Dylan is staring at me. I can feel his eyes fixed in my direction.
“What?” I ask.
“I just can’t believe you’re really here with me,” he says.
“Pinch yourself,” I say. “Maybe you’re dreaming.”
Dylan laughs and puts his arm around me.
The lead trainer is a blond woman with short hair. She wears a black-and-white wetsuit designed to make her look like a tiny killer whale. She perches on the animal’s nose, and then lifts off at the precise moment that the orca becomes a rocket and the woman becomes part ballerina, part diver. She goes down, down, down to the bottom of the deep blue sea, and although it’s a concrete pool and not the ocean itself, I imagine her touching the floor and feeling the dark earth underneath before coming up for air.
“You’ve just got this mysterious vibe,” Dylan says. “Makes me want to know everything about you. Like what’s your middle name?”
“My middle name is Emerald.”
“Evelyn Emerald Gibson. Wait, so your initials are EEG?”
“Yes, just like the abbreviation for electroencephalogram.”
“That’s some kind of heart test, right?” he asks.
“Brain test, actually. It measures electrical activity in the brain.”
“Oh, so you can read minds then?”
“Why, of course I can. I’m reading your mind right now.”
“Can you tell me what I’m thinking?” he asks, but before I can answer, he’s kissing me, and his hand is on my knee. I put my hand over his, sliding it under my dress.
“Is there somewhere we can go?” I ask him.
“But the show’s not over yet,” he says.
“Ah, but maybe it’s just getting started.”
Dylan has his own car, a red Volkswagen coupe with deeply tinted windows, a sunroof, and seats that recline all the way back. We leave Ocean Wild and drive to Plant City, through the backwoods of Hillsborough County, where farmers grow strawberries and raise cows, where the air smells faintly like hay and manure and honeysuckle, the breeze blowing warm and fragrant with life. We take side roads and back roads and dirt roads, keeping the windows rolled all the way down, letting warm air whip our hair. Dylan reaches over and touches my knee, one hand on the steering wheel and one hand on me.
Dylan says he grew up out here. His grandfather had a strawberry farm, and Dylan’s family lived in a little ranch house on the property until the bank took it all in 2008. We drive past a small gravel lane barely visible through the high grasses, and Dylan takes his hand from my knee, to motion in the direction of his old home.
“Down there, that’s where we used to live.” He puts his hand back on my bare knee, and begins sliding his palm toward my thigh, his fingertips eventually grazing that spot between my legs, making me warm and wet.
He pulls off the main road, and now we’re driving through a field, dry grasses crinkling under the tires. He puts the car in Park and unbuckles my seat belt. I crawl into the backseat. Dylan follows, sitting down next to me. I sit on top of him, straddling him, and we start to kiss. His mouth tastes like peppermint, his hands warm and buzzing all over me now.
I can feel him through his jeans, hard and pressing against me, tiny pulses coming from him, the rhythm matching my breathing as we kiss deeper and deeper and I lose myself in the scent of his hair, bright tropical notes of coconut and mango.
I whisper into his ear. “I’m a virgin, you know. I hope that’s okay.” I pull away from him and look into his eyes, marvel at how the light catches the colors, exposes every swirl of blue, each fleck of gold.
“Yeah, of course,” he says, grinning wide. “Are you sure you want me to be your first?”
“I’m sure. Are you sure you want to be my first?”
He laughs, and kisses me some more. I can feel him getting harder. I reach for his belt buckle, but he stops me, lifting me from his lap. “Hang on,” he says and gets out of the car.
I hear the trunk pop open, and then hear him rummaging through it. Minutes later, he comes around to the passenger side door, and opens it for me. He has a blanket over his shoulder, a bright blue beach blanket. He takes my hand and leads me farther out in the field. There’s an old barn in the distance, and we’re walking toward it. “It’s been abandoned since I was a kid,” Dylan tells me, pulling me closer to him, his arm around my waist as we walk through the knee-high grass that tickles my legs.
Inside the barn, Dylan spreads the blanket out over the dirt floor. He takes his shirt off, lifts my dress over my head, and unhooks my bra. His hands are so sure, so steady, on my goose-bumped skin. I know that he’s done this before, that I’m not the only girl he’s brought here, but it doesn’t matter. I focus on the streaks of sun that stream in through holes in the worn walls, and the patches of light that illuminate our bodies.
Dylan takes both of my hands in his, kisses my palms, and then lays me down on the blanket on my back. I look up at him, certain that he can see the stars that are surely in my eyes, certain that he can feel the heat I’m generating. I’m drawn to him, my body rushing along a current only I can see and feel.
Dylan drops to his hands and knees now, and leans over me. He kisses my neck, and I become a raw nerve of sensation, high on anticipation. He retrieves a condom from his pocket, tearing the wrapper with his teeth. He unbuckles his belt, and I close my eyes. I feel him inside now, and my entire body heats up like it’s about to be set on fire. I keep my eyes closed and let it burn.
My body takes over, automatic movements I don’t have to think about. My desire is leading me now. I just have to feel. Dylan’s breath is warm against my neck. With his voice low, he moans softly. I’m close to letting go, my body about to untether itself from this earth.
“You feel so good,” Dylan says in my ear. His hair tickles my neck, and I open my eyes. But I don’t see Dylan’s face—I see Oliver’s. He’s foaming at the mouth. His eyes roll back into his head. I pinch my eyes shut and reach for Dylan’s shoulders. I dig my nails into his skin, a reminder of what’s real.
“You feel so good,” he says again and again, and I feel it too, a stirring from deep within me, a pulsing that radiates from inside out. I bite my lip until it’s over, until Dylan’s body collapses against mine and I open my eyes again.
We get dressed, and then Dylan wraps his arms around me, pulling me close.
“I don’t want you to get the wrong idea,” he says. “This isn’t just about sex for me. I mean, I really like you.” He smiles at me, and I smile back.
“Good,” I say. “Because I really like you too.”
We walk back to the car, and Dylan opens my door for me. I lean my cheek against the window as he drives me home. When we reach the Bayway, near the tip of Cats Point, I see a lone fisherman packing up his equipment for the day—long, dark fishing rods, and a net with a silvery pole and green mesh in which to scoop snook, pike, or grouper, the catch of the day.
In The Catalog of Everything I’ve Done Wrong, I add: fucked Dylan on the first date.
I close my eyes, and the sticky idea arrives again. It clings to me although I’ve tried to shake it away. In the beginning, it took shape slowly, but now it’s gaining speed, picking up mass and momentum like a snowball rolling down the slope of a hill.
I need to see him. It’s the only way. I need to go. I need to see him. I thought there were other answers, but I know better now. I need to see him. It’s the only way.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
On my laptop screen, Melinda Sherrill is wearing all black today, reporting for First Coast News. It’s the day of my father’s sentencing so I can’t help but interpret her clothing choice as symbolic, given the fact that she usually wears bright colors, cheerful reds and blues and yellows. I know from reading the newspaper coverage from that time period that my father’s death sentence was practically a slam dunk, the district attorney confident that jurors would do the right thing—the moral thing, the only just thing—and sentence my father to death
.
The video quality is a bit fuzzy, Melinda’s facial features slightly dulled at the edges. The sun is shining so brightly in the video that I can practically feel the warmth emanating through the screen. As Melinda speaks, she is flanked by two palm trees, sago palms I believe, their trunks shorter and thicker than most others. The pink archway of the St. Johns County Courthouse entrance is visible in the background over her shoulder.
Melinda talks more slowly than I’ve heard her in other clips. “Without question, the most heartbreaking moments today were the impact statements read by family members of the slain victims. There was barely a dry eye in the courtroom as Helen Raul’s husband spoke through tears, reading a prepared statement about how the killer’s actions left him without his wife of twenty-eight years and his children and grandchildren without the mother and grandmother they so dearly loved. He told the packed courtroom how Helen would dress up as Mrs. Santa Claus and visit children at the library over the holidays, a time of year that always brought her immense joy. But this Christmas, the red dress will go unused in the closet, her husband revealing that he still hasn’t had the heart to go through her belongings yet, even though it’s been nearly six years since the tragedy.”
Melinda’s eyes look tired in this segment, and I can see that she carries the sadness and horror from the day with her. I can see that she will carry what my father did with her forever. She may need to call upon it someday, may need a reminder that there are people like my father in the world, people who are sent to deliver pain and heartache, people capable of turning others’ worlds upside down, people who are the right hand of chaos.
I want to jump inside the video and ask Melinda why she never interviewed me, why my words are absent from her reporting, why I wasn’t mentioned in the list of Michael Joshua Hayes’s victims. It’s a pointless question though, really, for I understand that nobody wants to hear from the murderer’s family unless they have some morbid fascination, unless they believe killers to be some kind of celebrity. Melinda’s audience only wants to hear about revenge and the stories of the people left behind.
The video turns to black. My reflection blinks back at me through the dark mirror of my laptop screen. I open a blank Word document, staring at the flashing cursor until it hits me like a wave, a curl of water that rolls from my brain to my fingertips, a current that taps out letters, spelling all the words I need to say. I write and write, filling page after page until my mother knocks on my bedroom door.
“You ready? It’s almost time to go!” She practically sings the words, her voice alive with energy. We have tickets for Death Cab for Cutie at the Sun Dome in Tampa tonight, one of my mother’s favorite bands. She’s never seen them live before and can barely contain her excitement.
I save the document, but I don’t give it a name. By default, the program names the document after the first words I’ve typed across the top of the page in capital letters—THE CATALOG OF EVERYTHING I’VE DONE WRONG. I exit the program, close my laptop so it goes to sleep, and then slide it under my bed.
“I’m ready now,” I call to my mother.
At the concert, I stand between Shea and my mother, who rests her head on my shoulder as we listen to Ben Gibbard’s earnest baritone on “I Will Follow You into the Dark.” It’s an older Death Cab song from their album Plans, which came out when I was five years old. She played that album on heavy rotation that year, in the car and around the house. I remember it beaming through the speaker in the bathroom, my mother’s voice echoing as she sang along in the shower, music mixed with the drone of the water as it rained down.
Five-year-old me took the song literally—the dark was simply what happened when you turned out the lights. Following someone there just meant walking behind them. The older me now knows more about following. The older me knows more about darkness.
My mother and Shea hold hands behind my back. I feel the warmth of their interlocking fingers against me. I breathe in deeply and let my lungs expand with the air of their love, letting it wash over me like a breaker that slams against the shore, transforming into seafoam, dazzling bright white in the sunlight.
Back in my bedroom, after I’ve kissed my mother and Shea good night, I pull my laptop from under the bed and turn it on. I enter my password and then open my list of saved bookmarks. There’s one link I haven’t clicked yet, one door I’ve haven’t walked through. It’s a documentary about the death penalty, but one that doesn’t take the typical perspective on capital punishment. The typical point of view is usually that of the victims’ families, the people who’ve had a loved one ripped away from them by the condemned murderer. This is what the popcorn-crunching crowd is interested in—they want to see the misery on their faces, feel the pain and rage as they speak of their unspeakable loss, of lives cut short, birthdays that will now pass without celebration, a little boy who will never know his mother.
Everyone loves a good revenge story. They take comfort in knowing that someone will pay dearly for evil deeds—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, the punishment fits the crime. They feel better knowing the roles will be reversed, the murderer put to death, the monster given a taste of his own medicine, the bitter pill pushed down his throat until he chokes and dies. They take comfort in this and call it justice, secure in their power to decide another’s fate. But this documentary is different. It attempts to humanize death row inmates, to bring about an argument against the death penalty and show that there is more to a person than just one evil action.
I let the video play and then click the progress bar at the bottom, sliding the little white circle to the right until I find the scene I’m looking for—Ella Hayes, my grandmother, the woman who painted birds and collected porcelain. She was alive then, mourning her son’s fate for the camera. As Ella talks about my father, the film cuts from her face to some home movie footage the family provided. Grainy without any sound, it’s the kind of movie you have to project onto a white screen, the machinery warm and making a whirring sound as the tape glides through the apparatus. The home movie shows my father, no older than six or seven, in shorts and tall white tube socks, a red backpack square on his back. The Florida sun shines relentlessly as he walks up the bleached steps of an elementary school that looks scrubbed clean and brand new.
“Oh, my Michael, well, he was always smiling, always laughing,” Ella’s voice says. “He was just such an easygoing child. And he really loved school, he just adored it. Everything about it. He would barely sleep the night before the first day of school, he’d be so excited.”
My father stops at the top of the stairs and turns around to face the camera, which now zooms in closer on his face. My father waves vigorously, smiling to show missing teeth. He waves and waves, his movements appearing sped up, that slightly exaggerated quality that old motion pictures have. He blows a kiss to the person behind the camera. “He loved that song ‘You Are My Sunshine,’” Ella’s voice says. “He always wanted me to sing it to him before bed.” My father opens the heavy glass door of the school entrance and disappears into the building.
I click to stop the video.
I pull up Andy’s blog and wait for it to load. The screen turns bright white, and an error message at the top tells me this site can’t be found. I type the URL into the address bar again and hit Enter. It must be a mistake. I must have tapped the wrong keys. Same blank white page. Same message. I type it again and again, but I keep getting the same result. Can’t connect to the server. Check your network connection. Error. I try to tune into Andy’s frequency, try to conjure him in his small cell at Raiford, but I can’t find him. I slam my laptop closed and start pacing the room.
I find the can of duster I stashed in the closet and take a few long hits of the freezing cold air. The Limoges butter dish catches my eye. I walk over to it, trace the smooth enamel with my finger, and then pick it up. I grab a dirty towel from my hamper to wrap the butter dish inside. I go into the bathroom, turn the shower on full blast, and lock the door. I swing the
towel against edge of the bathroom sink, once, twice, three times, until the porcelain inside is smashed to pieces.
The steam from the running shower fogs the mirror, making the me feel faint. I turn the shower off and lie on my back against the cool tile of the bathroom floor until I’m steady again. Then I walk back to my bed, sit down, and open my laptop. I read The Catalog of Everything I’ve Done Wrong again. It’s all here, everything in order, everything in its place. I add one more entry: destroyed something beautiful.
I inhale and exhale and inhale again. I feel every hair growing on my head and every cell pulsing beneath my skin. My body is alive and new. I soar high into the sky—up, up, up, until I can’t get any higher. I swim through constellations shaped like mythical creatures. I leave only clouds in my wake. I look down at the earth, and it all makes sense.
Chapter Forty
The windows in Tampa General Hospital don’t open, sealed shut for the sake of safety and sanitation. When you look out, you must invent the breeze, conjure the smell of trees and lakes and flowers. You know these things exist out there, somewhere beyond the glass, but it’s easy to lose your bearings when you spend too much time in a hospital, which is why so many people fear them. Too much time in such an unnatural place and your understanding of the natural world may begin to slip away. To remind yourself, you have to summon the spirit of the natural world, like girls at a slumber party hoping to contact the dead, their fingers barely touching the planchette of the Ouija board, their hearts and minds open to speaking to the beyond, the unknown. Are you there, spirit? Answer yes or no.
Standing at the threshold of the room, I can barely see him among all the flower arrangements, and the Mylar balloons grazing the ceiling, but then his face comes into focus. It takes a few moments, but I finally find him. I walk toward the foot of his bed, listening to the beeps of the monitor, watching his heart make peaks and valleys on a screen. He looks smaller than I remember, his hands resting on the tops of his thighs as if someone has arranged them carefully, told him to stay perfectly still, told him not to move a muscle. His hair looks soft to the touch, freshly washed. His head is propped up with large white pillows, and his eyes are closed.
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