by Kim Hoover
“He said they had a tip. That was you!” Jane said.
“It feels weird to hear it.”
“You are a hero, Cal,” Rachel gushed, clasping her hands together.
“No. I’m no hero.”
“I’m so proud of you, Cal,” Dad said. “Jane’s dad told me the whole story. I had no idea you were so deep in all of this. You were right. It all makes sense now. You are some brave young lady!”
I felt myself blushing. My dad never talked to me like that before. It felt good, but in a strange way.
“Thanks, Dad. It’s been a weird few months. In some ways, I feel like all of a sudden I’m an adult. You know what I mean?”
“I do,” he said. “You’re all grown up.”
We had been instructed to go to the FBI field office, where Bev would be waiting for us.
“I wanted to get a minute with you,” Bev said, taking me aside. “I want to warn you, the word is getting out that you were the one who tipped us off about the canyon. Not sure how that happened. You’re going to get mobbed by press sooner or later. I wouldn’t be surprised if they show up here.”
“What do I do?”
“Don’t say anything. Just look straight ahead and keep walking. We’ll have escorts for you and guards until this all calms down.”
“And my mom?”
“We’re going to take you to see her in a few minutes,” Bev said.
“Is she in prison?”
“She’s in custody at the Federal Building.”
“How is she?”
“She’s a little rough. I don’t want to scare you, but they have her on suicide watch.”
I looked at Dad. I could tell he was still in love with her. He had the worst look on his face. I gave him a hug and told him we would all get through this.
It was a jolt to see my mother sitting behind bulletproof glass in a detention hall. She looked frail and weak. She had lost a lot of weight. She barely glanced up when I walked toward her.
“Come this way,” a guard said. “We’ll let you be in a room together.”
He led us down a hall to a room with a table and a few chairs. My mother had shackles on her ankles with a chain running between them. But her hands were free. We sat across from each other. Her eyes were swollen from crying. She wore no makeup, which made her look younger and more afraid, almost as though part of her armor, her defenses, were wiped away. I was sorry for her, but I was also ready to tear into her.
“Do you have any idea what kind of trouble you’re in?” I asked.
It just came out. Daughter to mother. I leaned over, trying to be intimidating. She snapped up and looked at me full in the face for the first time since I got there.
“What do you know about anything? You sit there. Smug. Arrogant. Like you’re something special.”
“You don’t impress me with all that,” I said. “I just want to know why you did it.”
Somebody had left a pack of cigarettes on the table with some matches. She lit one and we sat there in silence while she took a couple of drags.
“I don’t owe you any explanation,” she said, “but I am going to tell you a few things because you think you know everything, but you don’t.”
I sat back and waited.
“I married your dad the week after I graduated high school because I had to get out of my momma and daddy’s house. Daddy wouldn’t leave me alone. And I know you know what I mean. That’s why my mother threw him out. I’m sure you’ve wondered about that.”
I felt a rush of disgust wash over me. I had only vague memories of my grandfather. He had drifted away when I was much younger and no one seemed to know what became of him. What she told me now made me feel sick.
“Daddy had started in on me when I was twelve. If I hadn’t gotten out when I did, I think I would have killed myself. And I didn’t see any other way out besides marrying someone and setting up my own house. So I picked your dad. He was a year ahead of me. Had a good job. Seemed nice enough. So that was that.”
As she painted this picture, I began to think of my parents in a way I never had before. When you don’t know any better, you don’t think about it. But I realized my mother and father had never paid attention to each other in front of me in any way other than two people with a list of things to do. I couldn’t remember them hugging or kissing. I suddenly felt deeply sorry for both of them.
“The years went by. You were born. He and I came and went without so much as a hello some days. I was empty. My life stretched out in front of me like a desert with no life in sight.”
She paused to suck on the cigarette. “Then I met him.”
She stood up, turned her back and held herself together, gripping her arms in a hunched-over hug.
“The first time I ever saw him, I knew. This was it. This was the man I had been waiting for. He was my destiny.”
My mouth went dry and I started to sweat, as though her words had turned the heat up in the room. I was desperate for a drink of water.
“The way he treated me, no one ever treated me like that before. Paid me that much attention. Told me I was beautiful. Told me I was his everything. Told me he would take care of me. I was a princess. There was nothing we couldn’t do together. No challenge we couldn’t handle.”
She changed in front of me as she talked about him—from a broken, empty, hopeless shell to a fierce and intimidating woman. I stood to balance the energy between us.
“Well, that’s all just great,” I said, folding my arms, “but why did you have to go along with this giant scheme? Didn’t you understand how wrong it was?”
She stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray on the table. “I knew it was wrong, but I would have done anything to be with him.”
“How were you going to get away with it?”
“We had the one last heist. The big one. With that, we were going away. We were going to start over.”
“And what about me?”
“You’ve always been strong. You didn’t need me. Not really. I knew you’d be fine. I had to take my chance when it came. I would do it again. I couldn’t go back to who I was before I met him.”
My mother didn’t care how all of this affected me. Not one bit. I couldn’t look at her anymore.
“I hid some money for you,” she said.
“I don’t want that money,” I said.
“You deserve a good start in life. What difference does it make where it came from?”
“Just forget it. I’m not taking any money from you.”
“Well, that’s just like you. You think you’re better than me, but you’re not. You’re from the same line. Don’t think the time won’t come when you’re tempted to do something that you know is wrong. You’ll rationalize it. Just like everybody else.”
I couldn’t listen to any more of it.
“Good luck to you, Mother. You’ll need it.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
There was one more thing I had to do before I could leave Amarillo. I had to be interviewed by the Texas Rangers. Bev went with me and introduced me to a man in a very fancy uniform. “I’m Commander Morris,” he said. We shook hands and he invited me to sit down. “I’ve heard quite a lot of good things about you.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“What you did, the information you got for us, you realize you’re a very brave young woman.”
“I don’t know about that…”
“There’s something I want to talk to you about. Make sure you understand.”
He paused. “Your mother is going to be charged with some very serious crimes.”
“I understand.”
“And you are a key witness to some of those crimes.”
I nodded.
“How do you feel about helping us make the case against your mother?”
“Do I really have a choice?”
“We can compel you to testify against her. But I would rather have your cooperation. It will be more effective.”
I thoug
ht about it, but not for long. “I’ll tell you the truth. I’ll tell you everything I know. That’s what I have to do. If it means she goes to prison, there’s nothing I can do about that.”
“I just wanted to be sure,” he said. “I know it must be very hard.”
“She did what she did. It was her free will. She doesn’t regret it. She may be my mother, but that doesn’t change what happened and what I have to do.”
“Very good, then,” he said. “We will be in touch.”
Bev and I left the building and she stopped me at the top of the stone stairs.
“Are you sure about what you said in there?”
“I don’t think I could live with myself if I stayed silent. I tried as hard as I could to get her to leave him. To just walk away. She wouldn’t do it. She told me she would have done anything for him. So now, if she goes to prison for him, well, maybe it’s what she wants.”
My mother’s trial was set for a few weeks later. She had refused to cooperate with the prosecution of the Houston contingent, so they were going after her for the maximum sentence. They told me she wanted to take her punishment. She didn’t want to get off easy at someone else’s expense. I felt oddly proud of her for that.
We all three testified, though Rachel and Jane were much less important to the prosecution. Jane was first to take the stand. She answered every question as simply as possible, not offering any extra detail, and keeping her eyes on me in between. I sent her imaginary hugs and kisses, knowing how hard it was for her to say things that would help send my mother to prison.
When Rachel took the stand, she was so excited I thought she might jump into the jury box. She looked at them for their reaction to every answer she gave, convinced, I’m sure, that her testimony was the key to the case. When the prosecutor asked her to point out my mother and identify her, she looked at me smugly as she mimicked what we’d heard on Perry Mason a hundred times. I covered my ears as she delivered her answer with a dramatic flair fit for television.
When my turn came, it was much harder than I’d thought. With every answer, I wanted to offer an explanation. I wanted the jury to understand why she did what she did.
“I know it sounds bad,” I said, looking at them in their box, “but she’s not a bad person. She—”
“Please, Miss Long, just answer the question,” the prosecutor said.
Her defense attorney gave me the chance. He asked me to describe what she was like as a mother.
“Up until she met…that man, Hank Hart, she was always there for me. She made all my clothes. We always had dinner together. She took good care of me.”
My mother looked up at me as I said that. She was so small, sitting behind the defense counsel’s table. I saw a tear slip down her cheek.
The jury wasn’t out very long before they came back with the verdict. Rachel and Jane and I held hands as the foreman read it out loud. They found her guilty. The only question was the sentence and that would come later.
So just like that, it was all over.
A few weeks later, Jane drove me to Amarillo, to the courtroom, to see her sentenced. They went easier on her than I thought. She might be out in a few years with good behavior. Afterward, I asked if I could speak to her. They took me to a side chamber off the courtroom.
“I wanted to say goodbye for now, Mom.”
She looked up and I realized we hadn’t seen eye to eye for a long time. She was beaten down, defeated, older.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “You deserved better than this.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“I put him first. Nothing else, no one else mattered. What I did was wrong. And I knew it. And I didn’t care.”
She paused but didn’t take her eyes off me.
“Try to forget me.”
“I won’t…I can’t forget.”
“I’m sorry, miss,” the guard said. “We have to go now.”
I nodded. And suddenly, I couldn’t stop myself. I hugged her, tears slipping out and down my face. “I love you, Mom. Take care of yourself.”
She kept her eye on me until the guard had walked her through the door.
I sat next to Jane as she drove us away from Amarillo. She had her hand on my thigh. The flat, empty, dry landscape stretched out in front of us as far as we could see.
“I think I understand her a little,” I said.
“Tell me.”
“It’s sort of like what you said.”
“What do you mean?”
“About the script of your life. She met someone who threw out the script, who changed everything. And even though it meant breaking every rule she’d lived by up until then, she did it anyway because of love. Can you imagine a love like that?”
“Yes, I can,” she said, holding my hand. “Yes, I can.”
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