Why now? Why is Dad back now?
A coldness went through her body as she looked at her mother. At those green eyes that were warning Emilia to prepare herself, be strong.
Her mother took a deep breath. “There’s a reason he’s back.”
“Why . . . ? What is it?”
She saw the struggle on her mother’s face, the tightness in her body.
“Sit down,” she told Emilia.
Emilia did and her mother held both of Emilia’s hands in hers. It looked like they were praying.
“Emilia,” her mother said. Her name came out funny and her mother cleared her throat, tried again. “Emilia.”
This reminded her of something. Another time.
Ma held on tight to Emilia’s hands then, tighter with each attempt Emilia made to pull away because something was telling her to run. To fly. Instinctively, Emilia looked out the window to the sky. Something was wrong. And her mother was going to tell her. But all she could think was, No. Don’t. I don’t want to know, whatever it is.
She heard her crows even though she couldn’t see them; somewhere a thousand crows were cawing, warning her, screeching over her mother’s voice. She willed them to cry louder.
Emilia felt like she was floating. The booth seat disappeared from under her and she could feel her body wanting to go up.
Her mother squeezed down harder on her hands.
“Look at me,” she demanded. So Emilia looked at her mother’s lips, tuned into her voice, and listened as Ma told her about Carl Smith.
The House Was Dark
The house was dark as Tomás approached. He walked up the three stoop stairs and opened the door. In the time it took him to reach for the light switch and click it on, he wondered where Emilia was. Why was the door unlocked? His mind suddenly registered that the car parked in front of their house was one he’d never seen before, and he assumed it belonged to someone visiting a neighbor.
“Hello?” he called, not expecting an answer, but trying to calm his nerves with his own voice.
“Tomás.”
Tomás stood still, trying to understand what he was seeing. His father, in their living room. He’d been sitting in the dark. In their house.
“What are you doing here?” Tomás asked, still standing in the open doorway.
His father didn’t answer. “My god, look at you,” he said instead. “You’re a man.”
“What are you doing here?” Tomás repeated.
His father hesitated. “I just . . . I had to see all of you,” he said finally.
Tomás stared at his father. He was lying. Tomás knew why he was here. He just hadn’t thought he would come.
“We don’t need you,” Tomás whispered. His father looked down at his hands. They were shaking. He looked embarrassed and ashamed.
“Where are Ma and Emilia?”
“They left.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. They just . . . left.”
Tomás wondered if it was true. For a strange moment, he wondered if his father had done something to them. He didn’t know the man sitting in their living room anymore. He didn’t trust him.
Tomás looked around.
His father stood up, grabbed his jacket. “I’ll leave,” he told Tomás.
Tomás wanted to say something more to him. He wanted to make him answer questions, listen to his anger. He wanted to make him stay there and suffer discomfort and judgment. But Tomás could hardly stand to look at him.
When his father walked past him, out the front door, Tomás had the strangest urge to both push him out faster and hug him.
He watched him get in the car. And drive away.
His heart exploded in a million pieces.
But then he rushed through the house, looking for his mother and his sister. And when he didn’t find them, he sat wondering where they would have gone. If their father was back, then maybe Emilia knew. Maybe he and Ma had told her about Jeremy Lance’s release, about the real attacker.
Tomás’s heart beat faster as he thought back to the day he picked up the phone and listened in on a conversation between Ma and a man he eventually figured out was a detective who had worked Emilia’s case.
He noticed how Ma had started acting so strangely after that call in the middle of the night, and then again when the phone rang the next morning, how she raced to answer the phone in her room whenever it rang. So he started picking up the line in the kitchen, holding his hand over the mouthpiece as he listened. Some of the calls were from bill collectors, a few from telemarketers. But then one day he heard a man tell Ma that Jeremy Lance had been released. It took Tomás a moment to realize what had happened, to piece it all together. But he did, and he wouldn’t forget how strange his mother had sounded, how she choked back tears but spoke with such anger in her voice.
Tomás sat on the couch, trying to decide what to do, when the front door opened and Ma and Emilia walked in.
He took one look at Emilia’s face, stunned and shocked and drained, and knew their mother had told her. Oh god, she knew. He knew it was best, that she needed to know. But the look on her face now, it was exactly why he hadn’t told her himself. This look, what she was feeling now, was exactly what he’d wanted to protect her from, too.
The million pieces of his heart shattered into a million more.
Emilia immediately ran upstairs to her room and their mother stood at the bottom of the stairs, helpless, and watched her go. Ma’s face looked a thousand years old.
“Does she know the truth about Jeremy Lance?” Tomás asked.
Ma stared at him, stunned.
“I . . . I picked up the line and heard you on the phone,” he admitted. “When the detective called and told you about his release.”
Ma closed her eyes. She shook her head and fresh tears slid down her face. “So you know about Carl Smith, too?” she asked.
Tomás nodded. “I heard his name. And enough to figure it out.”
“Oh god,” Ma said, shaking her head. “What if Emilia had found out like that?” He could see his mother shaking.
“Go, check on her. Please,” Ma said, looking at him. “She won’t . . . say anything to me. Make her say something, please.”
* * *
*
Tomás stood outside Emilia’s bedroom and knocked on the door, gently calling her name. She wouldn’t answer. He tried to open it, but the door was locked.
“Emilia,” he said. “Let me in, please.”
He kept calling to her softly, waiting, and after what seemed like forever, he finally heard the gentle click of the door unlocking. He turned the knob slowly and carefully entered her room.
“Emilia?”
She was sitting on her bed, leaning against the wall with her legs drawn up, her arms around her knees, her head down. Tears filled his eyes. She looked so small, her hair hanging around her. Sitting just as she used to back then, when she didn’t want any of us to come near her.
The memory of Emilia in this exact pose when she was little came upon Tomás so fast, so suddenly, that he felt disoriented. She’d had so many ways to shut out the world back then. How could he have forgotten?
Tomás took a deep breath and went to his sister. He wouldn’t let her shut him out this time. Gently, he sat next to her. “God, Emilia. I’m so sorry,” he said.
She wouldn’t look up at him, but he heard her saying something over and over, and it took him a while to understand what she was saying. Finally, he made sense of the words.
“What have I done?”
“Emilia, you didn’t do anything. Nothing.”
“I ruined his life. All those years in jail.” Her voice was choked. “Because of me.”
“It’s not your fault,” he told her.
“People will find out. Think I’m horrible,” she sa
id through sobs. “They’ll think . . . I’m a horrible person. A liar. Worse.”
Tomás hadn’t thought of what others would think. All he’d thought of since he found out was that someone out there hadn’t paid for what he’d done to Emilia. That all this time, her attacker had still been out there.
“Don’t worry about other people. You don’t need to worry about other people. They have no idea what—”
“Exactly. They have no idea! All they’ll know is I named him. That Jeremy Lance was arrested because of me. Everyone will know. And . . . the real attacker . . .” His sister clutched her arms tighter around her knees, made herself even smaller as she cried. “He’s been out there this whole time. This whole time . . . What if . . . what if he’s been watching me?”
“Emilia . . .”
“All this time.” She cried harder. Her voice was muffled and her back shook with sobs, but she wouldn’t look at him. “How can I . . . go out there . . . in the world with everyone knowing what I did?”
“You didn’t do anything,” Tomás said, louder than he’d meant.
He saw her jump, but she just kept saying, “I did. I did.”
Tomás was almost afraid to touch her, but he put his hand gently on her arm and then pulled her close to him. “It’ll be okay,” he told her. “We’ll handle it. I’ll be with you.”
* * *
*
Tomás held his sister and didn’t let go. He held her like that, until her crying became less and less. Until she was exhausted and slowly fell asleep. Tomás covered her with a blanket. Then he lay next to her, on the floor, so she wouldn’t be alone or scared if she woke up in the middle of the night.
I won’t leave you alone, he thought as he listened to her breathing, an occasional soft sob bubbling up even in her sleep.
I won’t, Tomás thought as he finally let himself drift off to sleep. I won’t.
Neither of them heard when their mother came in, or how she cried when she saw them together that way. Neither of them knew she sat on the floor all night, too, watching over them, until they woke and saw her there the following morning.
PART THREE
Late December 1994
Several Miles from Emilia’s House
Several miles from Emilia’s house, Jeremy Lance rode his bike up and down the block. Katherine Lance watched him from the kitchen window.
He’s home, she thought. He’s actually home.
It had only been a couple of weeks since she’d watched her son exit Haven Bourne Correctional Center. She’d waited for him outside as he was escorted by two guards. It was cold, but the sun had managed to break through the gray sky for a little while that day and she watched as Jeremy blinked fast, just like he used to, and his eyes filled with tears. He’d always been so sensitive to sunlight.
The gate opened and the guards deposited him outside the doors that had kept him locked up, away from her, for so long.
Mom, he said, looking at her. He wiped his eyes, but the tears continued and he blinked and blinked.
She nodded and smiled. Jeremy, she said. Her voice was steady. Ready to go home now?
He looked back, confused by the two guards walking back inside now without him. I don’t think I’m allowed to leave, he told her.
She kept her voice soft and smiled again so he wouldn’t be scared. Remember, I told you it would all be okay? She stepped forward with a coat she’d just bought for him. Everything is okay now. You can leave. You don’t have to stay here anymore, she said.
Jeremy looked back again at the door. I do. I haven’t been good, he told her, looking down. She knew he hadn’t been good. She knew he’d been uncooperative. As if anyone who is innocent should be cooperative. They should scream and cry and pound the walls, she thought. Which was just what Jeremy had done.
But this was real life, where that kind of outrage, even if justified, only made a person more of a threat. Where innocent people were not only jailed, but also killed. She should be grateful he wasn’t put to death. She should be grateful she didn’t have to sit in one of those horrible seats other mothers sat in as they watched their child be killed. She kept her eyes on her son’s face and tried to remain calm.
They’re letting you go, Katherine explained.
Why would they let me go now?
They know they made a mistake. Everyone knows the truth now.
Everyone? he asked, squinting as he looked back at the doors of Haven Bourne. He shivered in his short-sleeved shirt, but she resisted putting the coat on him and waited until he was ready.
She nodded. They will soon.
Jeremy took a step toward the car, waited. Then took another.
You wouldn’t be tricking me, would you, Mom? Checking if I’ll be good?
Her heart broke with his distrust in her. I would never, ever trick you, Jeremy, she told him. But she understood why he might think so. After all, hadn’t she told Jeremy, who had been born afraid and distrusting of the world, that it was a beautiful place? Hadn’t she enlisted the help of so many teachers, specialists, therapists at New Heights, the home for mentally and developmentally delayed children, and insisted that there was nothing to be afraid of? Little by little, he had believed them.
Until that day the police came for him.
Jeremy looked back at the prison and took another cautious step, then another. And he kept stepping until he was farther and farther away from it. When no alarms rang, when no dogs were unleashed and no guns were pointed at him, he laughed.
No joke, Mom? I can really go?
No joke, she told him, his laughter filling her with bittersweet joy.
He looked around, still blinking, and shook his head. He whispered something to himself but she couldn’t hear him, and she wondered what he was saying.
What is he thinking? she thought. How is he feeling? She wanted to ask but not yet. Give him a little time, she reminded herself.
You ready? She held the coat open. Jeremy nodded and came forward; she scanned his arms and found fading bruises, blotches of yellow and green and blue, as she wrapped him in the coat.
He’s out, she thought. And here. And you’re holding him.
He felt so small and thin in her arms.
Jeremy shrank a little from her and she hurried to open the passenger door for him. Slowly, he got in the car.
The whole ride home, Katherine kept looking over at him. She couldn’t believe this was real. She smiled, hoping her anxiety didn’t show. You okay? she asked, noticing the way he held on to the door handle.
It just feels like . . . we’re going so fast, he said. She looked over at him, noticed the way he blinked, turned away from the window even though the sun was gone now and a cold rain had started to fall. She reduced her speed significantly, let cars pass her, and ignored the impatient look of drivers as they glanced into her window and hollered.
Drive on, sonsofbitches, she whispered.
Jeremy laughed. Drive on, sonsofbitches! he repeated.
They laughed together, and she reached over and held his hand.
Don’t worry, she said. Everything will be okay now.
He nodded, but she saw the way he was getting agitated as they continued driving.
Close your eyes, focus on your breathing until you feel better.
He nodded, closed his eyes, and did just that. She’d taught him the technique a long time ago, whenever he got worked up or scared. And he’d come so far before all of this. He’d made so much progress, especially that last year at New Heights. Every dime she’d ever made went to his tuition, to more therapy sessions. They’d said he could attend regular school, but she’d wanted him at New Heights, where he knew everyone and was safe. Where he eventually even started working, working, as a custodian. She’d seen so clearly in her mind’s eye a normal life for Jeremy. She never ever pictured what ended up happening.
Katherine tried not to read too much into how afraid and anxious Jeremy looked just from the car ride, how he struggled to keep his eyes closed. She tried not to think how far back he’d slipped into his reclusive ways. How each time she’d been allowed to visit him at Haven Bourne—only twice a month, one hour each visit—there was less and less of him there.
Stay with me, she had thought each time she saw him, but his eyes grew colder and further away. And even though she brought his old schoolbooks with the idea of reviewing lessons, she no longer tried to coax him back after those first few months. Because she knew he was doing whatever he needed to survive in that horrible place.
But we worked so hard, she thought each time she left, and now, still, as she drove. So damn hard! Just to have all this happen a month after his eighteenth birthday. Just in time to be tried as an adult after that bastard detective drilled him for hours, got Jeremy so damn agitated and confused, got a false confession from him.
Katherine Lance clutched the steering wheel and looked over again at her now twenty-six-year-old son. He smiled at her nervously before looking away quickly. And it was only for a moment, a millisecond, but she was sure she saw in that smile a glimmer of her son as he used to be, when he’d been doing so well.
God, she thought, her heart racing. Maybe we can start over. Maybe, maybe he’ll still be okay.
She wiped quickly at her tears.
Katherine Lance stared ahead again, her heart filling with possibilities and determination, as her mind tried not to think of the moment when the unfairness of all those days Jeremy spent imprisoned would hit him. When he tasted freedom again, Jeremy would feel the complete weight of the injustice done to him.
She knew he would.
And she felt a new fear blossom in her heart alongside her hope.
Will it finish breaking him? she wondered. Will I lose him then for good? Will he blame me because I couldn’t protect him?
The Fall of Innocence Page 12