Blood Orange

by Drusilla Campbell

  She cut her eyes to the right, gauging Dana’s reaction. Her friend’s strong little chin was set hard.

  “I have so much rage in me, Dana. It’s why I see the therapist. It’s been there a long time, it goes way back. Micah had his depression. I was the angry one.”

  “But a lot of what you said was true,” said Dana. “I am a liar, and I did cheat on David. In a way, what happened to your brother, that was my fault.”

  “You know, Dana, if it hadn’t been you it would have been something else. He was never stable. And even so there’s no excuse for the things I said. I’m a priest.” Anger was not a sin; it was part of the human condition. Except when it took pleasure in another’s pain. Then it was a very dark thing. “You’re the best friend I ever had.”’

  “Me too.”

  They watched the empty street.

  Lexy said, “I want you to know what’s happening with me. I’m going to get Micah cremated, and then in a couple of days I’ll take him up to Wyoming and tell my mom what happened. I think I’ll spread his ashes over the Tetons. He loved those mountains.” She paused until she could speak without tears. “But first, tomorrow, I’m going to ask the bishop to replace me at St. Tom’s.”

  “No.”

  “I’ve got to get away, Dana, and we both know that if I’m gone for six months or a year Father Bartholomew can’t handle the church. The bishop’ll appoint an interim who can manage the job.”

  “I don’t want you to go, Lexy. The last couple of days I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what happened between us, and apart from everything else, I just hated to think we weren’t friends anymore. You’re like my sister.”

  “Yeah, me too.”

  “And I want you to know … about the kidnapping … I forgive Micah for that.”

  “How can you? It was a terrible thing. Nothing you did can excuse that.”

  “I don’t excuse it. You’re right, it was a terrible thing. But I do forgive him.”

  She and Dana moving along parallel but independent lines had reached the same destination. Lexy smiled, thinking of the people who said there was no God.

  “I played my part, Lexy. I did wrong, and he did wrong in return. But he brought her back, and he never harmed her. I saw her laugh today, at Imogene’s. Laugh and twirl and play games. She’s going to be all right. But what I did…. You said I broke his heart. That can’t ever be made right.” Dana reached for Lexy’s hand. “Don’t leave St. Tom’s.”

  Tears filled Lexy’s eyes. “You don’t know how much it means to me to hear you say that. But, there are things you don’t know-shit, I barely know them myself. I have a lot of work to do before I’m fit to be a priest again.”

  “No, no, you’re a wonderful-“

  “In seminary there was stuff I never talked about, feelings I had about my family and myself and Micah. I thought I didn’t have to, that the collar and being sober would make the bad stuff go away…. Well, I was wrong, and now I need to get myself straight with God.”

  “Will you stay in Wyoming?”

  Lexy laughed. “I might need to do penance, but that’s asking a bit too much. I’m going back to the retreat house in Warrenton if they’ll have me.”

  “For how long?”

  “As long as it takes, I guess.” Lexy yawned. “Then I hope the bishop’ll let me go back to St. Tom’s. He might not. You know he can be a real hard-nose sometimes.”

  “I’m going to miss you.”

  “You have Bailey and David.”

  “Maybe.” Dana’s head fell back against the headrest. “I don’t know any more about anything than you do, Lexy. And I’m so tired I can’t even begin to think about it. When I do it’s like I’m on the bottom of one of those football pile-ons. There are four threehundred-pound linemen on top of me.”

  “If there’s anything I-“

  “We’ve talked. It’s up to him now.”

  In the shadows of the front seat they sat with too much to say and most of their energy gone.

  “I’ll drive you home.”

  “Let me make you coffee and French toast.”

  Lexy laughed and rubbed her eyes. “Dana Cabot’s sinful French toast. I thought I’d never taste it again. And coffee. Yes, coffee. God, that sounds good. Do you have any half-and-half?”

  Dana smiled. “A full quart.”

  “Bliss,” said Lexy with a sigh as she turned the key in the ignition and shifted into Drive. “And after that I’m going up to your guest room and climb into bed and sleep until noon. Can I do that?”

  “C)f course you can.”

  .n early December on a clear, cool day in midweek, Dana and .Bailey went shopping at the nursery opposite St. Tom’s. The owner’s big Rhodesian ridgeback was there, standing guard beside the seedling trays. Bailey put her hand out, knuckles first, as she had been taught, and the long pink tongue swiped it. She giggled and hid behind Dana.

  She wasn’t talking yet, but Dana believed it would happen soon.

  David still slept in the spare room. Like his daughter, he was healing slowly. Lexy sent letters via e-mail, but she never called. She said she was through the door and halfway across the room, headed for the great outdoors. Dana had no idea what this meant, but it sounded hopeful.

  Hope gave shape to Dana’s days and kept her moving forward.

  Shame and guilt and terrible regret still burned her insides, but the heat had diminished some. She was healing, too.

  After going to Peluso and telling him about her role in the death of Lolly Calhoun, Marsha Filmore had stayed on in the room above the garage until her daughter was born. A black-haired little girl with jerky limbs who broke out in a lurid rash the first time she tasted formula. Dana heard her crying from the apartment, a pitiful sound like a small wounded animal. A sound Frank Filmore would never hear. And then one day mother and daughter were gone. Marsha left behind her clothes-except the mink-and dozens of empty wine bottles. According to David, Peluso knew where she was. She would return to San Diego and probably testify at the trial.

  David said that if the Ethics Committee ever got wind of how Dana had persuaded Marsha to go to Peluso he would be in deep trouble. But she could tell he was glad for what she’d done. He would give Frank Filmore the best defense he could and make Peluso prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt. Marsha would testify, and Frank would be found guilty. David would argue hard against the death penalty.

  At the nursery Dana intended to purchase a camellia. But when she saw the scrawny blood orange tree in a plastic tub, it called to her and said she must plant it in her garden and nurse it to health as a reminder of what had happened to them all that year. A reminder and a promise to survive and prosper.

  When they got home she changed into her overalls, and Bailey had to wear hers too, which led to special shoes and a favorite straw hat. Everything was complicated with Bailey, but Dana rarely complained anymore, even to herself.

  She thanked God every day for the miracle of Bailey and for giving her family a second chance.

  She gathered an armload of tools from the shade house and carried them to a square of earth protected by the garage and the back wall, where the sun shone most of the day. Digging was a challenge because the soil was dry and crumbly late in the season before the slow, soaking rains that would come in the new year. She did not mind that her back and shoulders ached and sweat ran down from her hairline and stung her eyes. Beside her, Bailey dug away with the miniature shovel and hoe Santa had put under the tree the year before. She had outgrown them. She had outgrown almost everything, becoming a skinny, long-legged girl with soulful eyes. Every now and then she tugged on Dana’s shirtsleeve and pointed to her work, and Dana praised her.

  When the hole was three feet deep and almost as wide, Dana rested her tools against the wall and went around the far side of the house, where she had made compost in several large plastic bins. She filled the wheelbarrow full and mixed the compost with the dirt from the hole until she had a pile of nutritious
soil.

  She still thought of Micah and remembered him in her prayers. Sometimes she awakened after barely remembered dreams, hot and yearning for what she had felt that week in Italy. Perhaps as a consequence, she had begun thinking of her mother in a different light, as not simply someone irresponsible and flaky, but as a woman seduced by pleasure as Dana had been.

  Using the shovel, Dana whacked the plastic pot until it split. Rootbound. She imagined the tree sighing with relief as she poked a forked trowel into the dirt to gently loosen the roots around the bottom and sides. She half-filled the hole with new soil and then tipped the tree in on top of it. On their hands and knees, she and Bailey scooped and tamped the remaining soil in the hole, then made a shallow watering ditch around it. She brought the hose from across the lawn and let it run slowly into the hollow, seeping down on the roots.

  Dana sat against the wall and pulled Bailey onto her lap. It was warm in the sun, and the gardening had worn them both out. She closed her eyes, holding Bailey more tightly. She wasn’t happy, but for the most part, strangely, she was contented. Maybe next month she would want a job or another baby, but for now there was nothing particular to strive for, no mighty goal to aim at.

  They were all broken inside. Sometimes she could feel it, like a joint that pops out of place and aches for hours after. Though there had been healing, nothing would ever be the same for any of them. It was not a matter of whether David would forgive her. She believed he would and maybe had already without quite realizing it. When David came back to their bed it would be because in the end love was the engine of forgiveness.

  What she wanted for all of them was enough time for love to do its work.

  In the far corner of her garden, protected on two sides, the blood orange tree had already begun to stretch its roots down into the soil. In a year or two, if all went well, it might bear fruit. By then Lexy would be back and David would call Dana Number One again. She prayed every day-to be honest and faithful and patient-and she believed God heard her. She asked for simple things. For Bailey’s voice calling to her, for David’s smile, and his hand on the small of her back, for absent friends and souls departed, for the raspberry sweetness of the blood red fruit.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you …

  To Art, my first husband, for his wisdom and passion. Always.

  To Susan Challen, Carole Fegley, Sharon Saunders, Peggy Lang, and Judy Reeves for their creative and spiritual advice.

  To the ladies of the Arrowhead Association for always being there.

  To Reverends Mary Moreno Richardson and Allison Thomas at St. Paul’s Cathedral, who honored me with their candid answers to my prying questions.

  To Professors Irwin Miller and Tom Barton of California Western School of Law and attorneys Nancy Rosenfeld and Chuck Sevilla for sharing their perspectives on David Cabot’s ethical quandary. And to Wes Albers of the San Diego Police Department for his tactical suggestions. Any legal and procedural gaffs in Blood Orange are entirely mine.

  To Andrea Johnson and Reverend Lee Teed for their inadvertent inspiration.

  Thank you, finally, to the defense team of Steven Feldman, Rebecca Jones, Robert Boyce, and Laura Schaefer who inspired me to write Blood Orange as I did. To them and all the members of the defense bar who struggle daily to see that justice is done, I am immensely grateful.

  October 2004

  A READING GROUP GUIDE

  blood. orange

  Drusilla Campbell

  ABOUT THIS GUIDE

  The following questions are intended to enrich your own appreciation and understanding of this novel, or to inspire lively and thought-provoking conversations about it. Reading a great story is always a private pleasure, but sharing the experience with others can open whole new worlds of insight and enjoyment. If you don’t already belong to a reading group, perhaps it’s time to join or start one!

  DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  1. When we read about a kidnapped or lost child being returned, we are always happy. But a new set of problems arise for the family of a rescued child. What are those problems, and how might a family go about resolving them?

  2. Is Dana a good mother? If she had taken better care of Bailey, could she have avoided the kidnapping? Why would it be particularly difficult to be Bailey’s mother?

  3. In the beginning of the book Lexy and Dana believe they have a strong friendship. Would you agree with them? How does their relationship change in the course of the story? What are the elements of strong friendships as you have experienced them? Is it believable that Gracie could be David’s best friend and confidant? What does it take to make a friendship between a man and a woman work?

  4. David has to explain to Frank Filmore that it’s not his goal to prove him innocent. His job as defense attorney is to make sure the prosecution plays by the rules and the trial is fair. Discuss this con cept of the adversarial system. Do you think most people understand the role of the defense attorney? What would be the effect on a person’s daily life of defending a man like Frank Filrnore?

  5. Dana and David believed their marriage could withstand anything until their troubles began. What were the weaknesses in their relationship that led to their breakup, and are their strengths sufficient to bring them back together?

  6. Lexy tells Dana that the past is just a story and a person can decide how much importance to give it. Is this always true? Some of the time? How do our personal stories change through the years, and why are they so hard to disregard? Lexy has tried to ignore the role of anger in her story, and she never really explains it to Dana. What are your theories of what has made Lexy angry? What in Dana’s story has made her dishonest? What is David’s story, and how has it shaped who he is?

  7. Football is used as a metaphor for life and it serves David well most of the time. What does being the quarterback mean to David? Is there a difference between the way he and Dana see it? How does football make him strong, and how is he impaired by these continual references?

  8. Why did Dana have such a passionate and irresponsible affair with Micah? What were the factors that contributed to her behavior? Why do some people do things that seem completely out of character? Did she stop loving Bailey and David during her week in Florence? What did her obsession with knowing what was normal have to do with her actions in Florence? What does being normal mean to Dana? To you? Does her view of normality change from the beginning of the book to the end?

  9. Dana says that her affair with Micah was like grabbing hold of a trapeze and flying. What role did the city of Florence play in her affair? Is it true that some places are inherently seductive? How did Dana’s love of Early Renaissance painting contribute to her behavior?

  10. Why didn’t Dana tell Lexy about her affair with Micah when she got back to San Diego? What are the qualities in Dana that made it impossible for her to reveal such a powerful incident to her best friend? What did she fear, and were her fears at all justified? How would Lexy have reacted if Dana had confided in her?

  11. What is the core of Lexy’s spiritual life? Do the events of the novel challenge her faith in God or her faith in herself? She chooses to leave the priesthood temporarily to work through her problems. What will she work on? What strength does she bring to this work? Lexy is a flawed human being. Can someone with so many flaws be a priest? Is there a way in which her humanity empowers her?

  12. How do you interpret what happened when Lexy visited Dorothy Wilkerson for the last time? How did Lexy interpret it?

  13. Gracie says that Dana would take responsibility for the Holocaust if she thought it would explain why her mother abandoned her. What is the role of guilt in the formation of Dana’s character? How does it play out in her relationship with David, Bailey, and Lexy?

  14. How would you describe Dana’s relationship with Imogene? Is it true that you can live with someone and yet never know them? Do you root for their relationship at the end of the book? Why? What avenues of understanding and growth would open up for Da
na if she were to have a positive relationship with her grandmother?

  15. Was Marsha Filmore a victim or a participant in the crime her husband committed? What binds her to Frank and keeps her loyal? Is there any similarity between Dana’s relationship with Micah and Marsha’s with Frank?

  16. Why does Dana plant the tree? Why is it a blood orange tree? What role do symbols play in our lives?

  17. Dana tells Lexy that she has forgiven Micah for taking Bailey. How is that possible? She makes a distinction between excusing something and forgiving. Does this make sense to you? Have you ever experienced the difference yourself?

  DRUSILLA CAMPBELL lives in San Diego with her husband, horses, and dogs. She is co-founder of The Writer’s Room, and speaks and teaches at writing conferences throughout Southern California. She is at work on her next novel. Readers can visit her Web site at www.drusillacampbell.com.

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