by Jessica Pack
Darryl: I should have mailed it days ago
Clara: Better late than never. I’ll drop it off. Good luck!
Darryl: Thanks. Love U
She put down the phone and retrieved the package from the guest room upstairs, a bubble mailer filled with who knew what. She read the name on her way down the stairs and felt her steps slow. Amanda Mallorie?
“Everything okay?” Coach asked when she came back to the sink.
“Yeah, Darryl just needs me to run a package to the post office.” She paused. There were confidentiality issues involved, and yet this was Darryl’s dad and she wanted to talk to someone about everything that had happened these last ten days. “Did Darryl tell you about the death row case he’s been working? I think that’s a big part of why we’re here—he witnessed Robert Mallorie’s execution and it really shook him up.”
Coach turned to her a bit more abruptly than she’d expected, startling her enough that she dropped the bowl she was washing back into the soapy water.
“Mallorie?” Coach said, his eyes moving past her to the package on the counter. A sly smile lit up his face. “Oh, Clara, darlin’, I want to hear all about what you have to say and then do I ever have a story for you.”
26
Amanda
Twelve days
Amanda peeked out of her blinds Tuesday morning to make sure her nosey neighbor wasn’t already outside. Seeing that the coast was clear, she hurried to her mailbox, retrieved the mail, and then hurried back into her condo.
It wasn’t until she was safe inside that she realized she had more than just the letters forwarded from her Sioux Falls address. She put the envelopes aside and looked at the bubble mailer with her Cincinnati address on the front. A quick glance at the return address of the law firm in Sioux Falls sent a rush of anxiety through her—she’d had an e-mail last week asking for her address so they could send the personal effects the prison had given them. She’d been anxious about receiving this package while at the same time pushing it out of her mind. It was the clashing of old life and new life all over again.
Now she went into the kitchen and sat down at the counter—she’d bought two bar stools at IKEA. She took a breath and then tore open the top before upending the envelope and letting the items slide onto the counter.
There was a biography about President Eisenhower she’d given him for his birthday, a stack of letters Amanda had sent over the years held together with a rubber band, a deck of cards, a few photographs she looked at, and then an envelope with Mom written on the front. She picked up the envelope with one hand. Robbie had written her a letter. The last words she’d shared with him were not his last words after all.
Once she felt ready, she turned the envelope over and ran her finger beneath the flap. She extracted a single piece of plain copy paper, both sides covered in Robbie’s familiar script. She just looked at the letters and words without reading them for a few seconds and thought of the urn now on her mantel that held what was left of the man who had written this.
Mom,
It’s Monday night, you left a few hours ago, and I can’t stop thinking about you. I thought I had said everything I needed to say, but it’s really starting to hit me that I’ll never get another chance. First, I need you to know that I stole fifty bucks from your wallet when I was in the seventh grade. I wanted this video game and Grandma had sent you some birthday money and I took it. When you asked me, I lied about it, but then didn’t dare bring the game home so I left it at Justin’s. I’m really sorry about that. Also, I’m sorry that Melissa and I fought so much, and that I was such a jerk to her once I got here. It was always just the two of us, and we should have gotten along better and I feel really bad that I messed everything up. Will you tell her how sorry I am about everything? I’m really proud of the way she’s lived her life, I envy it so much, and hope she knows that I really did love her.
Whew, I feel better. But that leaves me with what I need to say to you. I know I’ve said I’m sorry a hundred times, I’ve meant it, and I know I’ve told you I love you and thanked you for being here for me when I totally did not deserve it. I want to say all those things again, but there’s some stuff I haven’t said. As you left today you told me that you loved me—like you always do—and I said I loved you too—like I do when I’m in a good place. But what I wish I’d said is that I know you always loved me. Even when you were sad or mad or depressed or miserable, you always loved me. When my head was a mess and I couldn’t make sense of what was real and what was not, I knew my mom loved me and that you worked really hard to see the best in me. If you’d loved me less, maybe you’d have found more peace than you have. But I’m selfish enough to be grateful—so many guys in here don’t have anyone.
I don’t know what’s waiting for me on the other side, but you taught me about God and I’ve been going to services here. I’m gonna see if there’s anything I can do to make up for what I did. I don’t see how that’s possible, and maybe I’ll go to hell all the same, but I want you to know that I remembered what you taught me and I’m gonna try.
I also want you to promise me something, even though you won’t be able to say it to my face. Promise me you’ll live your life. Go to a therapist if you need to and maybe meet other moms like you—there’s got to be some out there. I would like you to fall in love again, with someone better than Dad was, and travel the world and join a book group. You’re beautiful and smart and good. I want you to live the life you deserve, even though I screwed everything up.
There are a lot of people who probably count the days of their lives from what I did that day, and I think you’re one of them. Those reset moments in life don’t just come from bad things, though—Melissa probably counts the days and months since she married Paul, and this guy in high school counted the time from the day he took first place in State Cross-Country. I really hope you find a day when you can start counting all over again, forget how long it’s been since I did such a horrible thing, and forget the day that I met justice for my crimes. I want you to live a beautiful life and count many beautiful moments ahead. Thanks for everything. Thanks for loving me so good.
Love you,
Robbie
27
Steve
Ten years, five months, sixteen days
Steve stepped out of his car and wiped his palms on his jeans. He couldn’t believe he was here and yet after Coach had found Amanda’s brand-new address, he couldn’t not come. Steve had still taken a few days to make sure he was ready, but when he’d woken up this morning—his day off—the first thing he’d thought of was whether or not he should go to Cincinnati. He needed closure if nothing else. But closure wasn’t his only reason.
The condo wasn’t much different from his. The roof was a bit more pitched, the front window bayed rather than flat. Instead of brick skirting, it was stone, and instead of brown tones, gray. But similar and familiar. Perhaps he and Amanda were stereotypical single middle-aged Americans who wanted a home without too much yard or too much space, something they could pay off before they took retirement in fifteen years and could navigate until their knees gave out.
He knocked on the front door. The trim was peeling and he lifted a hand to tap a curling flake of paint. It broke off and fluttered to the cement. It wouldn’t take long to scrape off the flaking paint, apply a primer coat, and then a top coat. Maybe one full day, start to finish, so long as the weather held. It wasn’t optimal painting weather today, too cold, but come spring . . .
He felt the vibration of footsteps coming toward the door and his eyes snapped ahead. The footsteps stopped and he looked at the knob, expecting it to turn, but nothing happened. He looked back at the door itself. Peephole. Amanda must be looking through it and wondering what he was doing here.
He lifted his hand in a little wave and smiled, though the nervous gesture reflected his anxiety more than he’d have liked.
The dead bolt clicked. There was the sound of a chain being pulled back higher on the door.
He looked at the knob while it turned. The door opened slowly, creaking in a way that made him suspect she didn’t use the front door often. Like him, she probably came in and out through the attached garage—hers was at the side of her condo as opposed to the back like his. He could fix that hinge in less than a minute with a little powdered graphite.
The door stopped when it was open about ten inches. Amanda stood to the side, not completely revealed through the gap. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, but she wore purple flannel pajama pants and a black sweatshirt, bunched up at the elbows. Her reddish-blond hair was pulled up in a sloppy bun on top of her head, bits sticking out in all directions. Her eyebrows were pulled tightly together. She wasn’t wearing any makeup.
He smiled at her.
“Mr. Mathis?” She did not smile back.
He nodded, keeping the smile in hopes it would help ease the wariness in her expression. “Hi, Amanda, or, uh, Mrs. Mallorie.”
Her expression didn’t soften, but she looked past him to the street and then up and down in both directions before meeting his eyes again. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
“You dropped the token.” He held out his hand, where the green chip rested in the center of his palm. “Maybe you did it on purpose, and if that’s the case I don’t want to—”
She opened the door all the way, her eyes focused on his hand until they flitted up to meet his. The wariness had softened into surprise, and maybe gratitude. “I tore my car apart looking for it—I felt terrible for having lost it.”
He pushed his hand closer to her and she took the chip, turning it over so that she could look at every side. “It was in the grass by the curb,” he explained. “I found it a few days later.”
She closed her hand around it and held it against her stomach. “Thank you,” she said softly. “But . . . but how did you find me?” A bit of that wariness came back.
“Coach Miller called me and gave me your address, but he said he couldn’t tell me how he got it so I wasn’t to ask.”
She opened her hand and looked at the token again.
“I didn’t come just to return the chip.”
Her hand closed and she looked at him again, hesitant yet curious.
“I owe you the whole story about how Robbie affected me back then and why that chip was important to him and then to me. Can I tell it to you?”
She blinked, but the lines of her face were caught somewhere between fear and hope.
Something wet hit his cheek at the same time he felt a drop on his head. He looked up at the steely gray clouds that had added to his earlier assessment that today was not a good day to paint a door frame. Another drop hit his face. Three drops landed simultaneously on his shoulders.
She looked at him, then at the ground that was becoming spotted with rain, and finally up at the clouds.
“Would you like to come in?” she asked, nervously polite.
“Thank you.” Once he was inside, he stepped to the side of the doorway so she could close the door. The small living room had a couch, a bed frame leaned against a wall, and stacks and stacks of boxes. In the center of the mantel was what looked like a black vase with a lid—an urn?
He looked away, but his gaze landed on a box labeled “Robbie” set on the floor not far away. He looked at her and knew she’d seen him notice. She was rubbing the sobriety coin with her thumb, her other arm crossed over her stomach.
“The moving company delivered everything just yesterday and I only worked on the kitchen,” she said, waving toward the boxes. She picked up a throw from the edge of the couch and draped it over the box with Robbie’s name on it. “Sorry it’s such a mess.”
He laughed, and she looked up sharply at the sound. Jumpy.
“You don’t owe me an apology, Mrs. Mallorie. I’m the one who showed up on your doorstep uninvited. If it makes you feel better, I’d have called if I had your number, but that wasn’t the information Coach tracked down.”
She smiled and smoothed some escaping tendrils of hair behind her ear. “Please call me Amanda.”
“Okay, Amanda. I hope you’ll call me Steve.”
She nodded that she would. Silence prevailed for a few seconds and he realized he had better get to the point.
“Well, to get started, nothing I told you that day was untrue, but I didn’t get to some things I think you deserve to know.” She relaxed. Just a little. “Robbie did help me with my perspective and to make some important choices, but that’s not the only reason I gave him the ring.”
Amanda continued to watch him, but she said nothing. He opened his mouth to speak again, determined to say this as a monologue if he had to, but then she lifted a hand, her palm facing him. “Where are my manners—would you like some coffee?”
He was transported back to that day when she had come to him and he’d invited her inside, knowing she didn’t want to accept. Now he was in her house. This was all very strange, but her invitation stripped away some of the tension. “I have to admit it’s a little late in the day for coffee for me, but I would love a glass of water.”
She smiled and even though he didn’t know her beyond what was available in the public domain, he could tell it was a real smile. The kind that didn’t show up in pictures unless the photographer caught you unawares. She ducked her head and turned to the kitchen, which was just beyond the living room. She waved for him to follow and he did. There were more boxes in here, but the bar portion of the counter was clear and there were two black backless bar stools tucked underneath. It wasn’t hard to picture her sitting at that counter alone. Eating. Reading. Whiling away empty hours. He had a bar just like it, only his had a granite top and hers was something that was meant to look like granite, but then he didn’t have a gas stove like she did. She nodded him toward one of the stools before opening a well-stocked cupboard of glassware.
“I have juice,” she said. “V8 or cran-grape.”
“I love cran-grape.”
The fridge had an automatic dispenser, and she filled the glass halfway with ice, then proceeded to extract the jug of juice and fill the glass.
“You aren’t going to join me?” Steve said as he took the cup she pushed toward him.
She shook her head, but was smiling somewhat shyly. He took a sip.
“Well, where to start,” he said.
“I think the beginning is standard,” she said, and he looked up at her. She was making a joke? This was going better than he’d hoped.
“Well, then, I guess we start with high school a million years ago.” It wasn’t hard to go back in time to those years of his life. He told her about his glory days, his hopes for the future, and the way it all changed when Rachelle got pregnant. He told her about the shotgun wedding, the carpet mills, the baby and then the next baby and then a third one. “All of a sudden it had been ten years and we barely talked to each other anymore. I was working a different dead-end job, had a growing alcohol problem, and hated my life. I woke up one day and decided to walk away from it.”
Amanda showed no reaction to his story, but he felt no judgment, which surprised him. He should be judged. He deserved it. But she just continued to watch him. “I realized pretty quick that if I moved around often enough, the courts never caught up with me for child support.” He paused for a breath and shook his head. He hadn’t realized before now that he’d never told this story before—not like this at least. “I would touch base with my kids now and then and promise my ex that I’d get caught up, but I never planned to and I kept moving around. Kept staying away from my kids. Kept wishing I were number seventy-six on the football team again and had no idea what being an adult was really like. Eventually, that brought me to Sioux Falls, where I got a job working with a bunch of high school kids mowing lawns and fixing sprinklers.” He attempted a shrug and a smile, neither of which he pulled off very well. “I was the oldest guy on the crew and most of the kids ignored me, but Robbie and I worked together a few times—he was good at following directions and easy to wor
k with. Robbie was funny and hardworking and accepting of this old guy who ought to have made more of his life than working on a landscape crew.”
Amanda blinked quickly—was he upsetting her? He paused, but she waved him to continue.
“One morning he found me in my truck, hungover from a bender the night before and sick as a dog. He bought me a Coke at a gas station across the street and told me I had a problem—smiling the whole time, which, let me tell you, pissed me off to no end.” He smiled and to his relief, Amanda did too.
“I told him to F off and though he left me alone that day, after that he always seemed to work close by, asking me how I was doing, or asking me about my life, which I was sure he didn’t care anything about. This went on for a week or so until he finally confided in me about his father’s drinking problems and how he’d moved out of state after you two divorced. He told me how much it sucked, that even a crappy dad was better than no dad at all—his dad had come for a visit recently and apologized. Robbie had been able to forgive him, he even showed me an AA token his dad had given him—he carried it in his pocket all the time as a good-luck charm.” Steve paused for a breath. “He reminded me of my oldest son, Max.” Steve had to stop in order to swallow the rising lump in his throat. “And I wondered if maybe I could go back and make things right. Maybe I could choose different than I’d been choosing. I called my kids for the first time in almost a year—my youngest son broke down on the phone and asked when I was going to come see him. One of my older sons invited me to a car show he was going to the next week as though he expected me to come.” The regret and shame flooded through him, but Steve let the feelings come. They kept him humble. Kept him trying. Amanda watched him carefully. “I had all this back child support to pay and so many years to make up for, and it just seemed impossible that I could go back to that. I told Robbie, and he said I should go anyway. I should go to this car show and tell my kids I was sorry. Easy as that. He said . . .” Steve paused, transported to the exact moment when he and Robbie had sat next to each other under a tree, eating their lunches, and Robbie turned to him and said the words that tipped Steve over the edge of the fence he had still been sitting on. “My dad could be as good as my mom if he wanted to be.”