Millie yanked at me on one side, Glory on the other.
“Mrs. Hamilton has no comment,” Millie said. She glared at me, pinching my arm hard.
I couldn’t keep my big pie hole shut. I was shell-shocked from jail but not shell-shocked enough to keep quiet. “I have been arrested, yet I did nothing wrong. I had no part, at all, in Covey’s business, ever. I had no idea that his clients’ money wasn’t where it should be. I would never steal from anyone, and I apologize to everyone my soon-to-be ex husband has stolen from.” Millie yanked on me again, her fingers hurting so much I thought they would pierce my skin, blood spurting out. That would cause quite a sensation. I had a parting remark. “Covey is a dick.”
“Why do you say that, Mrs. Hamilton?”
“First off, my name is not Mrs. Hamilton, it’s Ms. Wild. Second, I said that Covey was a dick because he is one. A small dick.”
The reporter laughed.
Millie hissed to me, “Close your mouth. Now, Dina. Close it. Don’t make me do it.”
“And if he’s any sort of man, he will tell the authorities that I’m innocent. We’ll see if he’s got a big enough dick to do that.”
“He’s told us that you and he own Hamilton Investments together,” the reporter said, “that you are equal partners.”
“That is a lie. I can’t even balance my own checkbook.” That was the truth. The numbers flipped and shifted.
Millie and Glory shoved me into the backseat of an SUV, and Glory sped us off. Millie turned around, huffing and puffing. “Listen to me, Dina. I can’t help you if you don’t do what I say. We have to let the process work . . .”
“We have to let the process work?” I sputtered, my anger so red hot I was surprised I didn’t turn into a flame. “I was arrested by the FBI, had my rights read to me, and handcuffed. I was strip searched and had a jailer look in my butt for anything I might have shoved up it. I’ve spent ten days in jail. I smell like a jail cell. I’ve been in two fights. I’ve been in isolation. I had a roommate who stroked an imaginary cat and an imaginary pig. I was sexually harassed by a woman the size of a rhino.
“My photo and my name have been in the paper. My reputation has been sliced and diced, and I’m sure I’ve lost all my clients. I may well get my butt slung right back into jail for a crime I didn’t commit.” I took a deep, hugely pissed-off breath. “The process is not working for me.”
“It will. Pipe down. I will work the process. You will be found innocent if you let me do the talking and rein in that temper of yours.”
“I am innocent.” I put my hands to my face and groaned.
“Where is Covey?”
“He’s at a meeting with his attorneys. I know this because a little bird told me.”
“When he gets home, I will kill him in the dining room. No, the family room. No, I’ll drown him in the pool. No, I will electrocute him when he’s taking a bath by throwing my plugged-in dryer in. No, I will poison him. How else could I kill him?”
“You could take a boat out into the ocean and push him off,” Glory said. Glory went to an Ivy League law school. She’s a trust-fund baby. She races cars. She loves the courtroom and loves defending criminals. It’s odd. I learned this when I saw them in jail.
“I mean, it’s so cliché,” she went on. “It’s been done before, but it is effective. Say that he was drinking heavily before bed, you went to sleep, and you woke up and he wasn’t there. Darn it all, anyhow.”
“That’s a splendid idea. One of his boats. He has three . . .”
“Hello? Do we need to feed our client’s murderous intents?” Millie asked.
“No, we don’t. But”—Glory wiggled her fingers—“you could slowly poison him. I do believe that arsenic still works. Maybe there’s a drug you could give him to cover up the arsenic?”
“Isn’t that enough?” Millie snapped.
“One more,” Glory said. “There are certain herbs that can—”
“That’s it,” Millie said.
Glory closed her mouth, then opened it again. “I was trying to be helpful.”
“Help in a different way,” Millie snapped.
I was smashed, dashed, and scared to death.
I went with Rozlyn to her next doctor’s appointment. It was in another city, a larger city than ours. We left work at three o’-clock on Monday.
Rozlyn hadn’t told Kade about the tumor yet, simply asked if we could have the afternoon off for a medical issue she was having. He was quick to agree. He probably didn’t want to hear the words “pap smear” or “breast check” or “women’s troubles.”
“Take notes when the doctor talks, Grenady,” Rozlyn said. “I freeze up when I see a white coat. Makes me feel anxious. My anxiety might bring on the jitters.”
“I’ll take notes.” White coats yanked me back to places I didn’t want to be, either, and things that were done to me I didn’t want to think about.
“I’m worried about Cleo,” Rozlyn said, rubbing her face. “So worried.”
“Does she know?”
“Not yet. But soon. I’m getting many calls, and making many calls, and she senses something is wrong. For a kid, for any of us, it’s better to know. I don’t think I’ll tell her how long the doctor thinks I have yet. It’s too much. I’ll be honest about the tumor, though. I’ll tell her I have a block in my head that shouldn’t be there.”
I tried not to cry. I was driving, after all. I felt sick, though—my heart sick, my head sick, because Rozlyn was sick.
“Life never stops twisting, does it?” she asked.
“No.”
“Sometimes the twists are like orgasms and ice cream. Delicious. Sometimes they’re harsh. Like lava being poured down your throat.”
“True.”
“The question is, How will I deal with this lava?”
I was quiet for a minute. “I think you’ll deal with the lava like you deal with everything else in your life, with courage and humor.”
“I’m trying. I want to be an example to Cleo. I’ve always wanted her to embrace the beauty of life, but I want to show her how to die, too, if that’s my road. I want her to look back on me, when she’s older, and respect me for how I acted right now.”
I swallowed hard. I am not a mother, but that had to be the worst part of this disaster, by far. To think of your young, beloved child out in this world without a mother . . . terrifying.
“I want to be brave in front of her, and not freaked out, but real, and comforting. I want to show her that my tumor isn’t stopping me from living, from being with her or cooking or quilting, and working with numbers at Kade’s like I love doing. That I might cry, but then we’ll go swimming, or ride Liddy, or watch the sunset.”
“You’re the wisest person I know, Rozlyn. So strong.”
“I’m being forced to be realistic.” She put up a finger and wagged it around. “One thing I’m definitely not going to quit doing is trying to get a date with Leonard.”
I sniffled. “You can never give up on that. Never ever, ever give up!”
“Heck, no. He’s my eye candy. I want to eat him.” She wiped the tears off her face. I saw her put her chin up. “On the way home, let’s get ice-cream sundaes.”
“My treat.” I reached for her hand, and she held it.
I had been that young child without a mother. I knew what it felt like.
It would not happen to Cleo. I would be Mom Number 2 if the wisest mother in the world, Rozlyn DiMarco, didn’t make it.
The doctor’s appointment did not go well, but not because Rozlyn and I get anxious around white coats.
There was hope for a miracle.
It was tiny. Rozlyn would need her insurance to approve it, as it was a clinical trial, experimental, new, and only at one hospital, in New York. If the insurance didn’t approve it, it would cost a fortune and she could not pay for it. She would go through radiation and a specialized sort of chemo for her tumor.
We held on to the thought of a miracle as we
left, and we held hands on the way to an ice-cream parlor. We had ice-cream sundaes, chocolate and caramel sauce, bananas, and whip cream.
“Ya only live once,” Rozlyn said. She had a hot flash in the middle of eating the sundae. It didn’t stop her. She held a glass of ice water to her head.
“Unless you believe in multiple lives.” I told her about Divinity, the fantasy queen. “Can I have some of your extra chocolate sauce?”
That night I had a dream I was crying into the red, crocheted shawl. They were there, stroking my hair, hugging me close. Stand tall. Chin up. Shoulders back. Be brave, Grenadine. You can be scared, but you must be brave.
I’m trying. Trying to be brave.
“See you tomorrow at the meeting, Dina. Remember: Rabid wolves with egos.”
“Thank you for the peaceful vision, Millie.” I tapped the phone with my finger, then rubbed my hand over my face, sure it was aging by the minute. It was Sunday evening and the snow was coming down. It would be a frightening drive to Portland tomorrow over the curving Santiam Pass. That road had cliffs you could drive off and never be found again except by mountain lion and deer. “My head will be on a platter by the end of the day, Millie. Make sure you carry it out and don’t drop it.”
“As your attorney, I’ll make sure I carefully walk your detached head out to the car. I’ll drag the rest of your body out later when I have time. Remember, be honest. They can sniff out dishonesty like hounds after a raccoon. I’ve told you what they know. I know what I know. The proffer will work for you only if you’re upfront and honest. If not, you’re a burnt enchilada. You’ll go up in flames. Prepare for trial and, we hope not, jail.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be my cheerleader or something like that?”
“I am your cheerleader. But I’m painting you your boxing ring and who your opponents are.” She paused. “Dina, I want to tell you something.”
“What?” I stared out my French doors into the dark. Beyond the dark was the forest. Towering trees, a harsh wind, maybe fog. What a fright.
“I like you.”
I paused, waiting for the next line. The “but,” or the joke or the funny put down.
“I like you,” Millie went on. “I hope this works out for you. I’ve done all I can and I do believe you, Dina, that you knew nothing of what was going on with Covey’s schemes.”
“Thank you.” I was surprised at her words. “I like you, too, Millie. You’ve been a shark for me during this whole fiasco, and I appreciate all you’ve done.”
“My pleasure. When this over, we’ll go to lunch and act like proper ladies instead of planning strategies to keep your skinny ass out of jail.”
“Do you know how to act like a proper lady?”
“No. Do you?”
“That’s a negative.”
“We’ll try, anyhow,” Millie said. “We can order proper salads and tea and talk about the weather.”
“Yes, and other inane things like fashion.”
“How dreary. Good night. Try to sleep. Remember I’ll be with you the whole time. Me and you against the wolves. I have sharper teeth than them.”
I knew this was not going to work out well for me. I could feel it in my bones. Covey had still not fessed up. He kept harping that he was innocent, though the facts against him in the newspaper alone were overwhelming.
Fry me a pig, I wanted that man to rot, after he admitted what I had not done.
43
Children’s Services Division
Child’s Name: Grenadine Scotch Wild
Age: 15
Parents’ Names: Freedom and Bear Wild (Location unknown)
Date: July 22, 1991
Goal: Adoption
Employee: Aleta Cohlo
I talked with Grenadine today and she hates “fucking foster care” and wants out.
Grenadine says she has a job waitressing and the regulars give her generous tips, and she wants us to give her the money that we give the foster parents so she can get her own apartment.
I told her it wasn’t possible because she is only fifteen and we could not guarantee her safety if she was out of our care. She said to me, “Look at my case file. Fuck the safety that you all offer me. I’d be safer on my own.”
She is, of course, still furious that she had to go to the juvenile detention center for three weeks, and I cannot blame her for that at all. She felt like she was being jailed, yet had done nothing wrong.
I told her, again, that there had been no room in any of our foster homes for a teenager, so she’d had to go there until a group home opened up.
She said the alcoholic stepfather with a temper at her last foster home was awful and scary, and she says that she is sick of hauling her things around in a black trash bag, because it makes her feel like her stuff is trash and she is trash.
She is wearing layers of clothes to school in case she is moved to another home before she can get back to the first one. She has a backpack and she keeps all of her art supplies in it, and takes it everywhere with her.
She says that the little kids in the foster homes are always crying for their parents or for brothers and sisters from whom they’re separated, and she tries to comfort them but she says it only works for a while and the teenagers are all “messed up.” She has done drugs now and then, and drinks now and then, because it slows down the pain for her and she can forget about being alone.
Grenadine says she tries to save and hide food for herself and the other kids because they’re all afraid of being hungry and she’s sick of needing to hide food.
She doesn’t feel wanted in the foster care homes and she hates how things aren’t organized or always clean. She has trouble sleeping, it’s noisy, she hates trying to figure out how to get to school when she’s in a new home, and how to get home.
She’s nervous and anxious all the time. She does not look well. I know she’s been depressed for a long time.
The long and the short of it is that she wants out.
I told her I would arrange counseling, and she says she is never with the same counselor long enough to trust her and that it’s pointless.
Children’s Services Division
Child’s Name: Grenadine Scotch Wild
Age: 15
Parents’ Names: Freedom and Bear Wild (Location unknown)
Date: October 22, 1991
Goal: Adoption
Employee: Aleta Cohlo
Unfortunately, we still cannot locate Grenadine. Rumor has it she is living in the car of a friend, Izzy Olletti, who goes by the name Leather, who is in our program. Izzy overdosed on drugs and is still in rehab. I have been out looking for Grenadine every day for weeks. My husband and I have been out at night many times, too. I’ve talked to the foster kids she knows. They won’t tell me anything.
Grenadine has dropped out of school to avoid being pulled back into the foster care system and the group home she was in. We need to locate her so we can put her in a new foster care or group home and get her back in school. I am concerned about Grenadine’s health and safety. I am also concerned about her not being in school, where she has close relationships with the principal and several teachers and where she painted a mural of the school in the entryway, which is an excellent example of the talent our kids have if they’re given a chance.
I am worried to death about this child.
Children’s Services Division
Child’s Name: Grenadine Scotch Wild
Age: 15
Parents’ Names: Freedom and Bear Wild (Location unknown)
Date: October 28, 1991
Goal: Adoption
Employee: Aleta Cohlo
The police found Grenadine sleeping in a long, black Ford she called Clunker and brought her to the hospital because she was so thin and sick. Apparently, two other homeless teens called for an ambulance. They thought she was dying. She was hospitalized for a week for acute pneumonia, and I did see her every day and brought her art supplies, as she requested. She went back out on
the run the day I came to get her to take her to a new home. I’ve heard through the grapevine that she’s living with a friend in a white van.
I drove around looking for her most of the day yesterday, and my husband and I and his mother and brother also drove around, but none of us could locate a white van. I’m extremely concerned about the pneumonia, and it’s getting so cold out. I will continue to search for her each evening. I am worried sick.
The principal of her school and her teachers have all called me (repeatedly) to check on Grenadine.
Children’s Services Division
Child’s Name: Grenadine Scotch Wild
Age: 15
Parents’ Names: Freedom and Bear Wild (Location unknown)
Date: November 10, 1991
Goal: Adoption
Employee: Aleta Cohlo
Grenadine was burned on Sunday night when a veteran having some sort of hallucination accidentally set himself on fire. Grenadine was sleeping under the Booker Bridge with other homeless teens, and she tackled him, then put out the fire with her coat and hands. He was fighting her and she somehow hit her head and split it open.
Grenadine and two other teens took the homeless man to the hospital. He thought that he had been set on fire by the Viet Cong.
She had eleven stitches on her head near her hairline, which the doctors say will scar. They treated her hands. Second-degree burns. They kept her overnight because they weren’t sure if she had a concussion, too.