A middle-aged woman puts coins into the slot in a locker, turns the key, and then opens it. One by one, she slips gold rings off her fingers. Four . . . six . . . seven. Then a bracelet.
“This is okay, right?” she asks her husband, pointing to her necklace.
He scans her neck: a gold cross on a thin chain hangs on the tired skin above her breasts. “Yeah,” he grunts. He is wearing a smaller cross on a thicker chain.
Katie wonders who they are visiting. The woman’s face is heavily made up, pale-blue shadow and purple eyeliner. Her crisp linen shirt is tucked into black slacks. She pulls a rhinestone-studded belt from the loops of her pants. Her movements are assured. There is no trace of conflict or embarrassment in her expression, yet her face falls when she catches Katie’s eye. A guard comes to the back door and calls out: “Honey Rivera! David Price! Marsha Atkinson! Charlotte Gregory! David Gregory!” he says. “Katherine Gregory!” The six of them stand obediently.
A female guard lifts Katie’s hair off her shoulders with one hand and runs her fingers along the ridge of her back. “Shake it out, would you?” she demands. “Take those off,” she adds, pointing to the little earrings in the extra holes Katie punctured into her ear with a blunt needle during a long night when she and Lulu were bored.
The older lady yanks off her cowboy boots and puts them through the scanner. “It’s Trish today,” she whispers to Katie as they pass along to the next barrier. “She’s real picky. Sometimes they let you through without a problem; sometimes they don’t.” She shrugs and smiles, high wattage but pained.
Katie wants to ask her who she is visiting. A son? A nephew? A father? What was he accused of? Does she know whether he is really guilty or not?
Katie has so many questions for her father. When he is outside his cell, does he have his arms pulled back behind him, his wrists cuffed together? Do the shower stalls have doors or curtains? Is he afraid of the other men? Are any of the guards nice? If it’s hard for Katie to sleep, what is it like in here—can he fall asleep at night? Is he allowed to take his pills? Is he afraid when it’s time to shower? Does it make him feel better or worse to know that guards are watching him when he is naked? And where does he get shampoo? Does he want her to send him his Selsun Blue extra strong dandruff shampoo? Does he miss his rum and tonics? What does he do all day?
Her blood seems laced with caffeine as they walk in a pack across the jail yard. Something about being surrounded by barbed wire and gates and fences and buckled concrete makes her want to run very fast. She looks up at the rows of gray windows overlooking the yard. Are they allowed to smoke? What if they don’t want to come outside? Are there ever prisoners who just want to stay in their cells all day?
The thick glass in the cubicles is milky and scratched. The ubiquitous phones, attached to the wall. The bars clang shut to lock each inmate into a booth, where they sit on a stool bolted to the floor and pick up the phone. The hands that reach up to touch the glass, leaving oily fingerprints. The guards pacing up and down, beating on the bars every now and then to make sure they are locked.
Prisoners come in one by one. Where is Dad? she frets. He isn’t coming. David takes a seat next to his mother, and Katie remains standing. Clammy palms, questions swirling. Everyone else is murmuring into their handsets, leaning toward the partitions as though this will help them make their point.
And then there he is. His face is curiously blank, but when he sees the children, it lights up. His hair is longer than usual. As he sits down, the guard slams the bars shut and locks them behind him. There are only two phones on their side of the glass. David turns away, not ready to talk yet. His chapped lips are cracked and scabbed, and he licks them. Just looking at those broken lips, swollen and pink around the edges, is painful. She wishes he were a little kid again so she could wrap him in her arms, but she can’t protect him anymore.
John grins at his wife. “Charlie Gregory,” he says, “you are so fine. I swear you are looking younger by the minute.”
“Stop trying to flatter me,” she says.
“I’m not trying,” he says. “I’m just doing.”
So much small talk. This and that, none of it important. Washing machines and letters, car maintenance and a broken doorbell.
“What’s the matter, Katie? Cat got your tongue?” John asks his daughter. He’s telling a story about helping an inmate write a letter. His eyes are sharp, but his face is relaxed, as though he’s waiting for them to get some joke that he is enjoying. “These guys are harmless.”
“It’s prison, Dad,” she says under her breath.
“What’s that?” he asks. “Speak up, will you?”
“Nothing.” And then, giving in to the need for small talk, “So who’s Gus, then?”
“Nice-enough guy but can’t string two words together. I helped him with a letter to the appeal board. Basic stuff—I mean, no English degree necessary.” John laughs. He asks how the summer is going, and Katie tells him everything is fine, great; that is what he wants to hear, after all. She doesn’t tell him about the girl who’s been in her class since second grade who burst into tears when she bumped into her at CVS and then looked so relieved when Katie didn’t ask her what was the matter. There’s no mention of stomach cramps or sleepless night. Or the dreams, the ruinous dreams.
“Come on, Katie,” John insists. “Talk, will you? I want to hear what’s going on out there.”
“I beat Grumpy at chess,” David says, but John doesn’t appear to hear him.
All Katie can really think about are the endless questions she has that she knows she’s not supposed to ask. Does everyone have to use the same toothpaste, or does he have his own tube? Is he allowed cream in his coffee in the mornings? What does he do if he’s hungry in the middle of the night?
“Charlie, listen,” her father says. “Can you leave us be for a minute?”
Her mother’s eyes narrow; she wants the kids to entertain John, make him laugh, and help them all pretend this isn’t really happening.
“I can’t just get up and leave, John,” she says. “You know how it works.”
“Take a little walk, then, would you?”
She hesitates but then stands up and strides out of the booth toward the guard. Their heads come together, and she murmurs something, and he shakes his head.
“Katie Gregory, you wipe that sorry look off your face, do you hear me?” John hisses over the phone. “I want you to sleep in your own bed, okay? You stop getting into your mother’s bed like a baby. You’re eighteen years old, for Chrissake.”
The blood drains from her face. David kicks lightly against the floor with his sneaker. “Dad,” he says, his voice an octave too high. “Come on.”
“I’m counting on you kids to keep things going at home, like, you know, normal. You’ve got to trust that everything’s going to work out all right. The appeal looks good, really, really good. It’s just a matter of time, and if I can suck it up in here, then you guys can too. No wallowing, okay? No crying, no complaining.”
“I wasn’t complaining,” Katie says.
“Yeah,” David says, his liquid eyes so innocent, “she wasn’t!”
“Promise me you’ll pull yourself together, Katie. Be brave,” her father says. “Promise.”
It is that word—promise—that strikes her to the core. It is her constant ballast in the years to come, a flashing beacon that leads her way. Now she knows what to do. Her brain is plugged back in, her circuits firing: she can promise her father to be brave; she can try her very best, always, not to be just another disappointment.
27
Very late at night after Jack left, Katie called Zev in Spain. She had been lying in bed in the dark, unable to sleep. An early riser, he picked up immediately, his image emerging on her screen like a man underwater. Half his face was covered in foam, and the other half was clean shaven. “Wasn’t expecting it to be you,” he said, wiping a towel over his mouth. “Isn’t it the middle of the night?”
&nbs
p; “Yeah, but I know you’ve got your talk today. I wanted to wish you luck,” she said. She was so desperate to talk to someone. “And I’m lonely. Wishing you were here.”
“Well, me too. What are you wearing?” he said, grinning.
She smirked back at him. “You don’t have time.” She turned on her side and propped the phone up on her pillow. “Are you nervous?”
“Not really. And it seems the less I care what people think, the more they want to hear what I say, so it’ll probably be a smash hit.”
“Thanks for the picture. Nobody’s ever drawn me before. I’m flattered.”
“So you should be. I’m a very famous artist.” He sat down on something, maybe the edge of the bathtub, and took a sip from a small ceramic cup. “How is the countryside? Seen any bears?”
“It’s okay,” she said. “To be honest, it’s a bit strange. It’s—uh, I grew up here, and I haven’t been back in a long time. A really long time. Last time I was up here, things were, um, kind of complicated.”
“Complicated . . .”
She smiled. “Yes, and I’ll tell you all about it when you’re back. In the meantime, shave that hairy face of yours, and go slay them.” After they hung up, she felt a little better, but only a little. After all, now there was even more that she wasn’t telling him. And no matter what she did to distract herself, she could not stop thinking about when she was going to see Jack again.
The next morning, she put her bag into the Datsun and gave the house one last walk-through. The rooms were tidy, years of neglect dusted away. New curtains, throw blankets, hangers in the closet, soap at the sink. A few nonperishables in the cupboards.
She drove back to the courthouse in Blackbrooke. Since Jack’s testimony was inconclusive and she hadn’t gotten a straight answer from him, maybe she’d learn something from Lulu’s testimony and her father’s. The same ladies who had been there on Friday let her in with no fuss. It took them a few minutes to get her the transcripts, and then they left her alone. Thumbing through the document, Katie went straight to Lulu’s testimony.
Direct Examination
Q. Good morning. Can you state your name for the court, please?
A. Loretta Henderson. People call me Lulu.
Q. That’s with two t’s, is that correct? L-o-r-e-t-t-a?
A. Yes, that’s correct.
A barrage of questions followed about her schoolwork. (She was a B student.) Was she in band? (Yes.) How many instruments did she play? (One, badly.) How many siblings did she have? (None.) There were dashes all over the transcript, which must have meant pauses in the testimony (what was happening during those silences?). As Katie read, a middle-aged man with disheveled hair hovered by the door as though to ask her what she was up to, but he disappeared as soon as she looked up.
A. Then, um, he—then all of a sudden, he started to put, or he started—we started kissing, and he started to put his finger in my—
Q. Let’s slow down. You were kissing? He leaned toward you on the couch, and you began kissing?
A. Yes, that’s correct.
Q. He initiated this? John Gregory did?
A. Yes.
Q. And you didn’t stop him?
A. No.
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Q. Okay. That’s fine. You just have to tell us what happened, bit by bit, so we understand, okay?
A. Um. Okay. Could I have a drink of water, please?
Q. So you were saying he kissed you.
A. That’s right.
Q. What happened then? Did he talk to you?
A. I don’t know.
Q. You don’t know, or you don’t remember?
A. I don’t remember.
Q. Okay, continue.
A. One time, he was saying, “Do you like this?” So he asked me if I liked it. And I think he said, “This is how it’s done, gentle.”
Q. What did he mean by that? What was he referring to?
A. I . . . I don’t know.
Q. Okay. And then what happened?
A. After we started kissing, and then, it—he put his fingers in my vagina.
At that word, a flush prickled up Katie’s neck. She could not find her breath, her rhythm; she began counting to herself. Breathe in; breathe out. Slow down and count. It would be okay, she thought. She just had to read the words, and she could make up her mind about what they meant later.
Q. Were you wearing anything? Did you have clothes on?
A. Yes, I was wearing a dress. My clothes had gotten wet, earlier, in the rain.
Q. So you changed into different clothes?
A. Yes, and we got a blanket. Um, he got—there was a blanket, and, um, he covered me with it.
Q. So you were covered, partially, with a blanket. And then what happened? He touched you under your clothes?
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Q. Would you like to have a minute?
THE COURT. Are you okay? Take a deep breath.
THE WITNESS. Yeah.
THE COURT. You can take a break if you like, but we have to get through this.
The WITNESS. Yeah. I am good.
Katie stood up and shucked off her sweater. Her body was on fire and her throat parched. She stumbled around the corridors, avoiding eye contact with anyone, until she found an old-fashioned drinking fountain at the end of a narrow hallway on the ground floor. The water was lukewarm and tasted of metal. She gulped it down and splashed it over her face.
Q. You were wearing a dress, you said. What kind of dress?
A. Like a big T-shirt thing, kind of loose.
Q. So it was flimsy, a light kind of dress? Like you might sleep in?
A. Yes.
Q. And were you wearing underwear?
A. No.
Q. Do you usually wear underwear under your clothes?
A. Yes.
Q. So can you explain—just tell us why you weren’t wearing underwear, that night, when he put his fingers in your vagina.
A. Earlier, we’d gone swimming. In the lake. Um, and then, like, later, when I got out of the water, I was all wet, you know? I didn’t put my underwear back on.
Q. This was not something you planned, or is it something you do often?
A. No, it was because I’d been all wet. But I did—I mean, um, when I was in the TV room—I had clothes on then.
Q. Okay. But he could slip his fingers under your dress. Did you tell him to stop?
A. No.
Q. Was he hurting you?
A. You mean, um—because of his fingers?
Q. Yes, because he was touching you.
A. No, it didn’t hurt.
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THE COURT. Are you all right?
THE WITNESS. Yeah.
THE COURT. Yes, you’re okay, or yes, you need a break?
The WITNESS. Yes, I, I need a break.
Direct Examination Day 2
Q. I want to go back to the part when you were talking about John Gregory touching you.
A. Okay.
Q. Did he speak to you, say anything to you during this time?
A. I think he was afraid Katie would wake up. We were real quiet. Except, um. He asked me did I like it this way.
Q. How did you respond?
A. I don’t know. I’m sorry. Um, I don’t remember.
Q. You don’t have to be sorry.
Katie stopped reading and sucked at the blood in her mouth from where she’d bitten her lip, a bruised crack that radiated pain. The women were talking next door, and she listened for a moment, unable to distinguish their words but comforted by the gentle rhythms of their speech, the meaninglessness of everyday communication. Life was normal, people chatted, people ate; they walked to work and drove cars and wasted time on Facebook. People loved each other and fought and picked their teeth and gave birth.
And what she was reading, that was what people did too.
A. And then, at the end, um, he told me to sit on top of him—and—um—
Q. Did you do that? Sit on top of him?
A. Yes.
Q. And then what happened?
A. And then, um, he pulled his pants down, and he took out his penis, and I sat on top of it, and—
Q. What happened?
A. His penis went in my vagina.
This was so much worse than she’d expected.
It was stupid, but she had not been prepared for everything to be spelled out like this. A clear-cut mechanical narrative, so appalling in this context. So unforgettable.
Q. Did you say anything?
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Q. Sorry, is that “no”? Can you clarify for the court?
A. No, I didn’t say anything.
Q. And the defendant? Did he say anything?
A. No. He was quiet.
Q. And you didn’t scream or cry or say “stop.”
A. No. But it—
Q. You can tell the court.
A. But it hurt. I didn’t say anything, but it was hurting me.
Q. Can you tell us why you didn’t say anything? Why you didn’t tell him to stop hurting you?
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THE COURT. Do you need a break? It’s okay if you need a break.
THE WITNESS. No, I’m okay.
THE COURT. You’re sure?
THE WITNESS. Can I please have a glass of water?
Q. Did you see your parents the next day?
A. I saw my mother. My father, he doesn’t live with us.
Q. Okay, you saw your mother the next day. Did you tell her what happened to you?
A. No.
Q. Why? Why did you not say anything to your mother about John Gregory hurting you?
A. Because he is my best friend’s father.
Lulu had used the present tense here, and what did that mean? “Best friend”—those simple words added sparking embers to the sense of panic overtaking her. Of course they had not been best friends anymore at that point. But they used to be; they used to love each other, and that reality had been wiped out, along with the life Katie had taken completely for granted.
The Forgotten Hours Page 19