Just Mercy: A Novel

by Dorothy Van Soest

  “I’m here. You’re not alone.” She mouthed the words, but Rae didn’t see her because she was looking up at the ceiling, her mouth grimacing, eyes blinking rapidly. She looked scared. Oh, god, when someone is frightened, their veins contract.

  A microphone began its tortuous downward journey from the ceiling then, stopping within inches of Rae’s face. With a look of terror in her eyes, she opened her mouth and licked her lips but didn’t say anything. Bernadette’s eyes followed a tear making its way down Rae’s cheek, and she wondered what Rae would say now if she were asked if she wanted to live, whether she would still say “It don’t matter what I want” as she had before.

  Bernadette pressed her hand against the window. “Look at me,” she whispered. “Look at me.”

  Rae’s head made a jerky movement as if she was pulling it into a turtle shell. But then her chest started heaving up and down, and she turned her head to face the viewing window. Her eyes were wide, frozen with fear.

  “Jesus.” Bernadette tried to smile as she mouthed the word. She patted at her own throat and then pointed at the silver cross Rae was wearing. “Jesus is here.”

  Rae’s mouth twisted into a half smile, half grimace, and she turned back to the microphone.

  “Please.” The word was a sob, followed by a coughing spasm that made Rae pull against the restraints and lift her head from the pillow. When the coughing subsided, she bit her bottom lip and tried again.

  “Please.”

  During the silence that followed, Warden Fredrick touched Rae’s head with the tips of his fingers. His eyes were filled with tears as he leaned down and whispered something in her ear. When she shook her head and closed her eyes, he pointed up to the ceiling and the microphone ascended. Rae’s leg started to twitch, and the chaplain, with a heartrending look on his face, pressed his hand down on her knee.

  Bernadette braced herself for what was to come. The warden would give the signal, and the poison would flow out through the tubes from the hole in the wall and enter Rae’s body. Unlike Rae, who didn’t even know she’d murdered Veronica until the police told her what she’d done, did the invisible executioner behind the one-way window know that he was about to commit murder? Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do.

  When Rae’s arms started to shake, Bernadette had to turn away. The unmistakable smell of death in the air was so cold that it made the hair on her arms stand upright. She looked down at a crack in the floor and followed its jagged route to a whisper behind her. She couldn’t move her head, and her eyes froze. She tried to lift her arms, but it was as if they had been amputated. While a nightmarish paralysis consumed her muscles and bones, the sensitivity of her skin was heightened so that when Marty touched her hand ever so lightly, spasms took hold of her and grabbed at her jaws, her neck, contracted her stomach. Her legs started to give way.

  “Do you want to leave?” she heard Marty ask.

  If she could have spoken, she would have told him no, she had to stay for Rae, that there was nothing she could do but accept Rae’s decision to die—if, in fact that still was her decision—but even though it was Rae’s decision and not hers to make, that nonetheless it was wrong; it was horribly, horribly wrong.

  But she could say none of those things because right now all she could hear was Rae speaking to her, her voice saying I wish you was my ma, Mrs. Baker, I wish you was my ma. If Bernadette were able to say anything to Rae right now, it would be that she was trying to keep her promise, that she was trying to be here for her. She would tell her that she would look at her, that she wouldn’t turn away again—that no matter what, she wouldn’t turn away.

  Bernadette blinked, lifted her head, and kept her promise, wishing she could do more than just watch. But it was all she could do. At least it was something.

  Rae’s hands tightened then, and her body went rigid. She looked scared. She was in pain.

  “Please stop,” Bernadette said out loud.

  Marty pulled her close. The room was still. She could hear people breathing around her. Someone coughed, and she shuddered. Her muscles contracted, threatened to freeze again.

  Then the warden took off his glasses. The signal.

  Rae was looking at the viewing window now, her face fixed on Bernadette. Their eyes locked as Rae’s body writhed, almost convulsed, and went limp. Her eyes closed and she took in a breath, deep, drawing in all the air she could. Then her diaphragm deflated like a balloon with air being squished from it, and Bernadette released her own breath at the same time. She had read once that it was easier, more comfortable and more natural not to breathe than to breathe. Please let that be true. Rae’s body vibrated and then went still, and at that moment Bernadette felt as if her own heart had stopped.

  After a few minutes, Warden Fredrick tipped his head toward the door and a man in a white coat entered the death chamber. He checked with his stethoscope for Rae’s heartbeat. He checked her wrist for a pulse. He lifted her eyelids and shone a light in her eyes. Then he looked at his watch and said, “Time of death: 6:27 p.m.”

  “Miss Raelynn Blackwell was pronounced dead at 6:27 p.m.” The warden’s voice cracked as he repeated the declaration.

  Bernadette stood in the silent room, her eyes still fixed on Rae as the curtain closed across the window. She felt as if her head wasn’t attached to her shoulders. She balled her hands into fists.

  “You got her body,” she whispered, “but you never got her soul.”

  Marty gathered her up in his arms then, and she fell into him, sobbing.

  FORTY-THREE

  When the doctor told them the good news about the success of Marty’s prostate surgery, Bernadette felt true happiness, a pure joy that she had never thought she’d be able to feel again. And now, over dinner, all their individual responses merged into one huge wave of relief that they ecstatically surfed all night.

  “To Dad.” Fin lifted his coffee cup in a toast.

  “To long life,” Marty said, his cheeks flushed.

  “Hear, hear.” Annamaria.

  As Marty plopped scoops of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream into the dessert dishes Patty compared the amount in her dish with that of the others. Fin teased that he had the most and Marty joked that maybe they should get a scale and weigh them. They all laughed and then, to the sounds of slurping and spoons clinking against glass, everyone set about capturing their desserts before they melted. The ice cream’s frostiness stuck to Bernadette’s throat, like the envelope that was stuck to the inside of her apron pocket.

  Her anticipation about the envelope had swelled like a balloon all through dinner and now it expanded almost to the point of bursting. Enough time had passed. Tonight was the night. She pulled the envelope out of her pocket and raised her eyebrows at Marty. He smiled and nodded. Now was the time. The moment was right.

  “This came in the mail,” she said. When she opened the envelope, something fell onto the table with a tinkling sound.

  Fin’s hands flew up, covered his open mouth. “Rae was wearing that,” he said.

  “She never took it off,” Bernadette said.

  She handed the silver cross to Fin as the mood in the room changed from celebratory to somber. He cupped the cross in his hands like a prayer.

  Bernadette unfolded a piece of yellowed paper and held it up so everyone could see the childlike print on its wide elementary-school lines. “You can tell no one helped her write this,” she said as she laid the letter on the table in front of her and started to read it out loud.

  Dear Mrs. Baker, This is my last wish. For you to have my most preshus possesion for your kindness to me. If you can forgive me then I can forgive me to. Thank you. Miss Raelynn Blackwell.

  A tear slipped down Bernadette’s cheek just as it had all the other times she’d read the letter before tonight. “There was a note from the warden with it,” she said. “He said Rae wrote it just before they came for her. She asked him to put the cross in the envelope and mail it after she was gone.”

  S
he handed the letter to Fin, and he stared at it for a long time before passing it and the cross on to his dad. Marty laid the letter on the table and placed the cross on top of it, then covered them with his hands as if he was giving them a silent blessing.

  “So that’s it,” he said as he handed them to Annamaria. She passed the letter and the cross on without even a glance.

  “Wow.” Patty let the cross dangle from her fingertips as she stared at the letter.

  “Come with me,” Bernadette said after Patty gave the letter and silver cross back to her and she slipped them into her apron pocket. She motioned for everyone to follow as she stood up and headed for the stairs in the front hallway.

  When her foot landed on the creaky step, she turned and looked back at her family: Fin and Patty a step behind, holding hands and looking up at her with bewildered faces—Marty after them, looking solemn with his hands in his pockets—Annamaria, with grief-stretched eyes, several steps behind everyone, but at least she was coming. Bernadette shifted her weight and the step creaked again. How many nights had she waited for Veronica’s reappearance, how many hours had she re-experienced her death in the lack of the sound of her foot on that step? Four sets of concerned eyes stared up at her as she turned and resumed her climb, wishing she could wrap words around what she was feeling and what she had come to so clearly understand.

  At the top of the stairs, she stepped into Veronica’s room and walked over to the antique cedar chest in the corner. She ran her fingers over its lid and kissed its smooth polished surface, then slipped her hand down its back until her fingers found the edge of the masking tape that held the key in place. Then, with key in hand, she lowered herself to the floor. Marty sat next to her, their shoulders touching. She reached for his hand, brought it up to her lips, and kissed it. Fin sat on the other side of Bernadette in his usual lotus position, and Patty plopped onto her knees at one end of the chest, her eyes bright with anticipation. Annamaria stood and leaned with her back against the doorjamb—half in the room, half out—and watched the others out of the corner of her eye.

  The oversized key slipped with ease into the crest-shaped brass lock, but before she turned it, Bernadette closed her eyes and let her fingers linger for a few minutes. Marty lifted the lid and a pungent cedar smell burst forth from its ten-year captivity. With it came a yearning in Bernadette so powerful that she toppled forward and almost fell headfirst into the chest. A giant white A blazed up at her like a flashlight beaming into her eyes. She traced the letter on Veronica’s maroon and white letter sweater with her fingertips, then lifted the sweater from the chest, brought it up to her lips, and kissed it.

  “Remember how she screamed when she made cheerleader?” Fin said with a laugh.

  “She went wild,” Marty said.

  “Aunt Veronica was, like, so beautiful,” Patty said. “I always wanted to be like her.” She snatched the sweater from Bernadette’s hands and measured one of its sleeves against her arm.

  “Why don’t you try out, kiddo?” Fin said.

  “So, maybe I will.” Patty jumped to her feet and pulled the sweater over her head. It fit as if made for her. “What do you think, Mom?”

  Annamaria stared, wide-eyed, at her daughter from the doorway, her mouth twisted in a failed smile.

  “Come here, Annie.” Bernadette tipped her head toward the chest and patted the floor with her hand.

  Annamaria shook her head and looked down.

  Bernadette hesitated, considered asking her one more time to join them. But she’d learned long ago that it was best not to push Annamaria, best to let her come around on her own if she was going to. She turned back to the chest and started to pull out Veronica’s things one by one. Each item contained a tale, and they took their time telling different versions of the stories, weaving the sequence of events—each precious memory—into an exuberant and gratifying narrative of Veronica’s life. At some of the stories, they laughed out loud. At some, they cried.

  “Remember this, Annamaria, from our trip to Disneyland?” Fin held Veronica’s Mickey Mouse doll up, pointed it toward his sister at the door.

  “Remember how sick you got of her singing ‘It’s a small world after all’ over and over and over again?” Marty added.

  Annamaria turned her head away.

  “And this is where we went every summer.” Fin held up a picture of the five of them standing in front of a small log cabin.

  “You guys always talk about that lake,” Patty said, “but I never saw it.”

  “Remember how you always pushed me off the dock, Annamaria?” The way Fin said it sounded like a tease, not an indictment.

  “What I remember is how Veronica would keep track on her calendar of how much time was left before we would go,” Bernadette said.

  Marty chuckled. “Her breakfast announcement. It was always only ten more weeks, only six more weeks, eight more days, two more days.”

  “Can we go there sometime, Mom?” Patty asked.

  They all looked at Annamaria, but she didn’t look at them.

  “We should go back,” Bernadette said. “I’m serious. Let’s all go.”

  Marty squeezed her shoulder and said, “Why not? I have a clean bill of health now. And for you, my sweet, I would go anywhere.”

  “Maybe Uncle Fin could bring Chuck,” Patty said with a mischievous smile.

  Bernadette raised her eyebrow. She and Marty gave each other a knowing look. Fin broke out in a smile.

  “Actually,” he said, “I think I will.”

  “See? You know, Uncle Fin, I like Chuck, too.”

  “Then it’s settled.” Bernadette laughed and tickled Fin on the back of his neck, the tickle of a promise of all the good that was yet to come.

  At midnight, Patty looked into the chest and declared it empty, gesturing at its contents now scattered about on the floor. Bernadette couldn’t believe how alive she felt as she picked up each item in turn, smelled it, kissed it, placed it back in the cedar chest. It was like tucking Veronica in bed for the night. Carefully. Lovingly.

  Now only the letter sweater remained. But Patty wouldn’t give it up. When they coaxed her, she laughed. Teased. “Goooo maroons!” She jumped into a cheer, her legs splitting the air, the maroon and white pom-poms fluttering from her fingertips.

  Bernadette stared at her granddaughter. It was the way her head tilted. The brilliance of her smile. Her exuberant spirit. How could she not have noticed before? Veronica had been with them all this time. She glanced at Marty and Fin. They saw it, too. So did Annamaria. She was sitting on the floor now, still in the doorway, wide-eyed, looking stunned.

  “Come sit next to me, Annie,” Bernadette said.

  Annamaria shook her head, vehemently this time, and turned her back on them. With a pained expression, Fin started to get up. But when Bernadette shook her head and placed her hand on his arm, he nodded and sat back down. She took his hand and squeezed it, affirming what they both knew: that you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved, and if you insist on trying anyway, you need to ask who it is you are really trying to save—the other person or yourself. The clarity with which she now understood this was a gift from Rae, one that, because she had come to accept it, sustained and nourished her even as her heart bled for Annamaria.

  She turned to Patty then and reached into her apron pocket for the silver cross and envelope containing Rae’s letter. “Help me with these, sweetie,” she said.

  Patty, looking pleased to be asked, dropped the pom-poms back into the chest and pulled the sweater over her head. Then Bernadette folded the sweater carefully, neatly. She lifted it to her face and smelled it. Kissed it. Laid it on everything else in the chest. Then she placed the envelope on top of the letter sweater.

  “Let’s do this together.” She brought Rae’s cross up to her lips and kissed it before handing it to her granddaughter.

  Patty felt each link of the chain as if they were rosary beads. “Aunt Veronica,” she said as she placed the sil
ver cross on the envelope in the chest, “this is your sister.”

  “I wish the two of you could have lived,” Bernadette said as she gazed into the chest. “You both would have done so much good.”

  Fin leaned forward, reached into the chest so his fingertips could caress the cross. “You would have liked each other,” he whispered.

  His words touched the deepest part of Bernadette, the place where she knew wisdom resided. When it came right down to it, the struggle wasn’t about ideas or stances; it wasn’t even about doing the right thing. It was about the connection of one human being with another. Fin’s compassion had taught her that. She placed her hand on her son’s cheek and smiled. She no longer worried about him. As always, he was going to do what he was going to do. That was just fine with her.

  Marty glanced around to make sure no one objected and then closed the lid to the chest. Bernadette turned the key and left it in the lock.

  With a collective sigh, they all stood up and stretched their legs. Except for Annamaria, who was now curled into herself on the floor with her hands on the back of her head. Splotches of crimson covered her neck. Bernadette ran to the doorway, fell onto her knees, and held her daughter’s body, now wracked with violent sobs, against her breasts. She stroked her corkscrew curls and kissed the top of her head, tasting the years of grief that poured out in one long keening lament. It was a good sign. A very good sign.

  “I miss her so much, Mom.” Annamaria’s shaky voice was childlike, almost inaudible.

  “I know, sweetie, I know.”

  Patty dropped to her knees with her arms outstretched, grabbed her mom, and held on for dear life.

  “I’m so scared for you, Patty,” Annamaria sobbed.

  Bernadette stood up, leaving mother and daughter to weep in each other’s arms. She felt Marty’s arm around her shoulder. He was shaking. Then she felt Fin’s hand as he slipped it through her arm on the other side. He was shaking, too. Crying, the three of them huddled close together, providing with their bodies a tent, a shelter in which Annamaria’s grief could be laid bare, her naked pain exposed. She was going to be okay now. They were all going to be okay now.