Nine Years Gone

by Chris Culver

“Do you recognize me?” she asked.

  My breath caught in my throat before I could answer. I coughed to clear it. My heart thumped hard against my ribs. “We shouldn’t be meeting each other.”

  She nodded toward the chair opposite me. “Can I sit down?”

  “It would look out of place if you didn’t.”

  She smoothed the wrinkles in her skirt, drawing my eyes to her hips and very shapely legs, before sitting.

  “Do you recognize me?” she asked again.

  A bead of sweat trickled from between my shoulder blades and down my back despite the low temperature. “You look like someone I once loved very dearly, but she’s gone now.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked. I looked into her eyes, something I had done so often as a young man that they had stayed with me even in the nine years she’d been gone. For a brief moment, something dark stared back at me, something I had never seen before. And then it was gone, replaced by a dull melancholy that fed the guilt at the core of my soul.

  I grabbed the wrapper from my pastry and my half-empty coffee cup. “I’m very sorry, but I have to go.”

  “Please don’t.”

  Her hesitant, hopeful smile stopped me flat.

  “We shouldn’t be seen together,” I said. “Not here, at least.”

  “You’re probably right.” She looked around quickly and then returned her gaze to me. “I’m staying at the Ritz-Carlton under the name Holly Olson. Give me a call sometime tomorrow when you’re free for an hour or two. I’d like to have an actual conversation.”

  We stood up at the same time, and she walked around the table to give me a hug. Instinctively, I hugged her back.

  “I’ll see you soon, sweetheart,” she said, whispering into my ear. “We have a lot to catch up on.”

  “I guess we do,” I said.

  She kissed my cheek and then sauntered down the sidewalk toward her car. While I stood there trying to collect myself, she drove away, leaving me flummoxed. When I finally composed myself well enough to walk, I went to the street where she had parked. Exhaust hung in the air, but she was gone, leaving a familiar hollow in my gut.

  Last night, I walked with a clear conscience into the Potosi Correctional Facility before Dominique Girard’s execution. No one expressed remorse for his impending death, no one stood outside those prison walls to protest his execution, and no family members or friends even visited him as he enjoyed his baked salmon and scalloped potatoes, the last meal he would ever consume.

  I watched his last moments through a bulletproof window in a concrete bunker. He didn’t thrash or fight or squirm or writhe in pain, even when the guards strapped him to a table and a physician inserted the IV that would channel the lethal cocktail to his heart. Dominique died quietly and with as much dignity as the situation allowed. The police never found Tess’s body, not a single trace; despite that, the state killed him.

  Cocooned in wealth and power most people can’t imagine, I believe that Dominique thought himself to be above the law, or at least outside of its reach. My friends and I showed him otherwise. I used to think we did the right thing, but since watching him die, I’ve come to realize that his punishment wasn’t my call to make. Even if it saved Tess’s life, we shouldn’t have done what we did. There are some mistakes you can’t take back, though. You simply have to live with them and face the consequences.

  3

  I drove home and met Katherine in the kitchen. Neither my wife nor I had grown up with a mother who cooked, so we rarely did, either, which meant dinner typically consisted of whatever prepared meal Straubs, the local gourmet grocery store, had on offer. As I shut the back door, Katherine stepped away from the fridge carrying a plastic bag full of salad in one hand and a plastic container of dressing in the other. Water slicked her hair, and she wore a navy blue terrycloth robe over black silk pajamas.

  “I think it’s time for someone to take a bath,” said Katherine, raising her eyebrows at Ashley.

  “Can I use bubbles?” she asked.

  I looked at Katherine for confirmation and then I knelt in front of Ashley. “Only if you sing.”

  “Okay,” she said, already running toward the staircase. It was just new-parent jitters, but I asked her to sing when she took a bubble bath so I’d always know her head was still above water. Plus, it gave me the opportunity to sing silly songs with my niece. I liked that.

  I put my wallet and keys in the basket beside our back door, and Katherine put the food on the counter and darted towards me. She kissed me with an open mouth and smiled.

  “How was your meeting?”

  I should have told her the truth, that I had met her supposedly deceased sorority sister, a woman who, if she were spotted by the wrong person, could send me to prison for the rest of my life. Instead, I lied and justified it by saying I was protecting her. My wife deserved the truth, and one day, I knew I’d have to come clean. But not today, not when life is going so well.

  “Waste of time,” I said, looking down at the floor to avoid looking her in the eye. “All the person I met knew were rumors I’ve already heard.”

  She winked and then leaned close so that her breath was hot on my ear. She smelled like cinnamon.

  “I know something that might cheer you up. I’m not wearing any panties,” she whispered. She pulled back and winked at me but allowed me to keep my arms around her lower back. “I just thought you might like to know.”

  I wanted to react spontaneously and joyfully. I wanted to squeeze her tight and feel the weight of the day disappear. That wasn’t going to happen, though, not with my mind elsewhere. I forced myself to focus on the beautiful woman in front of me and the news she had shared with me, and I felt some of the tightness in my chest dissipate and my shoulders relax.

  “That’s better,” she said, smiling. I loved that smile.

  “Hey, Ashley,” I said, turning and shouting over my shoulder. “Aunt Katherine and I are awfully tired. I think when you’re done with that bath, it’ll be bedtime.”

  “No, it won’t,” shouted my niece, her voice distant and high. “I haven’t even had dinner.”

  “You’re terrible,” whispered Katherine into my ear before biting it playfully. When she leaned her head back, she winked at me. “I think we can wait a little while. You’re going to get laid tonight no matter what.”

  “Maybe you can wait.”

  Katherine kissed me gently on the lips before turning and sashaying her hips as she walked toward the fridge. “Ashley, don’t listen to your Uncle Steve. Take as much time in the bath as you want.” She looked over her shoulder at me. “And can you get some plates? Let’s use special ones for a special occasion.”

  I got the plates, and we had dinner together as a family. At half after eight, we put Ashley to bed and took turns reading her a chapter from Charlotte’s Web, her new favorite book, before hugging her goodnight. As I left the room, I turned on the fan beside her bed and met my wife in the spare bedroom, the one farthest from Ashley’s room.

  I kissed Katherine on her lips and then on the soft skin of her neck and the hollow of her throat. We undressed each other slowly and made love as soundlessly as we could, like a pair of high school kids hoping not to wake their parents. Huddling together in the quiet stillness afterwards, I found my thoughts straying back to Tess Girard. Katherine stretched beside me, her warm, bare skin pressed against my side.

  “You normally just fall asleep when we’re done,” she said, tracing her index finger along the contours of my shoulder. “You’re not looking for another round, are you?”

  I’m sure she winked, but I couldn’t see it in the dark. I slipped my arm around her back. “I’m thinking about some things. About life and how things worked out in ways I never expected.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  I looked up. The autumn leaves that still remained on the tree outside our window swayed in the breeze, causing patterns of shadow and moonlight to flicker across the taut skin of my wife’s bac
k. “I never pictured my life turning out like this, but I wouldn’t change a thing. I don’t want to lose you.”

  She kissed me lightly and playfully. “You’re sweet, but you don’t need to worry. You probably don’t remember this, but I drugged you a couple of days after our wedding and inserted a GPS beacon beneath the skin on your right scapula. You couldn’t escape me if you tried.”

  I squeezed her shoulder and smiled. “That’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me.”

  “I know,” she said, nodding. “I’ve been watching from a distance for years.”

  “I’m glad that was you.”

  Katherine walked her fingers across my arm and then laid her head against my chest. I pulled her tight against my side.

  “This is nice,” she said.

  “It is,” I said, enjoying the moment. Once my wife’s breath settled into an easy, slow rhythm, I swallowed back my nerves and asked the question I had wanted to ask all night. “Would you feel the same way about me if I did something wrong?”

  Katherine removed her hand from my chest, rolled onto her belly, and propped herself up with her elbows. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, shrugging and staring at a water stain on the ceiling. “What if I robbed a bank?”

  I looked over at her, and she smiled. “In this hypothetical scenario, did you remember to remove the dye packs so they wouldn’t explode with the rest of the money?”

  “Of course,” I said, scoffing. “This isn’t amateur hour.”

  She looked at me thoughtfully before nodding. “Then yes, I’d still love you.”

  “How about if I committed fraud?”

  I could barely see her features in the dim light, but she screwed up her face. “I guess that depends on who you defrauded. If you cheated a little old lady, that might reflect badly on you.”

  That was a good point, I thought. “How about Donald Trump?”

  She smiled. “In that case, we’d be just fine,” she said, laying her head on my upper chest.

  I took a breath. “How about if I killed somebody?”

  Her eyelashes flicked across the skin of my shoulder as she blinked. “Why are we having this conversation?”

  I looked down at her but could only see the top of her head. “I’m just trying to figure out the limits of our relationship and if you’d be a good partner in crime.”

  “I like to think I’m a good partner.”

  “You’re the best.”

  She reached an arm across my waist. “I’m spectacular in bed, too.”

  “I can’t deny that.”

  We stayed silent for a moment, but then Katherine shifted and looked up at me. “You’re thinking about Dominique Girard, aren’t you?”

  I didn’t have to lie, so I simply nodded. “Yes.”

  “You did nothing wrong. Dominique murdered his daughter. If you hadn’t testified against him, he might have hurt other people. You did what you had to so you could protect people you cared about. His death isn’t your fault. Does that answer your question?”

  I swallowed and nodded. “I think so,” I said, pushing back to sit upright against the headboard. Katherine stared up at me, a bemused smile on her face. I shrugged in an attempt to appear nonchalant. “I have one more question, I guess, and it’s not even really a question, but you mentioned something about a second round.”

  “Yeah,” said Katherine, shifting so she was on top of me. The moonlight filtered through her hair as she transferred her weight to my hips. “I did say something about a second round.”

  4

  We stayed in that room the entire night and only slipped out when the sun started to peek through the blinds. Ashley would be up shortly, so I put on a robe and used the first-floor restroom while Katherine stepped into the shower. True to form, my niece met me downstairs at precisely seven in the morning, still wearing the Disney Princess nightgown she had worn to bed the night before. I sent her back upstairs for socks to keep her feet warm, and when she came down again, she went straight to the kitchen, where she poured cereal into a bowl as large as her head and tried using one of our serving spoons to slurp down the milk. I used a sponge to wipe the milk she had spilled onto the counter before getting her an appropriately sized spoon and escorting Simon to the backyard.

  When I came back inside, I carried her bowl to the dining room and sat beside her at the table.

  “Can you get me a napkin?”

  “Sure thing, kiddo,” I said, reaching to the napkin dispenser on the center of the table. She wiped milk from her chin. “Did you sleep okay?”

  She seemed to think before answering. “Is your house haunted?”

  “No,” I said, a smile beginning to form on my lips. “Why?”

  “Because Mrs. Harmon read us a book about a haunted house on Halloween. If the house isn’t haunted, who was giggling last night?”

  Aunt Katherine.

  My smile disappeared, and I coughed to cover up my momentary pause and to give me time to think of a response. “It was pretty windy last night, so the trees must have rubbed against the roofline or your window. I’ll take a look today to see if anything needs to be trimmed.”

  She narrowed her gaze at me and rested her spoon on the side of her bowl. “Why would trees giggle?”

  “I don’t know, honey, but as soon as I find out, you’ll be the first person I tell.”

  She nodded, but I’m pretty sure she thought I was teasing her. “Okay.”

  I watched as she plowed sugary cereal into her mouth. As her temporary—hopefully permanent—guardian, I felt like I should have given her eggs or oatmeal, or at least something with better nutritional value than sugarcoated flakes of wheat. But she didn’t like healthy food—no one I’ve ever met really has—and we didn’t have time before school to go through the hassle of a full meal.

  “Uncle Steve,” said Ashley, using a napkin to wipe a drop of milk from her chin. “When can I see my mom again?”

  Katherine and I had talked about the question, but neither of us knew how to answer it. Almost four months ago, my sister, Rachel, dropped Ashley off at our house in the middle of the night and said she couldn’t handle her any more. Rachel isn’t a bad person, and I love her as much as anyone can love his sister but, between her drug use and untreated manic depression, she isn’t in any kind of shape to raise a daughter. Katherine and I had offered to adopt Ashley permanently and even sent Rachel the papers. All she had to do was sign them. For everyone’s sake, I hoped she’d make the right decision, whatever that was.

  I laid my spoon on the table. “I’m not sure, sweetheart. Besides, I kind of like you here. I think I might just keep you forever.”

  Ashley picked up her bowl and tilted it towards her lips to drink the remainder of the milk. Most of it made it into her mouth, but some trickled down her chin and onto her gown.

  “I miss Mom, but I like it here, too. I don’t want to go back home.”

  “You’ll see your mom again. Don’t worry about that. And, we’re going to keep you as long as we can. If you’re done with breakfast, why don’t you go upstairs and get ready for school?”

  She nodded before slipping off her chair and running upstairs. I took her empty bowl to the sink and went to the bathroom in our finished basement to get ready for the day. At a quarter to eight, I kissed Katherine goodbye and drove Ashley to school, the same private Catholic elementary school I had attended.

  I hugged her goodbye on the sidewalk in front of the school, felt her bony, frail frame, and wished I had given her a better breakfast. Before I could tell her that I loved her and that I’d be there to pick her up, she fell into a group of identically dressed little girls walking toward the building. Ashley giggled and talked and smiled. Even though I dropped her off every morning, seeing her walk away still tugged at my heartstrings. I hoped she was truly happy, that her signs of contentedness and merriment weren’t the product of my over-productive imagination; I think she was okay. Katherine and I were
doing our best.

  When the first bell rang and the rest of the students ran inside, I walked back to my car to drive home. Katherine had already left when I arrived, but Simon greeted me at the back door. Few things compare with the feeling of being wanted, and my dog gave me that feeling every time I came home. It was hard not to love that.

  I scratched behind his ears before finding his leash and taking him along on the one-mile trek to my writing studio in my father’s old law office. Leaves crinkled underfoot, and the acrid fall scent of decaying walnuts and wood smoke from last night’s fires wafted on the breeze. The sun warmed the back of my neck, but late November grasped the rest of my body, chilling me through my jacket.

  Growing up, I had two good friends with whom I spent most days. One of them, Isaac, spent his teenage years stealing cars and then his early twenties in prison. That finally straightened him out, and now he owns one of the largest custom car shops in St. Louis. My other friend, Vince, spent ten years in blue with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department before becoming a private detective at one of the largest criminal defense law firms in the region. I could use his help and advice now, so I called him up.

  “What’s up, buddy?” Vince asked, his voice gravelly but soft. He cleared his throat.

  “Did I wake you up?”

  “If I said yes, would that prevent you from calling me before ten again?”

  “Probably not,” I said, leading Simon to the right at the end of Crofton Avenue and onto Lockwood. The houses on the right side of the street were four, maybe even five thousand square feet and had been built for some of nineteenth and early twentieth century St. Louis’s best attorneys, doctors, and businessmen. The homes on the left, while still charming, were smaller and seemed somehow diminished by their peers. “Would it make you feel better if I felt guilty?”

  “Marginally,” he said. “What’s going on?”

  I looked around me before speaking to ensure that no one was within listening range. A man picked up after his dog on the grass boulevard in the center of the street to my left, but he couldn’t hear me.