Never Let You Go

by Erin Healy

  “Yeah?”

  “Uh, Angelo?”

  “Lexi! Hi there.”

  “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

  “I’m in the middle of an open-heart surgery with only a licorice rope and a thumbtack. This had better be important.”

  All her nervousness about calling him vanished. She hoped he could hear her lighter heart and understand that he was responsible for it. And what then? If he knew the effect he was having on her, would he run off? The men she knew were always running off.

  “How’s Dad today?” she asked.

  “Did you know the man can put away three peanut-butter and mayonnaise sandwiches in one sitting? I watched him myself.”

  “I’ll bet you a fat-free dinner that he polished off each one with a glass of whole milk.”

  “So that’s something he used to do at home?”

  “Only when he was in a really good mood. When his time comes, I hope he dies while eating something like a cheese soufflé. He’d be happiest then.”

  “I don’t think he’s going any time soon. He has the metabolism and blood pressure of a teenage boy.”

  “And how’s his mind?”

  “He thinks my name is Angelina Jolie.”

  Lexi cracked up. “You’re pulling my leg.”

  “Just to hear you laugh.”

  “I probably shouldn’t be laughing at his expense.”

  “You of all people should know he’d be telling you these jokes himself if he didn’t have peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth.”

  Lexi leaned against the wall. “Molly would throw a fit if she knew what that man loves to eat.”

  “How’d she do yesterday?” Angelo asked.

  Thoughts of Molly sobered her up. “The ankle is nothing compared to the wounds I’ve inflicted. She hates me.”

  “That’s a strong word.”

  “Her word.”

  “I’m sure you said the same thing to your mom once or twice when you were a kid.” She thought she might have said it as an adult too, now that he mentioned it. “You didn’t mean it.”

  Lexi had to stop and think about that. He was right, of course. She didn’t really mean it, not in any eternal way. There were times, though, when it was the most succinct description she had for the way she felt.

  “Molly should hate Grant if she hates anyone, but she can’t even do that. Oh my. Did I just say that aloud?”

  “She’s still a kid,” he said. “Kids are great that way. Their emotions are so pure but impossible to manage. All this love she has for you is being threatened by her love for her dad. She doesn’t know what to do with that.”

  “You sound like a psychologist,” she accused. It was defensiveness. Was he saying she had threatened Molly? Had she? No. Grant had. “I mean, a really good psychologist.”

  “And I’m very affordable!”

  “Let me repay you, then. With a meal. I don’t cook—and I have a hunch Molly wouldn’t think it’s a great idea to have you over for dinner right now—but I’m working tonight. Come in? It’s on me.”

  Angelo hesitated long enough for Lexi to think she’d misinterpreted his friendliness, or he’d misunderstood her invitation.

  What was her invitation about, anyway?

  It was a simple thank you, for all the moral support.

  It was a desperate plea not to be left alone.

  It was a wish.

  She wondered why she hadn’t thought to ask her mom and Molly to come over to Red Rocks. For dessert if not for dinner. The thought of Molly’s sullen posture bent over a piece of limp chocolate silk pained her.

  She loved Molly so much. Love should be the easiest, strongest, clearest message in the universe to send between human beings. So why wasn’t it?

  “It’s last-minute,” Lexi said, trying to give Angelo the out she thought he needed. “I’ll understand if you—”

  “That’s okay. I’ll be there. Do you care what time?”

  “Any time.”

  “See you at any time then.”

  “Okay.” She hung up before the awkwardness took over, then dialed the other number on the slip of paper. She glanced at the clock. 12:07.

  “Hello and you be blessed today!”

  She knew that voice, heard it every day.

  “Mr. Tabor?”

  “The one and only, child. At least in Crag’s Nest. Who might this be?”

  “It’s Lexi. Lexi Solomon. Someone said you tried to call me?”

  “That I did.”

  “So what can I do for you?”

  “That is the question of the day, now isn’t it? You remember I was a defense attorney for fifty-two years, yes? I do believe I told you that story some day past.”

  “That’s right.” It wasn’t a story, per se, but she remembered.

  “I’ve been spending some of my free time these past few months looking into my history, wondering if I should take up that mantel again, Lexi. What do you say?”

  She would have said she was perplexed. Why had he called her at home with this personal question? Why couldn’t it have waited for the delivery of his four o’clock Reuben? “I didn’t realize you were looking for something to do, Mr. Tabor.”

  “No, no. I’ve got me plenty to do. And it happens that I found just the right thing down in Riverbend, something not straying too far from my old line of work. About six weeks back I decided to become what they call down here a prisoner’s advocate.” Lexi stiffened. “So here we are. It’s a bit of a new program, and I suppose we’ll figure out what’s needed as we go. But today I am giving you a personal call as a friend. See, child, I’m calling on behalf of one Norman Von Ruden.”

  Lexi groped for the nearest grimy chair and sat hard.

  “He’d like to request a meeting with you.”

  “I don’t have any reason to meet with that man.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know whether you do or not, but he did seem to think you’d say that. He asked me to tell you that he has some information you might want to have. Something about your husband, Grant, that you’d want to know. For Molly’s sake, he said.”

  “Mr. Tabor, if you’re calling as a friend . . . you know what that man did to our family. He has a parole hearing coming up. I can’t meet him.”

  “I won’t be saying what you can or can’t do, now.”

  Something about his tone chilled Lexi. It wasn’t unfriendly, but knowing. As if Norm had told him about their affair. Older people had that way about them at times, she thought. There was such a fine line between wisdom and knowledge.

  Lexi spoke cautiously. “You spent several hours with Grant Saturday night. Maybe I should meet with Grant instead.”

  “If you think that would help.”

  “Help what?”

  “Lexi, child, I’m not an attorney here. I’m not a counselor either, just an old man with two perfectly decent ears for hearing people talk about their woes. And what goes into those receptacles on the sides of my head almost never comes out my mouth. So you won’t hear me speaking out of turn. But it seems to me that you and Mr. Von Ruden might have some things you need to clear up before this hearing.”

  “Is he threatening me?”

  “Not in so many words, lovely Lexi. It’s what he’s not saying that has me worried on your behalf. Those silences are what set him apart. I thought you might be knowing him well enough to read between the lines, if you catch my meaning. Especially if he’s talking straight about your little girl.”

  Her little girl was awake when Lexi got home, though she pretended to be asleep. The cardboard box that encased Molly’s broken ankle made it impossible for her to turn onto her stomach. She shifted positions when Lexi tiptoed into their room. In the glow of the lava lamp nightlight she saw her daughter put her arm up over her eyes. Tears wet her cheeks.

  “How’s your ankle?” Lexi whispered. Molly didn’t answer, but her breathing wasn’t right for sleeping. “Is it hurting, sweetie?”

  She shook her head. Ali
ce would have given her something for the pain before she went to bed. The next doctor’s appointment was set for Thursday, which seemed a long way off.

  Lexi started to undress in the dark. She tossed her greasy clothes into the hamper by the door, then pulled on a T-shirt and cotton shorts before climbing into bed. She lay on her back looking at the dark ceiling.

  “How was school today?”

  No answer.

  “Did you get your report done?”

  Molly sniffed.

  “I know you’re still mad at me, honey. I wish I could explain everything in a way that would make sense to you.”

  “I’m not stupid, Mom.”

  “Of course you’re not. I didn’t mean that.”

  “What did you mean, then? I’m almost ten. I know a lot of stuff you don’t know.”

  These were the moments when words failed Lexi as a parent, when Molly was both wiser than Lexi would ever be and so innocent that she wanted to wrap her daughter in her arms and hold her forever. The most painful reality of all was that no words could ever reveal this truth to Molly.

  “You shouldn’t have written that note,” she accused. “It’s a good thing Dad didn’t see it.”

  Lexi wondered if he had. How had it gotten from that little blue library mailbox into her daughter’s hands? If Grant had received it, even if he’d given it to Alice, she wouldn’t have shown it to Molly. Not that note.

  Unless Molly had gone snooping in her grandmother’s things.

  Or . . .

  Ward.

  That didn’t explain how Ward had come by it, though.

  Molly turned her head away. Lexi reached out for the hand at her side. She was holding a stiff piece of paper, which she jerked out of Lexi’s reach.

  “What’s that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Molly, show me.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Show me. Please.”

  Her arm came back at Lexi in an arc, and a corner of the paper poked her mother in the cheek. Molly let it go. It was a photograph, bent in the center and damp from her fingers.

  Lexi, Molly, the black target.

  “Where did you find this?”

  “In my pajama drawer. Where you left it.”

  “I didn’t do this, Molly.”

  “Why didn’t you just cut the picture in half, if that’s the way you really feel?”

  “Molly, I love you. I did not do this.” Shaking, fear and anger working in tandem within her mind, Lexi got up and threw the picture in the trash.

  Lexi knelt by Molly’s side of the bed to look her daughter in the eyes, silently asking God to show her the way out. Angelo’s advice that she “consult love” came to mind, without any clarity about what it actually meant. She would have preferred three-step instructions.

  “I love you.” If Lexi said it enough, would it penetrate?

  “I know.” Her voice softened. “Dad loves me too.”

  “Yeah. I think he does.” In his own strange way.

  “But you wrote the note.”

  “It was wrong of me to write that note to your dad. I did it for all the right reasons, but it was a mistake.”

  “The biggest mistake ever.”

  If only she knew. “It was a whopper for sure. I’m sorry.”

  “I know, Mom.”

  “Are we going to be okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You won’t hold it against me? My dumb mistakes?”

  Molly shook her head, sniffled, and wiped her face. “So are you going to let me see him?”

  Lexi laid her hand over Molly’s heart. In children’s minds, everything was so simple. Everything was connected and straightforward. “I’ll think about it, okay? That’s all I can promise tonight. I need some time.” Molly stiffened and rolled over.

  There was nothing Lexi could do to hold her close.

  { chapter 23 }

  Lexi had never been in a jail before visiting Norman Von Ruden. Her notion of them included little cubicles, monitored telephones, glass partitions, orange plastic chairs, and security cameras in every corner of the room.

  Except for the security cameras, nothing else about Lexi’s visit to the Riverbend prison met her expectations. It was a minimum-security facility, which was not where convicted killers would normally be held, except the statutes for victims’ rights in the state required that public hearings for parole be held within a one-hundred mile radius of the victim’s or nearest survivor’s residence, or at the closest facility, which was why Norman had been transferred here. Mr. Tabor had explained all this to her during his Monday evening meal.

  Norman was not considered a flight risk, Mr. Tabor said. He was a onetime offender, and the bipolar disorder believed responsible for his crime—that being the murder of her sister—was being “successfully managed.” With his potential for parole so close, he was statistically unlikely to do anything that would jeopardize his chances. And then there was the fact that it would be a few weeks before he was back to his usual healthy self. The car accident had taken its toll.

  None of this mattered to Lexi, though she listened to the information patiently.

  When she arrived at the prison Tuesday afternoon, she surrendered all of her possessions at the check-in desk and was searched for weapons and contraband as if she were going through airport security. She found the process uncomfortable and unnecessary, as if facing Norm after all these years and everything that had transpired wouldn’t be shameful enough.

  Lexi followed a guard to the hospital ward. Norman had his own room, as she supposed most injured convicts did. It wouldn’t be good for prisoners to get into a scuffle in a place where they were supposed to be healing.

  It was like any other hospital room except for the lack of furnishings and the fact that the door locked from the outside. The smell was off, too. There was nothing antiseptic in the air. Nothing that smelled of blood or bandages or bacteria. The only scent was earthy and slightly damp, the way her air vents smelled when the furnace kicked in for the first time at the end of a warm summer.

  The guard brought in a cheap wood chair for Lexi, then left.

  She didn’t sit right away. Instead she stared at Norman, whose face was still purple and slightly puffy from the wreck. One of his eyes was swollen shut. He studied her with his other, squinting. The room was dim, curtains drawn over one small window and lights low.

  It was strange, she thought, that she didn’t feel the outburst now that had risen in her in the ICU. Emotions in her duked it out beneath the surface, anger throwing punches at grief, loneliness taunted by a faint rumbling she recognized as long-dead yearning. Something that once was love. Or an imposter of love.

  A silent prayer for clarity formed in Lexi’s mind. A plea to escape whatever danger she’d walked right into.

  “Where’s your attorney?” he asked.

  It was not the question she had thought he’d ask first, not after the screaming she’d done the last time she saw him. Lexi reached behind her for the chair and sat, wary of the war within her and the unknown threat that had summoned her here. It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought she should bring a lawyer, but that paying for one was out of the question.

  “Where’s yours?” she asked.

  “Not here’til the hearing. He would have advised me against this meeting if he knew of it, but I’m not worried about you.”

  “You’re not? I might beat you to death with this chair.”

  Norm chuckled.

  He said, “Do you really wish I was dead?” His voice was smooth, the voice she’d loved once, the voice unchanged though his body was older, bruised, tired. Lexi couldn’t sort out her multiple and conflicted responses to his question, so she didn’t answer.

  He said, “I’ll let your silence feed my hope.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant.”

  “Set me straight, then.”

  “Mr. Tabor said you need to tell me something.”

  “Lexi, love—”<
br />
  “Don’t.”

  He licked his lips. “I have so much to say.”

  “If you don’t know where to begin, maybe I should come back another time.”

  “No, please. Please stay. Lexi, you were a lifeline to me when my world was falling apart.”

  “Obviously I didn’t have any influence on your ability to keep it together.”

  “You and I were stronger than what happened. We could have made it. We could still.”

  “We didn’t, though, so I don’t see the point of revisiting that.”

  “The truth will set you free, they always say.” Lexi cringed at this, a quotation from the Bible coming out of Norman’s mouth. She was pretty sure his interpretation of it wasn’t exactly what Jesus had in mind. “I’m talking about putting the facts out on the table. Getting a fresh start, you and me.”

  “Nothing can repair what you did.”

  “Because you don’t want what we had anymore, or because you don’t believe we can reach out and take it back for ourselves?”

  Lexi hesitated before she said, “Both.”

  “You don’t know what really happened. What came out at the trial, that’s only half the story.”

  “My sister died. You killed her. What else do I need to know?”

  “It wasn’t my fault.”

  “A jury said it was.”

  Norman lifted his hand off the sheets. “All these years—I’ve needed someone to believe in me, Lexi. I’m not talking about what I deserve. I know I deserve this punishment. I’d lie in a bed of hot coals for twenty years if it would make things right for you.”

  Nothing would make anything right in this matter, and she didn’t have to say it. She could see in his eyes that he knew this already.

  “Let me touch you, Lexi. Let me hold your hand.”

  She stayed put.

  He sighed and lowered his arm. “I expected you to write me a dear John letter after the sentencing. Why didn’t you?”

  “No one knew about us. If I’d written, someone would have found out.”

  “We didn’t want that, did we?” An edge crept into his voice, cautioning her. She tried to direct the course of conversation carefully.

  “You had a wife and child.”

  “Only a wife. We weren’t approved for the adoption. It probably goes without saying. She left me anyway. An exposed affair wouldn’t have changed a thing.” His words exposed Lexi’s selfishness.