The Daughter She Used To Be

by Rosalind Noonan

  “You could tell me the parts you remember,” Saunders suggested, but Peyton refused.

  After more than a week of interviews, Bernie had pages of notes, but no real clue as to what Peyton Curtis was about ... or why he had unraveled. This dilemma would have made great dinner table conversation at the house, but she had been keeping away, knowing that Dad did not approve of her mission.

  Outside her bedroom window, night had fallen and the backyard seemed dense and dark, more like a jungle than a small parcel of yard in Queens. She called home and breathed a sigh of relief when her mother answered.

  “Ma, how’s it going?”

  “Oh, thank the saints! I’ve been so worried, Bernadette. The house is a tomb without you.”

  “I think you’ve got a few grandchildren who can make some noise.”

  “But we miss you. Though Conner’s been coming around and he’s such a big help. He drove me out to Long Island on Saturday. Costco. You know how I hate that drive on the Grand Central.”

  “He’s a good kid. I’m glad he’s coming around more.”

  “But you’re not one for the small talk. Something the matter?”

  Bernie sighed. “I’m just discouraged. Now that I’ve resigned from the DA’s office, I realize I’ve only trained on one track. I don’t know what I’m doing here. I must have slept through half of law school.”

  She held back her other issues: the downer of checking into a maximum-security prison every day, the sickening karma of working with the man who had killed her brother. She was trying to sew a quilt from the torn shreds of a life, a difficult task made even more onerous by Curtis’s memory blanks.

  “I’m sure you’re doing a fine job with the legal things, love. But if it’s worrying you, I’ll say a few prayers to your namesake, St. Bernadette. Remember the movie? She faced persecution over and over again. First from the bishop, then Sister Vauzous?”

  Although it wasn’t Bernie’s favorite movie, it made her smile to hear her mother recount it with such joy. “I remember, Ma.”

  “You have the strength of a Bernadette,” Peg said. “She was always concerned about staying true to the Immaculate Conception, no matter what. And you’re the same, so determined to stay true to the right thing. I always knew you were special, that you were destined to do great things.”

  “Too bad Dad doesn’t agree with you.”

  “No, he doesn’t. But that doesn’t mean you can’t come around and argue with him a little. I’m afraid he’s losing the gift of gab.”

  “Maybe I’ll stop by,” Bernie said, thinking that was a lie.

  “He’s a hard man, your father,” Peg said. “Hard on himself, too, but he’ll come around. Someday, he’ll see that you did the right thing.”

  Chapter 46

  “Are you ever going to talk to me again?” Bernadette cocked her head to the side, a move she’d had since she was looking up at Sully from her bouncy chair.

  Talk? Chat her up so that she could feel better about being a bleeding heart? No, thank you. Sully reached for his beer and swirled the can, just to let her know he was awake but ignoring her.

  “Dad ... I’m sorry.” She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, then straightened. “I’m sorry you’re in pain. But you’re not alone. We’re all hurting.”

  Amen to that. There was plenty of suffering in this world, and Sully had seen his fair share. Bodies mangled by the fall from a ninth-story window or the grinding weight of a bus tire. The cataclysm at the World Trade Center. People had thought the world was ending; he’d been wondering, too. Yeah, he’d been to the dark side and back again.

  But looking back on it now, he had to say that the worst of it involved children; it always seemed wrong to see a young life end. Such a devastating loss to a parent, and now he knew that firsthand. That feeling like someone peeled your insides out, just shucked your guts. It hung on like a parasite, so that when the mind got distracted on occasion by something more positive, that pain dragged you right back down into despair.

  Bernadette went on. “I’m sorry you’re hurting, but I’m not sorry I stopped you that day at the hospital.” Her voice was a low hiss, probably designed to keep her mother from hearing. Neither of them had told Peg, but she had good instincts. She might not know the details, but Peg had some kind of inkling. That was just the way she operated. God bless her, she put up with a lot.

  “Okay, so you’re mad at me now,” Bernie said, slipping into a sulk. “I get it. But you know, someday you’ll thank me. Someday you’ll ... you’ll get it through your thick skull that I saved your life so that you can be here to see your grandchildren have children of their own. I did it to keep you out of prison.”

  He kept his eyes on the television; he would have loved to keep stonewalling, but he couldn’t resist goading her. “What do you know about prison?”

  “You want to talk prison? I’ve spent the last two weeks visiting at Sing Sing, and I don’t think you want to make it your next home. The river views would be great, but they never let you near a window, and you wouldn’t look so good in an orange jumpsuit. And Mom would have to learn how to make fruitcake so she could bake a chisel inside. That’s what I’ve learned about prisons, and no, I don’t see you liking it there.”

  “Aren’t you facetious.” Full of piss and vinegar.

  She’d always been a handful, more defiant than the others, and her spirit had earned her a special place in his heart.

  Sometimes when she cocked her head and looked up at him through her bangs, just the way she was doing now, he saw the little girl who had followed him around the house. His shadow. The older kids tried to look after her, but damned if defiant little Bernie didn’t seek him out and mimic his every move. When she was a toddler he would take her to the grocery store with him to get her out of everyone else’s hair. She used to ride in that little seat in front and say the names of items she knew. Bread. Noodooles. Meelk. One day he caught himself putting a box of Lipton’s into the cart, about to recite his old mantra when she said it for him. “Tea bags for old bags,” she chirped, as if that were the name of the product.

  And as if that wasn’t enough to endear her to him, Peg had caught her heading off to the bathroom one day, claiming, “I gotta go drain my dragon.”

  Sully had laughed for ten minutes when Peg had told him the story. So many years ago ... probably twenty-five or so. He had disciplined all his kids, but he’d been careful not to break their spirits. His Bernadette, she had spunk. He’d encouraged her, but now her stubbornness was biting him in the ass.

  “Dad, you know I don’t mean to be disrespectful,” she said. “But I’m not backing down on this one. I’m working to save Peyton Curtis from the death penalty, and nothing you can say will stop me.”

  “So why should I say anything?” Still, he kept his eyes on the talking heads on TV.

  “Because I’m your daughter and you want to let me know that you support me no matter what. That we can agree to disagree and you’ll still love me.”

  “Hmph.” What could you do when your kids went off track ... so far off that you could barely recognize them as your own anymore?

  Did Charles Manson’s mother still love him?

  How about Hitler’s parents, with their son becoming big-shot head of the Third Reich? There had to be a breaking point. A line your children crossed that put them on the side of the enemy.

  The bad choice.

  The wrong choice.

  His baby Bernadette had crossed that line when she teamed up with the likes of Peyton Curtis. A monster, that one. A sick, depraved animal.

  “Dad ... come on. You’re never at a loss for conversation when your cop buddies are here.”

  “They don’t work for the enemy.”

  “I’m not defending him. I’m fighting to restore civilization. Punishment with dignity.”

  “Yeah?” He smacked his beer can down on the end table. “And where’s the dignity for your brother? For Kevin and Sean? Peyton Curtis walked i
nto my shop and killed my son in cold blood, along with two other innocent cops. Guys with families, children. He almost took out your friend Indigo, too. That sick monster crushed families. He destroyed my business, which is nothing compared to the damage in here.” He pointed a finger to his chest. “Thanks to your client, I got nothing but pain.”

  “Dad, there’s nothing that—”

  “Don’t argue with me, ’cause I’m telling you, I’m this close to losing it.” He pointed toward the door. “You better go.”

  She rose, sighing. “Dad, I—”

  “Just go. Out of my sight. And don’t be coming around here anymore. You’re not part of this family anymore.” He swatted her away. “I can’t see you, because you’re gone. You’re not my daughter anymore.”

  Chapter 47

  “I can’t believe your doctor didn’t prescribe physical therapy for you before this.” Austin Pryzwansky pressed hard into Peyton’s wound, rubbing beeswax into the scar.

  The prison infirmary didn’t smell so good, but the beeswax did. Like flowers or sweet tea. With his cheek pressed to the examining table, Peyton closed his eyes and tried to make the most of it.

  “You could have restored use of that right arm years ago if you’d gotten the right therapy. Your uneven gait could have probably been addressed, too.” Austin pushed into the muscle, then paused. “Or did you even see a doctor?”

  “The prison doctor, upstate. Before that, I didn’t have money for any of that.”

  Austin shifted to the other side of the table and started massaging the ointment into Peyton’s right arm. “And no one on the medical staff mentioned how atrophied muscles can be revitalized?”

  “You mean how I can get my arms and legs to move again?”

  “Something like that.”

  Peyton snorted into the table. “You don’t have experts and therapists and such in prisons. They got some old guy who sits in the infirmary, takes temperatures and calls an ambulance if you’re dying.”

  “Well, you’re lucky you got me working on you now.”

  Peyton knew it was true, and it was because of his lawyer, who freaked when they pushed Peyton out of the hospital. “I’m gonna make sure they take care of you,” Larry had told him. “They don’t want me complaining that you were denied medical care.”

  So Austin P. came every other day, and it was helping. The wounded arm wasn’t so stiff anymore, and his right arm was getting stronger, his range increasing. He could lift it up now, almost up to his shoulder.

  Peyton had been doubtful at first, but it turned out Austin P. knew his shit.

  Even though Peyton took a bullet a few weeks ago, he felt good, better than he had in years.

  “Okay.” Austin P. clapped, then wiped his hands on a towel. “Spa time is over. Let’s do some of the exercises I taught you.”

  As they worked, using fat rubber bands for tension, Austin talked about how the weather was changing, warming up. He’d gone hiking with some friends over the weekend. He said he didn’t know how much longer that they’d pay him to come here.

  “But you’re a great patient. I don’t get a lot of patients who make this much progress in two or three weeks,” Austin said. “You just keep doing all the exercises I showed you, and you’ll be amazed at what your body will do for you. That right arm, too. Keep working those muscles. Use them or lose them.”

  “Okay, man.”

  Austin P. was ah-ight, but Peyton didn’t have much to complain about at Sing Sing. He got his three square meals a day, and the other inmates left him alone. Both his arms were working again, and now that the guards saw he was no bother, they stopped calling him a cop killer. One of the guards, a big guy with a belly, talked to Peyton sometimes. Bruner got pissed off by guards who abused prisoners. “My chief responsibility is your care and custody,” he’d told Peyton. Bruner was ah-ight, too.

  The infirmary door rattled open, and the guard waved Peyton out into the next chamber. Sing Sing was all bars and steel doors locking behind you, in front of you, and around you.

  As the guards escorted him back to his cell, going from one locked hallway to another, Peyton wondered if the lawyers would be coming today. That was the best part of his day, seeing his angel.

  Peyton had thought he had dreamed her up, but the first time he saw her walk in with Laurence he knew she’d been real all along. He remembered her spreading her wings to save him from destruction. Saint Peter was there, and he had a gun aimed at Peyton’s head. That was the judgment at the Pearly Gates, and Saint Peter was mad at Peyton. He was growling and shaking and shit. Peyton would have been scared if he hadn’t been so drugged out.

  Good thing his angel was there.

  Peyton’s angel had saved him from death.

  Or was that the other angel, back at Lakeview? She had given him a mouse or something. Or a walking stick with a mouse on it. That’s right. A faux scrimshaw mouse on the handle. Or was it a rat?

  What happened to that stick? It had that rat carved in the handle, and it fit his hand just right. That stick was cool.

  He couldn’t remember where that damn stick went. Some things were fuzzy around the time of the hospital. He remembered the bus ride back from Lakeview Shock, and next thing he was in the hospital with nurses and doctors all around him. Then his angel fighting back Saint Peter.

  That lawyer, Laurence the lawyer, he had told Peyton to think about it. “Think long and hard and see what you can come up with,” Laurence had said. Laurence was always pressing him to remember Darnell. He wanted to know details, what it was like to have Darnell living in the same apartment. Laurence knew Darnell was there that day on the playground when Peyton got hurt.

  Peyton said he didn’t remember, but he did. He just knew he’d get killed if he talked about it.

  That was a heavy memory. Like a stone, it weighed on his chest, pressing so hard sometimes he couldn’t breathe.

  Sometimes little strips of memory hit him and he could see parts of it, like a chunk of a torn photograph. Other times there was the pain, the laughter, the taste of dirt and the grit of pavement under his cheek.

  That time he woke up in a hospital, too. All kinds of tubes were shoved into him, plastic down his dry throat. Back then the doctors thought he was good to go when he could follow their fingers with his eyes and walk across the room. Mama kept asking them when he was going to get better, but no one answered.

  Then, back home in his room, he woke up suffocating every morning. His cries were muffled by a pillow, and he couldn’t push it off, but he could pound the person holding it.

  “Don’t tell.” Darnell’s face loomed before him, his nose flat and piglike, with beady black eyes. “You tell anyone about the playground, and I’ll kill you. Next time I’ll make sure it’s done. I’ll rip your eyes out and feed them to the pigeons, and they’ll peck out the insides and swallow the white part whole.”

  Peyton didn’t tell.

  Maybe because he woke up smothering every morning, with Darnell’s snarling voice by his ear.

  “Don’t tell. Don’t tell, or I’ll kill you.”

  An hour later, Darnell’s voice still slid near his ear, a slender dagger whispering under the collar: “Don’t tell.”

  “Did you think about your brother Darnell, like I asked?” Laurence was wearing a suit the color of pea soup, and Peyton kept wondering why anyone would want to wear something so disgusting. “Got anything you want to tell us?”

  I’ll kill you ...

  Peyton shook his head, thinking of pea soup with chunks of pink ham hocks floating around in it.

  “How about the days after you got back home to New York City? Any memories come back to you about that time? What happened after you stepped off the bus?”

  “I remember the bus. It was a long trip back to New York and I was sweating it out, coming back to the city. What was the sense of that, coming back to a place that only did you harm?”

  “But your mother is here. She was willing to take you back.”


  “Nah. That’s no way for a man to live.” Peyton saw himself sitting on that bus, rocketing through the darkness with just two headlights for guidance. “They kick you out of prison with the clothes on your back and two pairs of socks. But I had one possession. A walking stick. It had a white handle shaped like a rat. Yes, it was a rat and that stick, I used it to get around because of my limp. I needed it.” That rat fit so nice in his hand. And ... and there were rats down in the subway. He had watched them galloping along the lane beyond the track. He’d been in the subway when the man stole his cane.

  That was what happened to it. Damn.

  Some white man came along and ripped the cane from his hand. Took it away and broke it in half.

  Peyton rubbed his jaw, staring off at the bars of the door beyond the lawyers as the memory began to take shape.

  “Peyton?” Laurence leaned so far forward he nearly fell out of the wooden chair. “What’s up? You’re a million miles away.”

  “He took it from me.”

  “Who took what?” Saunders prodded.

  “That skell cop grabbed my walking stick. He stole it from me and ruined it. Broke it in half.” He could see the cop, but what was his name? “A cop ... I can see him now. Scrawny guy, with iron-gray eyes.”

  “Did you get his name?”

  “He was the one who arrested me.” It was an Italian name. Peyton could still hear one of the other cops giving the cop a hard time, called him “Ant-nee.” “His name was Marino, I think. Anthony Marino.”

  Something shifted in the room, as if a wind had blown in. Peyton looked up at the lawyers. What was the sense of him coughing all this shit up? Nobody gave a shit about a gimp black man getting off the bus from an upstate prison.

  “You’re remembering the cops who pulled you into the precinct. You weren’t actually arrested, but they took you into custody because you matched the profile of a serial rapist. Well ...” Laurence flicked at the air with his hand. “The cops wanted to think you matched the profile. That’s something we can expand down the road. Points in our favor.”