Winter Flower

by Charles Sheehan-Miles

  I didn’t say that to Hayley.

  Should I tell her the whole story? Might as well, I thought. A quick Google search would turn up our family history. “My sister was kidnapped two years ago, and Dad beat up her boyfriend, because Dad thought he had done something to her. Really bad. He went to jail for a while.”

  Hayley’s eyes widened and her mouth opened. After she recomposed herself, she said, “Did she … did they find her?”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t express the emotions I felt. “No. It’s been … well, she’ll be eighteen next week. So two years.”

  Hayley leaned forward and took my hand. “I’m so sorry. That must make you really sad.”

  I shrugged. Really sad didn’t express much of anything. Dead inside might come closer. “It’s hard for me to talk about it. I really loved her. She wasn’t just my big sister, she was my best friend.”

  Hayley wasn’t finished asking questions. “So your dad went to jail for beating up her boyfriend? He must’ve really done the guy in.”

  “Yeah,” I whispered. “I think Chase was in the hospital for a while. I don’t know for sure, but I know Dad was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon. He went to prison for six months. The judge said it would’ve been longer, but there were extenuating circumstances. Because Dad thought Chase was the one who … whatever happened to Brenna.”

  Hayley sank down into her seat, a lock of red curls hanging down over her eyes. “Do you think her boyfriend did it?”

  “I don’t know. They never found her … they never proved anything with anybody. Dad got fired from his job while he was in prison and they couldn’t afford the house anymore. We stayed until the house got foreclosed on, and the cops showed up and threw us out. Eventually we ended up here.”

  I thought for a minute. Not of Brenna or my family’s history, but of the Ashleys and Jake Fennells and Codys of the world. Then I said, “Don’t tell anybody. I mean they could find out but … I just don’t need any hassle from the popular kids.”

  Hayley leaned forward, her eyes wide. “I’d never tell anyone anything. I swear to God.” As she said the last words, she made the sign of the cross over her shoulders.

  That exposed yet another set of bruises on her forearm. I’d seen them earlier that day in class but hadn’t said anything at the time. Now I had to. “What happened to your arm?”

  She scrunched her eyes together. “What are you talking about?”

  As gently as I could, I touched her forearm with the tip of my index finger. “That’s what I’m talking about. Those are new ones … the last set of bruises were just starting to heal. Hayley, who did that?”

  Her expression was painful to see. “No one did it. I’m just a klutz.” She said the words so quietly that it was clear she’d lost any confidence in her own lies. She whispered, “No one hurt me. Stop asking me.” Her eyes were wet.

  “I can keep a secret too, you know. But I won’t bother you about it again.”

  She closed her eyes, and whispered, “Thank you.”

  “Can I tell you something?”

  She nodded in response to my question.

  “You’re the best friend I’ve had since my sister disappeared,” I said.

  Her skin flushed almost as red as her hair, and her eyes darted away from me. I wish I could tell her the truth about me. But I still didn’t know her well enough for that. I didn’t know if I ever would. I mean … this was Alabama.

  Sometimes, I tried to picture how people would react if I were to suddenly start wearing women’s clothing. Dad would be disgusted. I’d never forget, years ago, when he talked about how transgender people were mentally ill. Mom? Who knew? She’d probably just drink a little more to wash it away. Grandpa would probably suggest that I be forced to join the Marines to turn me into a man, and Grandma would turn up her imperious nose and look way down at me. I didn’t even think about what people from school would be like.

  Don’t be ashamed of who you are, Brenna had told me once. You’re beautiful, inside and out. One day the whole world will see it just like I do.

  Well, the world hadn’t seen me that way yet.

  I missed her. I wished I could talk with her about Hayley. The bruises worried me. Was it her father? I bet it was. She didn’t have any siblings; it was just her and her dad, and she hadn’t lived with him very long.

  “I used to have a best friend in Birmingham,” she said. “We still talk on the phone all the time, and online. But I won’t get to go back there any time soon.”

  I swallowed. “So how come you ended up here?”

  Hayley sniffed. “Mom’s … she got hurt last year. Hurt her back, and they gave her oxy, and … she got addicted. She—”

  Hayley cut herself off, looked as if she couldn’t decide what to do, then she continued. “She overdosed on heroin about three months ago. She’s in a halfway house now, but the Department of Children and Families took me. They put me in an emergency shelter for a few days, then Dad came and got me.”

  “Do you like living with him?”

  She shook her head once. With finality in her tone, she said, “No.”

  I swallowed. I wanted to say, you gotta tell somebody. You gotta ask for help. What if he hurts you for real?

  I was afraid if I pushed it, she’d walk away. So I didn’t say any of those things. Instead, I just listened. And a couple minutes later, she broke down.

  Her words were barely audible. “He did it. Daddy. He’s got a temper.”

  I let a slow breath out.

  “It’s not really his fault,” she continued. “I was being sassy. And … and … he didn’t mean to hurt me. Not really. He just grabbed my wrist.”

  I nodded. Then I said, “You can talk to me anytime, you know.”

  I was being sassy. No. I wasn’t willing to accept the idea that it was her fault her father had hurt her. That wasn’t right, no matter what she did. It brought back memories of vaguely heard discussions about my great uncle Bill. Things said behind closed doors, and now I couldn’t untangle that.

  “Thanks,” she whispered.

  “Just … if it gets bad … call someone? Tell someone? What if he really hurts you?”

  She shakes her head. “He won’t. He loves me.”

  I closed my eyes but didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I was thinking about men, and rage, and what rage can do to them. I was thinking about Dad, and how he totally fucked up Chase, and ended up doing prison time.

  By the time that happened, we were all falling apart. Dad had gone out, and we didn’t know where he was. Then the knock on the door, and it was Detective Hunt and Agent Wilcox again, and this time the news they had was just one more piece of hideous, awful news. Dad had assaulted Chase Morton and was in jail. He might be arraigned tomorrow, he might not.

  You couldn’t really blame Mom for just falling apart. I mean … I understood why Dad did what he did. I completely understood why. But in doing that, he vanished right at the moment when Mom needed him the most. Our lives were already falling to pieces, and he wasn’t there to help us put them back together.

  Those first days after Brenna disappeared, the atmosphere was frantic. The police interviewed everyone we knew at school, friends, family. They searched Brenna’s room twice. The entire time they were searching, I sat in my room shaking, wondering if mine was next. Thankfully that never happened.

  I finally returned to school on the Thursday after Brenna disappeared. It was surreal that morning. Dad hadn’t been arraigned yet, so he was still in jail. I was used to early mornings when he would be bustling around getting ready for work, and Mom would be trying to get Brenna and me to eat breakfast before school. But he was gone, and she was asleep, and my grandparents had gone back home. It seemed like the house was haunted, as I shuffled around completely alone in the quiet getting ready for school. I almost woke Mom up before I left. I stood there at her door with my hand raised to knock, but then I decided against it. She needed to rest. I left a note on the kitchen tab
le that I had taken the bus to school, then I left the house and walked to the bus stop.

  Looking at Hayley now, that was one of the reasons why I was so reluctant to open up at all. From the morning I left for school that Thursday two years ago right up until school started this year, I’d been completely alone. The only time I ever felt needed or engaged in life was when I was online.

  Hayley threatened to break that isolation, and I couldn’t decide if that was something I wanted or was terrified of.

  Cole

  On Thursday morning at 9 a.m., I walked into the Calhoun County Courthouse, a large red brick neoclassical structure with white arches at the entrances. After I cleared security, I walked to the parole office, my shoes echoing off the marble floor. The waiting room had an institutional feel, with none-too-clean tile floors, and a window of thick, almost blue glass, behind which sat the receptionist.

  After I signed in, the sour-faced receptionist told me to take a seat until I was called. I sat down in one of the hard plastic chairs. Experience had taught me that it might be a long wait; my monthly visits with the parole officer typically took up an entire morning.

  Ironic that I found myself here. Growing up, half my cousins had been in and out of jail. I’d sworn to myself a million times that I wouldn’t be like them, that I wouldn’t be the kind of white trash that Daddy came from. I kept that promise to myself, worked my way up the corporate ladder, bought a spectacular house in the suburbs of Washington, DC, and yet, except for Lucas, I was the only one of the cousins who ended up as a felon.

  After I was arrested, it took four days before I was finally arraigned. I’ll never forget the arraignment hearing. The county prosecutor described me in terms I couldn’t imagine. He said it was a vicious and unprovoked attack, and that I represented a danger to anyone I thought might have had anything to do with my daughter. Vicious and unprovoked. I felt—righteous. I was trying to protect my daughter. I was a fool.

  My lawyer fought hard to get bail set, but the last straw was when the arresting officers testified that I had threatened repeatedly to kill Chase. It was true, I had, though it was in the passion of the moment. As a result of that, the judge denied bail. I was to stay in the Fairfax County jail until I went to trial.

  I had to hand it to Brent, my lawyer: he was good. Before I had even been shuttled back from the courthouse to the jail, he’d already lodged an appeal with the state court of appeals. The next morning’s Washington Post carried the front page headline, “Father of Missing Girl Denied Bail for Assault.” Apparently it was a slow news day, and Brent was pretty good with the media—by lunchtime the cable networks had gone insane. The talking heads on the cable networks, and the public, seemed to be on my side. It took longer than expected, but far faster than it would have, had I not had access to those resources. Two weeks after my arrest, I was released on bail.

  I was grateful to be out. But I’d never forget the disappointment and anger on Erin and Sam’s faces when I was home. They’d needed me terribly, and I’d failed them.

  Brent spent the next two months maneuvering but with little luck. I was scheduled to go to trial on December 11. The week before that, Brent came over to the house and pulled Erin and me into my office. His face had been grim.

  “Cole,” he said. “I’ve done everything I could. The prosecutor’s got a hard-on … excuse me, Mrs. Roberts. He’s very aggressive, with all his public statements about vigilante justice. The bottom line is, you’re not going to be able to avoid going to trial on Monday.”

  Erin began to cry silently. I’d already been placed on a leave of absence from work; a conviction would surely mean that I’d be fired. I had a golden parachute in my contract, but one of the clauses in that contract said that I lost the parachute if I was terminated due to a felony conviction. And that’s where it looked like we were heading.

  “What are my odds?”

  “Well, you have the jury on your side to an extent. Except that you fucked up that Morton kid pretty good. He’ll probably never regain the full use of his hand. The guidelines for assault with a deadly weapon is eight to fifteen years. You’ll probably end up at the lower end of that scale, meaning you’ll be eligible for parole in three or four years.”

  I gasped. Three or four years? How was that possible? How could I possibly do three or four years in prison?

  My next words came out in a rasp. “What are my options?”

  Brent shrugged. “We can offer to plea bargain to a lesser charge. You’ll still almost certainly get a felony conviction, but we might be able to get them down to vanilla assault. With luck you’ll be out within a year. That’s really the best-case … if you go before a jury and they wheel Chase Morton into the courtroom, you don’t stand a chance.”

  I rested my head in my hands. Even the best-case scenario … we’d lose the house. I’d racked up twenty thousand in legal fees already. We had the mortgage on a two-million-dollar home, three car payments, student loans … we couldn’t survive without a sizable salary.

  We couldn’t leave the house with Brenna missing. What if she came home and we weren’t there anymore?

  Without a word, Erin stood up and walked out. I felt like I’d been punched. But who could blame her? Who could blame her?

  In the end, I took Brent’s advice and pled guilty to simple assault. I was sentenced to three years, with two-and-a-half of those years suspended. I actually served six months and five days in the Deep Meadow Correctional Center just outside Richmond.

  Looking back, sometimes I wish I had killed Chase. That might’ve at least made it worthwhile. As it was, I had wrecked what was left of my family’s life for no purpose at all.

  I almost hadn’t been able to take the job in Alabama, which would’ve been a real tragedy considering that I interviewed more than a hundred times for different positions after I got out of prison. After Jeremiah got me the interview with Brian, I jumped at the chance, even though I knew that my salary in this job wouldn’t be much more than ten percent of what I’d been making before. At least it was enough to buy food and pay rent for a crappy little house in Oxford. Offer in hand, I’d gone to the court and requested permission to transfer my probation to Alabama. Miraculously, it was approved.

  So here I was. Waiting to see my probation officer for our monthly visits.

  At eleven a.m. I was finally called in to see her. Sergeant Joyce Friendly had once been an Atlanta cop and had readily told me her story when I asked during our first meeting several months before. During a routine traffic stop in South Atlanta five years before, she’d been shot in the face and left for dead. She’d been medically retired from the police department, but after years of therapy and healing, she went looking for work. She finally found a spot with the Alabama Department of Corrections.

  When I knocked on the door to her office, she waved me in. She was a physically formidable woman, probably somewhere around one hundred and ninety pounds of mostly muscle. She wore a grey uniform and smiled when I walked in.

  She spoke in a thick accent that reminded me of Dad’s relatives in the mountains of Georgia. “Cole Roberts. Have a seat, tell me how things are going for you.”

  I took the proffered seat. “The job’s going well,” I said. That didn’t really answer her question, but I had no plans of getting into discussions about the state of my marriage.

  “That’s good to hear. Your son’s getting settled in school okay?”

  I nodded. “You know how it is … moving is a big change. Especially from a big city to … here.”

  She nodded, eyes wide. “Oh, I know it is. I gotta ask you the routine questions. Have you been out of state?”

  I shook my head. “No, but I’m going to ask for clearance to go to Atlanta in the next couple of weeks.”

  “What takes you there?”

  “My parents live there, and it’s time we visited.”

  She nodded. “I don’t see that that’s a problem. Just make sure you notify me if and when you’re going t
o go. Are you drinking?”

  I shook my head. “Not much. A beer sometimes when I get home from work.” I didn’t say, Erin does enough drinking for the both of us.

  She nodded. Her face turned serious, and she said, “Have you had any news about your daughter?”

  I shook my head. We talked briefly about Brenna during my first meeting with her. Sgt. Friendly had been surprisingly sympathetic. In response to my gesture, she frowned.

  “I’m so sorry to hear that, Cole.”

  I didn’t answer. There wasn’t really anything to say.

  She leaned back in her seat then shuffled in her desk drawer for a moment, pulling out a sheet of paper. “Well, then, that’s all I have for this month. I’ll need you to take this paperwork to one of the labs listed on the back, it’s time for a drug test.”

  I nodded. I’d been through that routine twice already since we moved to Alabama. I took the papers.

  As I stood, she leaned forward and spoke again. “If you do hear anything, whether it’s tomorrow or next year, you let me know. I’ve got a daughter too. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

  I let out my breath in an exhalation that seemed to deflate my entire body.

  Eight: Birthday

  Cole

  I was in the middle of the church rush when my boss walked in.

  Brian Ingram had been with the company for six years. A retired Army Lieutenant Colonel, he was now our division manager, responsible for nine restaurants spread across eastern Alabama from the Georgia border almost to Birmingham.

  He’d taken a big chance on me.

  When I first interviewed for the job, I’d been desperate. More than a year of job interviews after I got out of jail, and not a single bite. Even under the circumstances of Brenna’s disappearance, my status as a convicted felon was a roadblock too hard to overcome for any of the companies I’d interviewed with. We’d completely run out of cash, and the house was in foreclosure. I wasn’t even eligible for unemployment, because I’d been fired while in jail, and every company I had talked to declined a second interview.