but it was too late.
Slowly, she turned around and saw Vivi Ann, holding Noah. Both of them were crying.
Winona sank onto her chair and sat there, staring dully at the bench. Behind her, she could hear the courtroom emptying out, hear the raised voices of the spectators, who said I knew it to one another. She knew Aurora would be confused right now, her loyalties split, her mind questioning which sister needed her more. In the end, though, it would be Vivi Ann who seemed the more broken, and thus would Aurora’s choice be made. As it should be.
“You were fantastic.”
She was so desperate for comfort that she’d gone a little mad, imagined his voice. Expecting nothing, she glanced to her left.
Luke stood there, not quite smiling as he reached down and offered his hand. “Come on.”
Thirty years ago, he’d done exactly the same thing, and it had been the beginning for them. It gets easier, he’d said then, and those few words had been a bit of Styrofoam to keep her afloat. And here he was again, just when she needed a friend. She picked up her heavy briefcase and directed Luke to help her with the boxes. For nearly an hour they loaded and unloaded the useless notes and files she’d accumulated in her quest to exonerate Dallas, saying nothing. When it was all done, she led him back to her house, made two drinks, and followed him out into the backyard, where they sat in the porch swing.
“Do you want to talk about it?” was the first thing he said when they were in their seats.
“There isn’t much to say. Vivi was right. In the end, all I did was hurt them.” She glanced at him. “I suppose you’ll say I was always like that.”
“No.”
Something in his voice surprised her; a sadness, maybe. “Why are you here, Luke?”
“I thought you needed a friend.”
She could tell by looking at him there was more. “And?”
He smiled at that. “And I needed one, too.”
“Trouble with the wife?”
“Ex-wife.”
Winona frowned. “When did that happen?”
“Three years ago.”
“And you never told me? Why?”
“I was embarrassed. I think I told you once she was my soul mate.”
“More than once, actually.”
He smiled ruefully, looking like a kid again, caught red-handed. “I guess my soul mate had itchy feet. She went to the store one day and didn’t come back. We signed the papers last week. The worst part is that she doesn’t even want to see the girls.”
“Oh, Luke. How are they doing?”
“Not so good. At four and six, they can’t understand all this; they keep asking when she’ll be back. It isn’t good, maybe, to stay in a house that holds so many ghosts.”
“Or a town,” Winona said, wondering how long it would be before she stopped thinking about Dallas every time she drove down Shore Drive, or into Water’s Edge. She leaned back, staring out at her yard. In the falling night everything looked silvery and a little surreal. “Maybe you should go see Vivi Ann. She could use a shoulder these days.”
“You’re the one I came to see,” he said quietly, and the whole of their past was between them suddenly, the light spots and the dark. He reached over and took her hand. “I was proud of you today.”
“Thanks,” she said, surprised by how much the simple compliment meant to her. In all the emotion and loss she’d stirred up recently, she’d forgotten how much it meant that for once, she’d done things for the right reasons. Too bad that only made it hurt more.
I never even got to talk to him. It all happened so fast. One minute we were sitting there, listening to that bitch lie about my dad and then it was over and everyone was moving and they were taking him away in chains.
Mom said don’t worry Noah, you’ll get through this I promise. But how am I supposed to not care that he’s in there alone?
My mom was right. I wish I’d never started all this. It hurts too much.
“How is she?” Winona asked.
“You know Vivi. She’s being extra quiet and not going out much. I hear Noah is getting in trouble at school again.” Aurora paused in her work. She was busy creating a counter display for the store. “But they’ll be fine. It’s only been a week. She??
?ll get better again.”
Winona turned away from the gentle understanding in her sister’s gaze. She walked idly around the empty store, pretending to study the pretty trinkets for sale—the blown-glass wind chimes, mother-of-pearl earrings, pretty stained-glass windows that depicted the Canal and the mountains.
“Maybe we can get her to come to the Outlaw this weekend,” Aurora said, coming up behind her.
That was how it would be done, the reparation; they would go back to their routines and in time, this failure, too, would be forgotten. Almost. “Sure.”
Behind them, the tiny brass bell above the door made a tinkling sound.
Aurora elbowed Winona in the side, and she turned.
Mark stood beside a glass display full of local pearls. He looked exactly the same—touristy clothes, balding head, broad shoulders—and that surprised Winona somehow. With all that had happened lately it felt as if they all should look different.
She saw surprise register in his eyes and she didn’t move, didn’t even smile. An awkward hesitation seemed to fill the tiny gift shop, and then Mark moved toward her, smiling uncomfortably.
She met him halfway, forced a smile, and said, “Hey, Mark.”
“I’ve been meaning to call you,” he said. “You never come to the beach house anymore.”
“I’ve got it up for rent.”
“Yeah.” He glanced at Aurora, then back at her. “Can we talk?”
“Sure.”
She caught Aurora’s quizzical look, shrugged a little, and followed Mark to the door.
Outside it was a beautiful day. They walked down Shore Drive to the beach park and sat on an empty picnic table. Normally Winona would have filled the silence with nervous talk, saying anything to avoid nothing, but in the past months she’d learned a thing or two about words. Sometimes you needed to wait for the ones that mattered.
“I was wrong,” he said at last. “I still think you should have warned my mom and me, but I should have known you had to do what you did.”