Just Mercy: A Novel

by Dorothy Van Soest

  “I’m not excusing you,” she said, “but I understand.”

  Raelynn Blackwell’s face was red and swollen. “I am responsible for your daughter’s death,” she said with a fierce shake of her head. “My not remembering don’t make it no different.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Bernadette said. “I’m not saying it does.”

  ***

  Bernadette rolled onto her stomach in the dark bedroom now and buried her face in the pillow. After Regis had helped her to see that knowing the truth about Veronica’s death would be better than not knowing and she’d found the courage to ask, in the end there had been no answer. Or was that all just a lie, too? Had it been another way for Raelynn Blackwell to get sympathy or to avoid taking responsibility?

  Bernadette decided then that the evidence was clear. As careful as she might have been to not allow sympathy to compel her to step into Raelynn Blackwell’s shoes, that’s exactly what she had done. She’d done herself in.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and moaned into the pillow, “no, no, no, no, no,” realizing as she did so that she sounded very much the way Raelynn Blackwell had when she moaned, “I’m sorry…I’m sorry…I didn’t mean to make things worse. I’m sorry…so sorry…so sorry.”

  She turned onto her back again and wiped the wetness from her cheeks with the backs of her hands. She sat up and dragged her legs over the side of the bed. She was cold; goose bumps covered her nakedness, and she folded her arms over her breasts. She must have been too tired to put on a nightgown after taking a bath last night. Or was it this morning? Everything had been such a blur. She reached for her robe and wrapped its softness around her. Then she walked over to the dresser and retrieved the plastic-encased picture of Veronica from her purse.

  “I tried, sweetheart,” she whispered as she brushed her lips over the picture. “I tried.”

  Sometimes, when she talked to Veronica like this, she believed she actually heard her daughter talking back to her. But now she wondered if it was only her imagination. Had Veronica really told her Raelynn Blackwell was being truthful that day or had Bernadette simply wanted to believe it so bad that she had imagined hearing Veronica’s voice? And if the latter was true, did that mean she had betrayed her daughter by going on to tell Raelynn Blackwell so much about her?

  ***

  It was near the end of their time together that afternoon, and Bernadette held Veronica’s picture up to the window for Raelynn Blackwell to see one more time.

  “I want you to know who you murdered,” she said. “I mean, really know her. Look at how pretty she was. Look at that brilliant smile. You snuffed that out and don’t even remember doing it.”

  Bernadette’s pulse was racing as she continued.

  “Do you know what she was doing the night you killed her? She was on her way home from helping a friend with her homework. She started out tutoring Natalie as part of a service project, and the two of them became good friends. She took the bus to the east side of Austin all the time to see Natalie. She was getting ready to go to her first prom. She would have been the prettiest girl there. That’s the hardest thing to think about: everything she missed, everything she never got to experience.”

  She stopped to catch her breath and saw that Raelynn Blackwell was trembling so hard the table shook and that her eyes were so puffy they were almost closed. But the memories rushing through Bernadette made it impossible for her to stop even if she’d wanted to.

  “She always gave people the benefit of the doubt. Like in middle school when this one girl called her a nasty name. Veronica said the girl must be unhappy or she wouldn’t try to make others unhappy. She wondered if the girl’s father beat her or if her mother yelled at her too much, or if maybe she felt ugly. Annamaria told her she should be nasty right back, but Veronica said that would make the girl even more miserable. My baby girl didn’t have it in her to be mean to anyone. She had the biggest heart of anyone I know. Just think about all the good she could have done if she had lived.”

  Bernadette blew her breath out through her mouth. Raelynn Blackwell was squeezing the chain that held the silver cross around her neck so tightly that it made her veins pop out. Her suffering evoked pity in Bernadette, the way a friend’s pain does. She removed the picture of Veronica from the Plexiglas and laid it on the table.

  “It wasn’t personal,” she whispered. “You didn’t mean to kill her.”

  “No. But I did.” Raelynn Blackwell’s voice shook, but her resolve was unmistakable. She wiped her face with the upper part of each arm in turn.

  “Veronica never did any drugs or alcohol,” Bernadette said with a sigh.

  “I wish I never done any.”

  “When did you start?”

  “I’m guessing I were about five.”

  “Good lord.” Bernadette shook her head.

  “It were my job to clean up after Ma’s parties. There was always butts in the ashtrays and booze left in the glasses. Pills, too, sometimes.”

  “Your mother didn’t know?”

  Raelynn shrugged. “She gave me junk herself.” Then she frowned and looked into Bernadette’s eyes. “Don’t get me wrong, Mrs. Baker. None of that don’t excuse me for what I did.”

  “I’m not saying Veronica was perfect. But she knew there were consequences for her behavior. So did Annamaria and Fin. I can’t count the number of times I had to ground one of them or take away their privileges.”

  “That’s what good mothers are s’posed to do,” Raelynn said, “I wish…” She brought her hands up and covered her mouth as if holding back forbidden words.

  Bernadette bit her bottom lip. Regis smiled at her. He looked satisfied. She heard the ticking of the clock on the wall and looked up at it, wondering where the time had gone.

  “I know I should forgive you,” she said.

  “I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

  “It’s not about what you deserve or don’t deserve. It’s about what I need.”

  ***

  Still sitting on the edge of the bed, Bernadette rolled her shoulders and then stretched her arms above her head. When she had left Gatesville that day, she was convinced that things would never be the same again, that she had forgiven Raelynn Blackwell. But had she really? Right now, she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure about anything.

  “Is it even possible,” she said aloud, “when someone does something so brutal, so cruel? Is it even possible?”

  “Who are you talking to?” It was Marty, coming into the room with a tray of food.

  “Just thinking out loud.”

  He put the tray down on the bed and rested his hand on her forehead as if checking for a fever.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  “Breakfast time for you. Dinnertime for the rest of the world.”

  The smell of scrambled eggs and two pieces of buttered whole-wheat toast made her realize how famished she was. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten anything.

  “Freshly brewed,” Marty said as he handed her a pottery mug shaped like a troll, her favorite, the one he bought her when they were first married. She cupped it in both hands, ran her fingers over the rough texture of the troll’s silly face on one side and its behind on the other. She ran her tongue over its rim before taking a sip of coffee.

  “You had me worried, Bernie.”

  “I was terrible to Fin,” she said.

  “He understands. Eat. Before it gets cold.”

  The eggs, tasting of goat cheese and fresh ground pepper, melted in her mouth. Smile lines crept across Marty’s face, and his shoulders relaxed a bit as he watched her take a bite of toast and a gulp of coffee.

  “I keep going over it all in my head. Was it a sham, Marty? The way Raelynn Blackwell cried? Was all that an act? Wouldn’t Regis have known if it was?”

  “Do you still think she knew what the governor was going to do?”

  “What else would make her smile in the face of death like that? You think I’m crazy, don’t you
?”

  “Let’s just say it isn’t like you.” Marty smiled as he picked up the newspaper from the tray. “Here,” he said, handing it to her. “It’s on the front page.”

  She read the article in silence, stopping every once in a while to shake her head. When she was finished, she laid the newspaper down on her lap.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why didn’t Raelynn Blackwell tell me her lawyer sent a letter to the governor? Why would she keep that from me?”

  TWELVE

  It had only been a few days since the governor postponed the execution. Marty had warned Bernadette that it might be too soon, that she might not be ready just yet, but she couldn’t wait. She had to find out. From the passenger seat, she stared out the window and imagined herself dancing among the wild mustard and bluebonnets; soaring with a flock of indigenous scissortails over the scrub oaks, mesquites, and cottonwoods; and possessing both the toughness of the ubiquitous cactus and the composure of the grazing cows that peppered the rolling Texas hills. But as soon as the low red-brick buildings and guard towers of the Gatesville prison compound came into view, the sinister six-stranded barbed wire on its double chain-link fences overwhelmed both nature’s beauty and her imaginary courage. They were here. Ready or not, she had to do this.

  “Don’t worry,” Regis said, reading her mind as usual. “No way I was going to let you do this alone.”

  She smiled at him. She thought she had been prepared to come without him, but now that they were here, she couldn’t imagine confronting Raelynn Blackwell again without Regis by her side. The rules didn’t allow it anyway; that had been made very clear to her.

  “Did anyone from the trauma team call you?” he asked. “Amy Whitehall, maybe?”

  “I don’t know why she would.”

  “They want to make sure witnesses don’t experience any problems after an execution—any physical or mental reactions.”

  “But there wasn’t an execution, was there?” Her face burned with guilt and not a little embarrassment for snapping at him again. Even though she’d apologized several times, she still felt bad about how she’d treated him the night everything fell apart.

  “You’ve had a lot to absorb in such a short period of time.” He smiled his forgiveness. Then he paused and, keeping his eyes on the road, asked, “You sure about this meeting?”

  “I need to know why she didn’t tell me about that letter.”

  “What if she didn’t know about it?”

  “Impossible.”

  “What would it mean to you,” he asked, “whether she did or didn’t know?”

  She repositioned herself on the seat. Her cotton dress was twisted into a knot under her, the edge of it stuck in a tear in the plastic seat cover. She yanked it loose. The first time Regis had asked her that question, she’d responded without hesitation, said that she was prepared to deal with Raelynn Blackwell’s answer, whatever it was. Such bravado. The truth that she’d kept not only from him but also from herself was that she wasn’t sure. Wasn’t sure about anything except her need to know. So what if Raelynn Blackwell said she didn’t know about the letter? Would Bernadette believe her? She didn’t know that, either. Her stomach did a flip-flop—a warning that she might not be ready for this confrontation after all, that maybe she should have taken Marty’s advice and waited a few more days.

  At the red brick Texas Department of Criminal Justice sign, Regis turned left onto the asphalt road leading into the compound. In the adjacent field, a line of white-clad women marched in single file under the watchful guard of several gray-uniformed men on horseback. The threatening way the guards fingered their rifles made beads of sweat break through the surface of Bernadette’s skin—on first her forehead, then her arms, and then the small of her back.

  A burning sensation worked its way up her nostrils and down her throat when she saw that the temperature gauge duct-taped to the cracked dashboard of Regis’s ancient Toyota registered over one hundred brutal degrees. She grabbed her trusty battery-powered spray water bottle and misted her face, then held the bottle up to Regis. He shook his head. She misted her face again.

  “There’s no shade out there,” she said. “Even farmers provide shelter for their animals on days like this.”

  Even as the words were coming out of her mouth, Bernadette recognized the old dilemma for what it was. She sighed. It was a familiar conflict, her struggle between believing there should be consequences for bad behavior and the difficulty of determining what the appropriate punishment should be. She thought about all the times she had reduced her kids’ timeouts or the number of days they were grounded. Following her heart is what Marty called it. Annamaria called it leading with her chin. And now it seemed she was in the same weightless position again, supporting Raelynn Blackwell’s execution while simultaneously troubled by it.

  “We can come back next week,” Regis said.

  “No. I have my questions ready.”

  “But are you ready for the answers?”

  THIRTEEN

  The visiting room was hot, the air stuffy. Bernadette pressed her hand down on the family photo album that she’d brought along and willed her racing heart into submission. Raelynn Blackwell was on the other side of the Plexiglas divider, her sagging shoulders swallowed up in the starkness of her white prison uniform. Her hands, fingernails chewed down to the quick, rested on the table, almost touching the wire mesh at the bottom of the window. With each hammer-like tick of the big round clock on the wall, she seemed to wince, which made her look worried. Or maybe she was scared.

  Regis handed Bernadette a glass of ice water. When she saw a drop of sweat making its way down the side of Raelynn Blackwell’s elfin nose, she pushed the glass toward the window, only to be stopped by the wire mesh. Why did she do that? What was she thinking anyway? No one was allowed to pass anything to prisoners on the other side. There were no exceptions. That was the deal. That’s what Raelynn Blackwell wanted. Bernadette pushed the glass off to the side.

  “Both of you know,” Regis said, “but just to remind you, we’ll follow the same process and rules as before. Do either of you have any questions?”

  Neither of them did.

  “Whenever you’re ready, then.” He nodded at Bernadette.

  She wiped her sweaty hands on her skirt. She closed her eyes and took three deep breaths, letting each one out as slowly as she could. And when she opened her eyes, the scared rabbit eyes of Raelynn Blackwell told her everything she needed to know. The woman knew the jig was up.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Bernadette asked.

  “What?”

  “About the letter. You know, the letter?”

  “I didn’t know about it, Mrs. Baker.”

  “You smiled.”

  “I didn’t know. Honest.”

  “You smiled.”

  “I was glad you was there. I wanted you to know it was okay.”

  “Your attorney told you he wrote that letter.”

  “No. Mr. Pearl never did tell me.”

  “My daughter is a lawyer, and she says lawyers tell their clients everything.”

  “But Mr. Pearl didn’t. Swear to God. He didn’t want me to get my hopes up and then be all disappointed.”

  Bernadette’s face flushed. So there it was. Raelynn Blackwell wanted to live. And if she wanted to live, how could she have smiled in the face of death the way she had? It wasn’t possible to want to live and still be at peace with dying.

  “You said you deserved to die,” Bernadette said.

  “I do deserve to die.”

  “But you don’t want to, do you?”

  Raelynn Blackwell’s eyes shifted to the side, then flashed toward Regis. In spite of the room’s harsh artificial light and Raelynn Blackwell’s obvious panic, Bernadette could see there was a natural beauty to the woman, and with her hair down instead of pulled back in a ponytail, her face looked softer than before. There was something about her—the way her feathery blonde curls grazed her pink
cheeks; the innocent way she tilted her head and arched her eyebrow.

  “It would of messed me up to know. Mr. Pearl was right about that.”

  Bernadette squirmed in her chair, and its metal legs squealed in protest. She fidgeted with a piece of invisible dust on the photo album. Then she clenched her fists; opened her hands, palms up, on the table; clenched her fists again. Could it be that Raelynn Blackwell was telling the truth about the letter?

  “If you did know, would you have told me?”

  “Jesus tells us always to say the truth.” Raelynn Blackwell fingered the silver cross hanging from her neck. There were tears in her eyes. “Are you mad at me?”

  “I would be mad if you knew and didn’t tell me.”

  “Nobody told me nothing. Honest. I know I don’t deserve for you to believe me.”

  The sound of her voice, so childlike and innocent, broke straight through to Bernadette’s heart. She reached for the glass of water, took a sip. Sat back in her chair with a sigh.

  “Fin wondered what it must have been like,” she said after a few minutes of silence.

  “What?”

  “To come so close to dying.”

  “Jesus was holding my hand.”

  Bernadette frowned, sat up straight. “Does Jesus want you to live?”

  “I can’t pretend to know his ways.”

  At that, Bernadette’s body went rigid. “Does Jesus think you deserve to die for what you did?” she asked.

  “I do deserve to die for what I done.”