The Sacrifice

by Robert Whitlow

  He tossed and turned on the narrow bed. The bare gray walls of his room seemed to close in on him if he stared at them, and with his eyes open, the passage of minutes seemed like hours. He had slept several hours earlier in the day to escape the boredom of confinement but now couldn’t will himself to unconsciousness.

  So he stayed awake in the silence and released his imagination. Some of the images that flashed through his mind were much more serious than the charges against him in the thin manila folder in the district attorney’s office.

  5

  Happy families are all alike;

  every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

  ANNA KARENINA

  Scott was out of bed at 7:30 A.M. After opening the door of Nicky’s cage, he fixed a cup of strong coffee and poured it into a plastic travel mug. He’d taken a couple of sips by the time Nicky hopped through the dog door after a quick trip to the backyard. Scott put his cup on the kitchen counter and opened the drawer where he kept a retractable leash. At the sight of the green leash, Nicky jumped up and down with excitement until Scott attached the strap to his collar. He enjoyed walking as much as Nicky. For his eagle scout project when he was a teenager, Scott had designed and built a nature path adjacent to a local park.

  Coffee in one hand and Nicky pulling on the other, Scott turned left down the sidewalk that ran along the quiet street. It was cool enough to feel like early fall, but the warning of a hot afternoon lurked in the bright sun that shone through the lower branches of the trees on the east side of the street. They passed several rows of modest houses that had also been built in the 1940s and 1950s.

  Scott and Nicky were an odd combination. A muscular young man dressed in black sweatpants and Wake Forest T-shirt, and a little white dog who looked like he should be wearing a rhinestone collar and trotting beside a socialite in Central Park. But Scott’s manhood wasn’t threatened by his association with the animal he’d taken in when an elderly neighbor moved to Florida and couldn’t take her new puppy with her to a retirement center. Scott came to the rescue, and the little dog was never at risk of homelessness. Besides, Nicky’s presence could be a con- versation starter. Scott had recently dated a woman whom he met when she stopped to pat Nicky’s head.

  Nicky loved to pretend that he was a fearsome beast. Sometimes when he saw a large dog, he would let a deep growl rumble in his throat and scratch the grass backward with his hind legs like a bull preparing to charge. It was all bluster and show, and Scott kept careful watch until they passed the house where a brown boxer lived. Nicky looked toward the house and growled, but the boxer didn’t appear. Scott stood ready to snatch his furry friend up in his arms and keep him from harm. Nicky’s grand illusions were safe so long as he stayed close to his master’s side. Scott was the great protector.

  As they drew closer to Lipscomb Avenue, the houses became older and larger. A few had been in the same family for generations. One of the finest structures, a two-story Victorian with a wraparound porch, had been turned into an accountant’s office, and another with dark brown cedar siding had been taken over by a local insurance agency. Mr. Humphrey’s home, a brick house in a Federal style, occupied a prominent corner lot.

  They stopped when they reached the parking lot for the First Methodist Church, a long white building with narrow stained-glass windows and a sharp steeple. Most local attorneys, including Mr. Humphrey and his wife, were members of the Methodist church. The rest of the lawyers in town were evenly split between the large Baptist church that dominated a whole block beside the courthouse and a small Presbyterian church at the other end of Lipscomb Avenue.

  Scott’s family had attended the Baptist church, and when he was ten years old, he had walked down the aisle and been baptized. The moral teaching Scott received in Sunday school had been reinforced by his father’s strict code of ethics and the influence of the boy scouts, but he hadn’t attended church on a regular basis for years. Religion had helped shape his character, and once the mold was set, he didn’t see the need to go back for a refresher course in the Ten Commandments. Healing for the deep wound to his heart wasn’t in a church sanctuary. He’d talked to a military chaplain after Steve Robinson’s death and found no balm for his soul.

  After a loop through the empty church parking lot and around a basketball goal, Scott and Nicky headed home. By the time they walked up to the front door, Nicky was panting and ready for a drink of water. Scott watched the morning news until it was time to get ready for his breakfast meeting with Kay. Rubbing the stubble on his chin, he went into his bedroom.

  When he was in a good mood, Scott sometimes sang in the shower. Nothing understandable, just loud sounds that he considered musical expressions. After his pleasant walk with Nicky, he tried out a few notes until his voice cracked. Putting on a denim shirt and jeans, he grabbed his paperwork and notes from the previous evening and walked the few blocks from his house to the restaurant. The Eagle was on Lipscomb Avenue not far from the law firm. He sat on a bench in front of a large plate-glass window decorated with a faded bald eagle and waited.

  Scott didn’t see any sign of Kay. Five, ten minutes passed. He fidgeted. Maybe Kay’s jealous husband had told her not to have breakfast with an old boyfriend. Scott decided he should make sure she wasn’t already inside. He opened the glass door and quickly scanned the large open room that was half-filled with the late Saturday morning crowd. He heard a car door close behind him and turned. It was Kay.

  She was casually dressed in jeans, burgundy top, and white running shoes. Different, yet the same. A woman’s figure, but with her hair the same color and length as the last image he remembered. He wondered if she’d ever worn it short during the past twelve years. He couldn’t help staring.

  “Sorry, I’m late,” she said.

  “That’s okay,” Scott said. “Have you eaten here since you moved back?”

  “No, but I remember that my father liked this place.”

  As they wound their way to an empty table, a plump, older woman came out of the kitchen area. Bea Dempsey, the sixty-year-old owner of the Eagle, waved to Scott.

  “Good morning, Scott!” she called out.

  Bea came over to them. Scott introduced Kay.

  “Bea, this is Kay Laramie.”

  “Wilson,” Kay corrected him. “You may remember my father, Bob Laramie. He used to eat here all the time. He would order grits to go in a Styrofoam cup.”

  Bea smiled, revealing a shiny gold tooth on the upper right side of her mouth. “I can’t say that I do. We’ve served a lot of grits to a bunch of folks over the past thirty years. If he comes to town for a visit, send him by, and I’ll fix him up. Can I start you off with some coffee?”

  Scott looked at Kay who nodded.

  “Yes,” he said. “And I’ll have The Works.”

  “What’s that?” Kay asked.

  Scott counted on his fingers. “Three eggs scrambled, four pieces of crisp bacon, two sausage patties, two biscuits, hash browns with onions, grits, and, uh, what am I forgetting Bea?”

  “We have nice cantaloupe this morning.”

  “And a piece of cantaloupe. The fruit changes with the seasons.”

  “That sounds a bit heavy,” Kay said. “I’ll have a piece of cantaloupe.”

  “No grits?” Bea asked.

  Kay shook her head. “I didn’t inherit that from my father. I’ve tried regular grits, cheese grits, and shrimp grits at a nice restaurant in Charleston. No matter how they’re fixed, I’ve never found a grit I liked.”

  “Okay, I’ll make sure you get a nice piece of cantaloupe.”

  Bea went to the kitchen with their order.

  “Sorry about the mix-up on your name,” Scott said. “I’ll try not to make the same mistake with the students.”

  “That’s okay. Mrs. Willston still calls me Laramie.”

  “I thought she was going to be the advisor for the mock trial team.”

  “Why?”

  Scott told her about his conversatio
n with Dr. Lassiter. Kay laughed, and the sound resurfaced another memory from the past.

  When he finished, Scott asked, “When did your family leave Catawba?”

  “We were only here for two years. I went to Catawba High through my junior year, then we moved to California.”

  “Where?”

  “La Jolla, near San Diego. My father still works for the local utility company.”

  “La Jolla? I went surfing there when I was in the army.”

  “You’re kidding? Which beach?”

  “I don’t remember the name. It was at the base of some cliffs. The water was cold and the waves big.”

  One of the regular waitresses brought two coffees in heavy, white mugs and set the steaming cups in front of them. Scott took a sip of black coffee. Kay dropped in a spoonful of sugar and a packet of creamer.

  “My husband and I met on the beach and enjoyed the waves when we lived in California. Since coming back east, we’ve visited the Outer Banks, but it’s no comparison to the Pacific.”

  “Where does your husband work?” Scott asked.

  “Jake is a swim coach and physiology teacher. His last job was at Davidson College.”

  Scott could imagine Kay’s husband—tall and blond like her with a swimmer’s broad shoulders.

  “How long did you stay in the army?” Kay asked. “When we were in high school, you talked about a career in the military.”

  “Three years,” Scott said, clenching his right fist. “I decided not to reenlist, and looking back, it was the right decision. Even though I got a late start to college and law school, I’m enjoying what I’m doing. One of the senior partners in the firm is a great trial lawyer, and I’ve already learned a lot from him.”

  “I never pictured you as a lawyer,” Kay said. “You weren’t the most talkative person in high school.”

  “We had long conversations on the phone,” Scott protested.

  “You held the receiver to your ear, but I think I did most of the talking.”

  Scott couldn’t remember enough details to disagree. Their food arrived, and he plowed into the scrambled eggs. Conversation ceased. No one is expected to talk while chewing scrambled eggs. Kay began slicing off pieces of cantaloupe with a spoon.

  “Good cantaloupe,” she said.

  “Bea buys from local farmers when she can,” Scott said between bites. “You and your husband should eat lunch here sometime. The vegetables are second to none.”

  Kay didn’t respond.

  “Where is Jake this morning?” Scott asked as he added a dash of salt to his hash browns. “He could have joined us. I’d like to meet him.”

  “He’s not in Catawba. He’s living with his girlfriend in Virginia Beach.”

  Scott stopped his fork in midair. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “The past eleven months have been tough—”

  “I wasn’t trying to pry,” Scott interrupted.

  “Of course you weren’t. But I’d rather get it out now if we’re going to be working together with the students.”

  She continued, “We were living in Virginia Beach after we moved east to work at the same school. Everything was fine until he met an attractive woman teacher who was going through a divorce. I think she went after Jake more than he chased her, but however it started, they ended up together. When I found out, he told me it was a big mistake and that he wanted to save our marriage. I agreed to give him a second chance, and we decided to get away for a fresh start. I had happy memories of Catawba, and when we checked on jobs in the area, Jake received an offer from the athletic department at Davidson. He’d never coached or taught at the collegiate level before, so it was a great opportunity for him. Then a position opened up for me here at the high school. It looked like we were going in the right direction.” She paused. “He stayed seven months.”

  Scott knew there were always two sides to a marital breakup, but it was hard for him to imagine that much of the blame for this one lay at Kay’s door.

  Kay sighed. “I’ve bounced back and forth between wishing things could work out to wanting it to be over. It’s been an emotional roller coaster.”

  “Do you have a lawyer?”

  “Yes. Nate Grange. Do you know him?”

  “Not really.”

  Scott had met Grange once or twice. The divorce lawyer was inexpensive and affordable for someone on a teacher’s salary but didn’t have the best reputation for keeping track of details or taking care of clients.

  “He never returns my phone calls until a couple of days later,” Kay added.

  Scott didn’t handle divorce cases, but he suddenly had an idea. “There is a female partner in our firm who specializes in domestic law,” he said. “She’s one of the best in the area. If I talk to her, she might help you at a reduced rate.”

  Kay responded to his gesture with an appreciative smile. “Thanks, but I don’t think there is much left to do on the legal side of things. Jake filed the papers right after he left, but because the North Carolina law makes him wait a full year before he can get a divorce, there hasn’t been a final hearing. We don’t have a lot of property, and except for the furniture in the apartment and my car, there isn’t anything I want.”

  “Okay,” Scott said. “But let me know if I can help or if you need to talk to someone. I can still hold a receiver to my ear.”

  Scott’s offer stopped Kay in her tracks. Not sure how to respond, she looked at him for a moment before continuing. “I don’t want to spend all of our time on my troubles. I have some questions about the mock trial program.”

  “Sure. I read the materials last night.”

  Thirty minutes later they parted company. Kay had a much clearer picture of the mock trial process. Scott’s insight into how he should relate to the team’s faculty advisor was murkier.

  Franklin Jesup Jr., one of the students Kay had recruited for the mock trial program, stumbled out of bed and shuffled downstairs to the kitchen for a late-morning snack. He rarely slept more than a few hours at a time. Nightmares populated by grotesque beings waged war in his mind between midnight and 6 A.M. When he was awake and on-line, he controlled the actions of the surreal cyberspace warriors to the most minute detail. At night, they had the upper hand and made sleep an enemy rather than a friend. Morning light lessened the onslaught.

  Frank’s father wasn’t at home. He had a standing golf date every third Saturday with two of the sales reps who worked for him. When he was in middle school, Frank had unsuccessfully begged his father to let him tag along and ride in the golf cart. Now, he had no interest in watching someone hit a white ball across the grass with a metal stick.

  Just turned eighteen, dark-haired Frank had his father’s strong features and his mother’s slightly dreamy brown eyes. His good looks, the unlimited supply of twenty-dollar bills in his wallet, and the silver sports car that he drove to school could have translated into popularity, but Frank didn’t let anyone, male or female, get too close.

  “Frank!” he heard his mother call out from upstairs.

  He didn’t respond.

  “Frank!” she called louder. “Are you in the kitchen?”

  “Yeah!” he responded. “I’m busy!”

  “Jodie’s leotard is on the table in the atrium. Bring it upstairs. We’re late for ballet practice.”

  The huge white cockatoo that his mother kept on an open-air perch in the atrium connected to the kitchen squawked when it saw Frank. The bird preened its feathers and moved back and forth along its perch. Frank picked up the leotard and held it up to the bird’s beak. It leaned forward and pulled at the elastic fabric until a small hole opened.

  Satisfied, Frank walked upstairs with a bowl of cereal in one hand and the leotard in the other. His mother came out of the huge walk-in closet in his sister’s bedroom with a frustrated look on her face. In her left hand was a pink ballet slipper. He could hear the sounds of his eight-year-old sister in the adjacent bathroom.

  “Have you seen Jodie’s other ballet
slipper?”

  “I think the bird ate it,” he said.

  “Here, give me that.” His mother snatched the leotard from his hand.

  “We’ll be back after lunch.”

  Returning to his bedroom, Frank turned on his computer. The machine was his only steady companion. He slipped on a pair of headphones connected to a powerful music system in the corner of the room. Frank’s taste went beyond the list of groups familiar to his classmates. Many of the CDs in his storage case came from an underground movement that pushed the message and the music beyond any recognizable category. Some of the screams on the tracks were real.

  The sounds in his ears energized him as did the battle with the faceless combatants who joined him in an invisible world where the ability to weave a web of skillfully orchestrated spells, incantations, and deceptions was considered as pure an art form as a meticulously choreographed demonstration of oriental martial arts. Currently, only Frank and four other members of the group were free. Everyone else was held in chains of darkness until the game was complete.

  6

  The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.

  ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL, ACT 4, SCENE 3

  Scott stopped by Dixon’s Body Shop late Saturday afternoon. On weekends he exercised on the arm bike, a device that allowed him to pump his arms rapidly in circles and generate enough physical activity to elevate his heart rate for aerobic benefit. Perry came out of his office and walked over to the machine as Scott finished a hard forty-five minutes.

  “You’re the Lance Armstrong of the arm bike,” Perry said.

  Still breathing hard, Scott gasped, “I don’t know about that, but I feel like I’ve climbed a mountain in the Alps.” He wiped his face with a towel. “Guess who I had breakfast with this morning at the Eagle?”

  Perry sat down on a bench beside him. “Give me a clue. Male or female?”

  “Female.”

  “That cuts it down considerably. There aren’t that many single females in Blanchard County. Does she live in Catawba?”