Condemned

by Soosie E Nova

  “Yes?” A man barked through the intercom.

  “Sir, I need help. My baby is starving, we’re being hunted like animals by our own family. If you don’t help us, we’ll be dead by morning.”

  My father came to the gate, flanked by three machine gun-wielding men.

  “I apologise for the heavy artillery,” he told her, “it wouldn’t be the first time a woman has been sent her to lure us to our death. Our rivals fight dirty.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “I try my best not to. If someone goes after me, I go right back at them, not their women or children.”

  Once he was satisfied Maria was not a trojan horse for a rival cartel, the heavy gates swung open. She was bustled inside, safely ensconced in Ramirez’s sitting room, plied with sandwiches and cocoa. José sent one of his men to hunt down baby supplies. They came back weighed down with diapers, formula milk, bottles, baby clothes, blankets and toys. My father hadn’t missed a thing. Everything Maria needed to care for me was handed to her, free of charge.

  “I had a child,” Ramirez explained, “she was caught in crossfire, her mother too. Gunned down in broad daylight in the middle of a children’s playground. That’s when I got into drug running. I swore vengeance, vowed to clean up the cartels who use women and children as leverage. I needed money and status to do it.”

  Ramirez listened silently as Maria relived the last twenty-four hours, from the rumour she heard that Carlos Ortiz and her other son were going after Miguel and Theresa over a drug debt, to finding me in the laundry basket and running.

  “If you could find her a good home, Sir, that’s all I want,” Maria breathed, barely holding herself together as I snuffled in her arms, guzzling on a bottle of formula.

  “May I?” Joey asked, standing over Maria, holding out his arms. She lifted me towards him. He tucked me into his arms, smiling down at me, tears welling in his eyes.

  “I’ll care for her as if she was my own, if you’ll allow me?”

  “Thank you, Sir.”

  She stood to leave, kissing me goodbye, her heart aching. She’d lost both sons one to drugs and one to a violent cartel and now she faced losing her granddaughter. Whatever her ex decided to do to her after that, it would be a mercy.

  “I’d like you to stay too,” Joey said, glancing up from me, “She’ll need a nanny and I’ll need help in the home if it’s to be kept fit for a child to live in. You’ll be paid a fair wage, of course. We’ll tell people I adopted the child from a young, single mother and hired you to help care for her. I’d like to see the Ortiz’s dare to question me over it. You’ll both be safe here.”

  Maria sat at the table by my side, sobbing, her heavy breasts heaving with every gasped breath she fought for. Maria, my grandmother. Angel stood behind her, his meaty hand rested on her shoulder.

  “Whatever you believe Joey did to you, my sister is innocent. She fought for you her entire life.”

  “That’s why I was never allowed out anywhere? Because the Ortiz’s wanted to hurt me?”

  Angel nodded.

  “Joey desperately wanted to grant your wish to study in America, but all your documentation is faked. You were born Lucia Ortiz and your birthday is October, not August.”

  The day Leo handed himself in, my father scoured Mexico, searching for Miguel, eventually finding him in a pool of his own urine, drooling into a tumbler of Tequila in a hovel in Mexico City. He’d dragged his pathetic ass into rehab less than an hour later. His plan was to hand himself in, take Leo’s place. Miguel was supposed to clean up, support Maria and be there for me if I needed anything.

  “I don’t understand why Miguel would confess if my father didn’t ask him to.”

  “He betrayed you Danielle, your entire life. He was the one who told Carlos Ortiz were you where, he set up your kidnapping. He reckons they promised to return you once your father paid a ransom, which for the record, he tried to do. All he asked was a quick handover, they hand you to me, he hands the money to one of their crew. They didn’t even bring you to the handover. They were never gonna let you go. I guess Miguel just got sober enough for long enough to feel ashamed of what he’d done to you. He begged me to drive him to the station. I refused, he broke outta rehab, got himself high as a kite and handed himself to you. Don’t cry for him, if anyone deserves to be in Leo’s shoes, it’s Miguel Ortiz and I say that as his Uncle, a man who helped raise him. Sober that man is a violent piece of shit, and drugged, well, we know how low he sank. He gave up his own daughter.”

  I rested my head on the table, trying to process my new reality. Maria collapsed on top of me, her tears soaking through my polyester jacket.

  Chapter Twenty

  Leo

  I sprawled on my metal shelf, encased in my concrete. The guy in the next cell had just been sentenced. His screaming and threats towards the guards had rung out all night. It’s the same every time we get a new member to our death row crew. They either erupt with rage or break down.

  Danica’s letter lay on my pillow. I buried myself in its words. Since my appeal had been turned down, she’d taken the same approach as my mother, trying to keep her pain locked deep inside. It spewed onto the page in spite of the happy tone she tried to keep.

  I’d tried to ban her from visiting me. I wanted letting me go to be as easy on her as it could be, not the long, dragged out process it promised to be. Theo told me she turned up to every visitation, sitting in the car lot in her battered old station wagon, quizzing everyone I permitted to visit. She had more willpower than me. Three weeks after taking her off my visitor’s list, I added her again, bumping off Theo’s boyfriend. He understood. She spent the first visit letting me know in uncertain terms just what she thought of my refusal to see her.

  The metal slot on my cell door slid open, a guard peered in. They checked on us every hour. Soon I’d be back on deathwatch, guards watching my every move. I still wasn’t ready. How can you ever be ready to die for a crime you didn’t commit?

  “Roman, your lawyer is here.”

  I knelt at the cell door, my hands extended behind me, my mind racing. I’d dismissed my lawyer two weeks ago. There was no reason for her defend me, my appeal had been denied. I didn’t want to fight it. I wanted to end it. I wanted peace. Harsh metal cuffs were snapped around my wrists. My ankles shackled, chained to the heavy leather belt they locked around my waist. Two guards pushed me through the concrete hall towards the small room reserved for legal visits.

  My lawyer sat at the table, beaming at me.

  I was pushed to the seat opposite her, my chains locked to a bar across the table. She silently pushed a paper across the table.

  “It’s over, Leo,” she whispered, swallowing down the lump building in her throat.

  I gazed down at the paper, the words swam on the page, making no sense. All charges against me had been dismissed.

  “There’s still paperwork to be filed,” she explained, “but you should be home by the weekend.”

  “How?”

  “Someone confessed to the crime. They plead guilty to all charges yesterday.”

  The next few days passed in a blur. The rigid routine I’d kept myself sane with throughout my incarceration went to the wayside. My time in my cell was spent on my metal shelf, gazing up at the cracked concrete ceiling, imagining all the things I’d do with my freedom. I’d move in with Dani, go back to work in construction if I could. We’d have babies, lots and lots of babies. My mother would retire to help care for our children, while Dani and I work, as misogynistic as that sounds my mother would be in heaven. She’d longed for grandchildren. Maia had been quickly adopted as her own. She decorated a room in her home for her. I’d work with Laura’s charity.

  When the day finally came for my release, I was chained the same way as always, led to my freedom with wrists and ankles shackled. The absurdity amused me. What did they think I was going to do? Escape? Kill them?

  I was locked in a cell to change. The suit I’d worn to court
all those years ago hung from me, accentuating the weight loss my mother worried about. My belongings were handed back to me in a string sack. A picture of Stacey and Maia, another of Dani, that Carly had snapped on her cell phone in Mexico. I’d been allowed to bring them into prison with me, but it felt wrong, having them in such a cruel environment. My cell phone, wrist watch, the chain my father had given me for my eighteenth. These were all the possessions I had left in the world. The meagre things I’d left behind, my car, my furniture, the TV I bought for Maia had been sold to go towards my defence.

  A guard led me to the gate. Dani, Theo, my parents waited on the other side. The second the gate buzzed open, Dani flew to me, throwing herself into my arms. My mother followed. I embraced them both, holding them close to my heart, my chin rested on Dani’s head, I inhaled, savouring both of them as if for the first time.

  Theo prised me from their grip, enveloping me in his own arms. My father joined wrapping us both us in his arms. We laughed, we cried, we hugged.

  “What do you want to do on your first day of freedom?” Dani asked.

  I’d dreamt of this moment for so long. There was so much I wanted to do, so many people I’d missed. One thing called out to me, more important than anything else.

  “Stacey and Maia, I’d like to see where they’re buried. I never got to say goodbye.”

  My parents had helped Mr and Mrs Charles to organise and fund the funeral. My mother had relayed every detail to me. It sounded perfect. A white horse drawn carriage had carried their coffins to their final resting place, Maia’s coffin was pink decorated with silver glitter, Stacey’s simple and white. They were buried in the same plot, to be together forever.

  Theo drove us there. Dani and I sat in the back of his little blue car, her hand clutched in mine. My parents followed behind in their own car.

  Theo pulled up at a graveyard just outside town. The sun beamed down on us. It should have been raining. The grief I held inside for so long, that had been overshadowed by the fight to survive swamped me. Maia was gone. Never again would I see her smile, hear her laughter ring loud through my crappy apartment, struggle to braid her hair. Stacey would never manage to get clean, she’d never crouch at my feet, begging for another second chance, she’d never sob into my arms again. We’d never celebrate another day clean for her. It was over. They were gone and nothing and no-one could bring them back. I’d failed them.

  Dani took my hand as we strolled through the graveyard, squeezing tight, her love held me together. I’d failed Stacey and Maia, I refused to fail her. I’d give her the fairy tale ending she craved.

  Theo and my parents hung back. Fresh flowers drowned the simple grave. Stuffed animals and toys lined the grass around them. Cards from school mates with cheery drawings eased my pain. They hadn’t been forgotten. Quite the opposite, they were loved by strangers from around the nation.

  “Mrs Charles visits twice a week, bringing fresh flowers,” Dani smiled.

  I knelt at the grave, my knees sinking into the soft grass, my fingers running over the delicate rose petals scattered over the milky marble memorial stone that covered them.

  “Roses were Stacey’s favourite,” I sighed.

  I’d bring her them home, a rose for every day clean. She lamented the fact that she’d received a single rose from a lover. I promised her one day she would. That day never came. Maia loved daisies. We spent hours in the park making daisy chains. She’d bring them home for Stacey. Daisy chain necklaces, bracelets and headbands. There were egg cups stuffed full of daisies all around the apartment at summer time.

  I snatched daisies from the ground, knitting them together, the way Maia had. Dani sank to the ground beside me, handing me daisies.

  “Tell me about them,” she whispered, resting her head on my shoulder.

  I talked until my throat was hoarse. I laughed, I cried, I raged. It wasn’t fair, they didn’t deserve that. They lived through so much agony and trauma. They deserved all the happiness in the world. Not death, anything but death.

  “Maia sounds like a little firecracker,” Dani smiled, handing me another daisy.

  “She was. She would’ve loved you. Stacey too. You’d have liked Stacey. If there was a mistake she could make, she made it, fuck did she make it, but she never stopped trying.”

  “You were lucky to have each other.”

  “Hardly. They’re dead because of me.”

  “You think they’d have lived as long without you? I spent years fighting to survive in the world you rescued them from. Someone like Maia wouldn’t have lasted long. Her youth saved her. Once she started fighting back she was already dead. You saved her, gave her a bit of light in her life. Never regret that, Leo.”

  Mrs Charles had said the same thing. My mother too. Maybe with time, I’d believe it.

  We sat for another hour, the sun warming our skin, glittering off Stacey and Maia’s memorial stone. My daisy chain grew longer and longer. I used up all the daisies close by. Theo started hunting from them, bringing me handfuls every few minutes. My parents rested under a nearby oak tree, hand in hand, an indulgent smile played on my mother’s face. Her pain had finally been erased. She had her baby boy back. Mrs Charles would never get that. Stacey had been an only child. They were too old now to raise another family. I’d adopt them into mine, attempt to at least minimise their pain. Stacey and Maia would never be forgotten. They’d be missed daily for the rest of our lives but maybe new life could dilute our pain, bring us new hope and some happiness.

  I linked the chain together, looping it into a long, infinite chain. It hung over the headstone, resting above the picture of Stacey holding Maia in her arms. It was a picture I’d taken on the beach in Mexico. Golden Sand clung to Maia’s skin, her grin shone wide and genuine. That had been the happiest day of her life. Stacey had been clean, she went a whole month not touching a thing. She had an unusual glow of health about her. That’s why I’d taken them there, to celebrate Stacey’s recovery. She got high four days after we came home.

  “Let’s go,” I said, pulling myself and Dani from the ground. We walked back to Theo’s car in contemplative silence.

  ◆◆◆

  Strange cars filled the quiet cul de sac my parents live in. The media had once again descended like vultures on them. Mr Peterson stood on his lawn, his brow furrowed, his arms crossed over his thick, heavy chest, her face puce, ready for a fight. Mrs Peterson twitched at the blinds. I'd never decided whether she hid behind their perfectly polished laminated blinds when he kicked off because she was too ashamed of him to be seen outside or whether she was simply enjoying the show. She crept further behind the blinds when she realised I was watching her.

  He stormed across his lawn as my parents pulled in behind Theo and myself.

  “How long is this going to on for this time?” He snapped, waving his arms madly towards the media circus camped on the street.

  “Leo will be staying with me, Mr Peterson. I’m sure as soon as we head home after dinner, they’ll follow us,” Dani smiled through the car window.

  “You could always try turning your sprinklers up,” Theo grinned.

  Several press members inched away from Peterson’s drive.

  I clutched Dani’s hand, awaiting the chaos that would greet me in my parent's house. The army of cars flooding the street snatched away my dream of a quiet, peaceful homecoming.

  “It was meant to be a few close friends,” Theo frowned as I mentally counted the cars. “But you have so many people who still count themselves as close friends. It got a bit out of hand, sorry dude.”

  Carly opened the front door, yelling obscenities at the media who stormed her.

  “Get the fuck off the lawn,” she scowled, “this is private property.”

  A few squad cars mingled with the family sedans and SUVS. Uniformed officers pressed the media away from our car.

  The cacophony of noise, all of them yelling questions overwhelmed me. They crowded in, pressing against the cops who tried t
o push them, all desperate for a piece of me.

  Dani wedged herself between me and the reporters, shoving into them hard as we passed. Theo followed behind us, begging for calm, promising statements in time. They barked questions at me, all yelling at once.

  “Leo, Leo, how does it feel to be free?”

  “What are you gonna do next?”

  “Leo, are you going to sue?”

  “Would you like to thank your supporters?”

  Camera flashes erupted, blinding us.

  Carly yanked us inside, slamming the door behind us. She hadn’t changed a bit. Her long blonde hair flowed in waves over her shoulders, her bright blue eyes crinkled around the edges when she smiled, glittering with tears. She pulled me to her, wrapping me in a hug. I’d been hugged so much since this morning, it stifled me. It’s difficult, going from your only physical contact being guards throwing chains all around your body, shoving you to the ground for whatever spurious reason they could dream up, to being hugged every five minutes.

  A small, curly-haired, green-eyed toddler gripped her leg.

  “Dani-Mae, this is your Uncle Leo,” Carly beamed, scooping the child from the ground, thrusting her into my arms. The photos I’d been sent in prison hadn’t done the cherub justice. She was perfect. A mirror image of Carly. Her stinky fingers wound around my neck.

  I was home, with my family where I belonged, facing the overwhelming task of rebuilding my life. With their love and unerring support, I’d make it through. Dani gripped my hand. A sea of familiar faces closed in on us, old school friends, work colleagues, Laura and people I’d met through her. They’d all turned up to welcome me home. Schilling and his wife hovered at the back of the room, Mr and Mrs Charles by their side. I managed two hours at the party before having to excuse myself. The noise of happiness, children’s laughter, as sweet as it is, is overwhelming after years of hearing nothing but grown men struggle to adapt to life in solitary confinement and the deafening scream of metal doors closing in on you.