CHAPTER
16
NOVEMBER
HENRY
Life in prison was hard, even dangerous, like what I’d seen sometimes on TV. Had to keep my head down, be real wary of others. But some of the inmates felt kinda sorry for me when they found out I had a sick boy. I was thankful for how they watched out for me a little. I knew I could get myself killed in prison.
I got assigned a lawyer, a real nice young man named Zeke with lots of know-how. I thought it was pretty crazy of him to have me plead not guilty before the judge, but Zeke assured me it was just how things had to be done. Finally I went along with it, even though I sure was guilty, and he knew it.
Detective Blaylock came to see me often, always itching to get more information about who hired me. Zeke didn’t like it one bit when I agreed to see him, and he always made sure he was there. But I wasn’t afraid of saying too much. I hadn’t told Zeke the truth about Miz Bourdillon, but he was smart, and he knew I was hiding something.
One day Detective Blaylock scared me a bit when he said, “We’ve found a suspect, Henry. Someone we’re sure is linked to this case. A man by the name of Nick Lupton. Do you have anything to tell us about this man?”
I started sweating big-time. How’d they find out about Nick? Sure, I had his number on my phone, but I didn’t see how that proved anything. At least I hoped it didn’t.
Didn’t say anything to the detective, but he wasn’t dumb either. He saw my reaction. I wished I could’ve told him about Nick, but what if they questioned him and let him go and then he did what he’d threatened to Jase? My poor boy was still struggling for life, and I wasn’t about to let Nick make things more complicated.
I sure wished Miz Bourdillon could talk. I needed to ask those questions, questions that were burning themselves into my mind, again and again and again.
I felt sorry for Detective Blaylock, because of course he made sense to himself. Sure we’d want “the guilty party” off the street. Except the guilty party was Miz Bourdillon herself, and I couldn’t tell him that. I didn’t figure he’d believe me anyway.
And I felt sorry for Miz Bourdillon too. Maybe she had as many questions about life as I did, and maybe those questions got all twisted in her mind like they did in mine. Mainly, I didn’t figure Jesus would go pointing His finger. Seemed like He was always telling us to look at our own hearts first. And I knew mine was pretty black.
But I thought about it a lot, and here’s what I decided. I would ask to talk to Miz Bourdillon. And if she could forgive me for shooting her, well, then I was gonna try real hard to forgive her for setting the whole thing up in the first place.
Maybe that was grace.
————
Thank goodness, they let Libby come to see me in the prison twice a week. We had to talk through a little hole in the plexiglass and couldn’t touch each other, but at least I could see her beautiful face.
A couple times I almost told her about Miz Bourdillon being the one who really hired me, but I couldn’t put that burden on her tiny shoulders when she was already carrying so much.
She tried to sound upbeat on her visits, saying things like, “Paige brings me food and flowers, and she fixed something so as people are sending in money for Jase’s medical expenses,” and “I don’t know why she’s treated us this way, babe. But I’m thankful.”
The first time I heard about that fund to help with Jase, I got a little angry, because it seemed like a lot of pity from people we didn’t even know. I don’t like to take handouts. But after I thought on it for a while I knew it was a good thing . . . because there wasn’t any way I’d be providing for my family any time soon.
The next time Libby visited I told her, “Funny how Paige is the one who says she’s not all religious, and yet she’s acting like Jesus would be acting toward us.”
Libby didn’t have anything to say to that, but she smiled a little. She liked it when I put Jesus into our conversations.
One day Libby came in with her eyes all sparkling and said, “Jase is getting better! They took him out of that induced coma, and he opened his eyes. Our boy opened his eyes, hon! And he saw me—he knew who I was, and he’s gonna be getting stronger now. Doctor said he finally made it over that big hump that was holding him back. His lungs are all clear, and his heart is beating just like it should. They regulated the medicine, and he’s tolerating it okay. He can swallow now, and they’ve got him drinking some powerful liquid that will give him the nutrients he needs.”
We reached toward the plexiglass and made like we were holding each other’s hands when really they were just mashed up against the glass. I tried to hold back my tears, but they just went on falling down my cheeks like that trickling water in the creek near the trailer, gurgling up something like hope.
———
Libby brought me all kinds of books to read that she checked out of the library. She brought me a Bible, too, like I’d asked her. I wanted to read them Gospels and see if Jesus was like the radio preacher said and like the characters in Miz Bourdillon’s books. Had plenty of time to read in prison. Went through all of them pretty fast, Matthew and Mark and Luke and John. Read them all straight through in about a week.
I’d never read any of them at all, much less all four of them straight through at once. But here’s what I saw.
Just like I’d been thinking, Jesus was always, always hanging around with sinners. Eating meals with them and helping them out and being real tender with the worst of them—some lady yanked out of her lover’s bed, and a bunch of prostitutes and people like me—the rejected people in that society. And He wasn’t too nice to the religious folks, which made them awful mad.
And it got me to thinking a lot about Miz Bourdillon’s books and all the stuff that had been running through my head for weeks and weeks.
If Jesus came to earth today, I wondered if He’d be in the big fancy churches. Well, maybe He’d go in there and preach a sermon in His jeans, but then I just bet He’d ask some of the gang members to have lunch with Him. And He’d invite those poor trafficked gals and probably a bunch of those gay people who didn’t seem to be welcomed at churches, and maybe even, maybe He’d invite me to lunch too. Now wouldn’t that be something to see?
Liked that story in Mark, too, about the thief on the cross, and how Jesus told him he was going to get to be in paradise with Him that very day. And that was confusing, because no way was that man gonna have any time to do good works or say he was sorry to whoever he’d hurt. He was fixing to die. But Jesus invited him on in to paradise.
When I told Libs about all those thoughts, her face that was so often all tight and worried-looking got real soft, and she smiled at me, a big smile, the kind that made her bright green eyes light up. She said, “It’s grace, babe. That’s what it’s called. Grace. You’re forgiven, and you don’t have to pay anything back to God.”
I had never heard much about grace. The few times my mother drug me to church, they talked about judgment. Knowing how my parents made their living, I figured they had a one-way ticket to hell and I probably would be riding on their coattails. I never actually read the Bible or had anything to do with any kind of religion except the one that said God helps those who help themselves. And so far, I had never given God one bit of credit for us getting out of our messes. He seemed completely nonexistent.
Still, after reading Miz Bourdillon’s books and the Gospels, I thought maybe there was grace.
But if there was grace, why did Miz Bourdillon hire me to kill her? The most twisted logic in the world, and I had to find out why. Because if she didn’t believe what she wrote, then I sure as heck didn’t want to buy into it either.
JOSEPHINE
Kit visited me at the rehab center on weekends. One day she rushed in, impeccably dressed. “You look good, Kit,” I slurred, but she understood me.
“Oh, JoJo! You’re the one who is doing unbelievably well. Patrick told me you can go home in a few weeks!”
I no
dded. My smile was lopsided, but it still communicated pleasure.
“Well, that’s a relief.” Her eyes clouded. “And do you remember anything more? You know, about the weeks before the accident?”
I shook my head slowly, contemplating my beautiful, broken sister. She did look better, much better, but I could not remember why. I could only remember before.
———
2010 . . . To Josephine’s great relief, a new lawyer rescinded the order for Patrick to manage Kit’s money. Her resentment that Josephine was, as she put it, “her big sister’s keeper” had poisoned their already fragile relationship. They couldn’t be responsible for Kit’s life, but they knew with this new freedom she would do as she pleased. She left for Europe with a man fifteen years her junior, and for two years, the only communication she had with Josephine came through postcards sent from Tuscany and Zurich and Munich and somewhere on the Romantic Road and then into Prague and Dubrovnik and Athens and Crete and Istanbul and Tunis and Algiers. She ran around Europe and North Africa, but they never could be sure if she was traveling alone or with someone.
Then one day she appeared at the house, tanned and emaciated. “Hey, JoJo.” Her eyes were hollow.
“Kit! Kit!” Josephine grabbed her in a hug and was shocked by how thin her sister had become. She was dressed in silk and high heels and had a line of bright pink luggage behind her. She waved the taxi away.
“I’m sorry I didn’t give any notice. Plans changed.” She tried to keep up the masquerade, but a tear slipped down her cheek.
“Oh, Kit. Come in.”
“Can I stay for a while?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
Kit had spent most of her inheritance, and although she entertained Hannah and Paige around the dinner table with embellished stories of her exotic adventures, Josephine was concerned.
“I’ve got a contract with a perfume company. It starts in a month. Can I stay here until then?” she asked.
“Of course,” Josephine said, but once again, she dreaded it.
Kit hardly ate anything at all. She wasn’t drinking alcohol, and they never found drugs, but she seemed in worse shape than ever before.
Josephine finally asked her, “Kit, what happened to you?”
“I got mixed up with the wrong people, JoJo.” Her blue eyes shadowed. “I know that doesn’t sound like anything new, but these people hold long grudges. And they make you pay.”
Which Kit could not do.
She left for the photo shoots with the perfume company. That lasted six months. The next time she showed up at the house, she was hiding a black eye under her fashionable sunglasses.
Patrick and Josephine paid her debts, and Patrick managed her stocks. Thank goodness, he had kept control of them. They figured she could live comfortably off these if she could settle down. But Kit had never settled down in her life. She had run headlong into destruction from the time she was thirteen years old.
She moved to Atlanta and lived in the townhouse they had purchased for rental after selling their parents’ home in 2007. Kit got some modeling jobs. She reconnected with a few good friends from high school.
Josephine held her breath and prayed.
PAIGE
Jase had a face full of freckles and two dimples that showed up when he smiled. Since he had opened his eyes and was able to eat, he gained strength each day, and he started looking forward to my visits.
“My momma says you’ve been comin’ to see me some. And reading to me. Thanks.” He had a smile that warmed my heart. “She said your momma was at the same hospital as me.”
“That’s right.”
“Was her heart sick like mine?”
“No, she had an accident, and it was her brain that was sick.”
“And it’s better now?”
“She’s a lot like you—getting better every day.”
He grinned and said, “Well, that’s corn-puddin’ good!”
Libby’s mother had come from south Georgia and was staying at the Rathbun House so she could help care for Jase while Libby was at work. She planned to move into the trailer with Libby and Jase when he was released.
On that day, the whole nursing staff celebrated with balloons and ice cream. I was there when Libby wheeled him outside for the first time. He stood up slowly and laughed when he saw a bird fly overhead. Then he sank to his knees, giggling as he crunched a few dried leaves in his hands. “Mommy, did you see the bluebird? Did you see it?”
HENRY
I’d been in prison for over a month when they finally agreed to let me see Miz Bourdillon. I rode in a police car to the rehabilitation center with my lawyer and Detective Blaylock. They led me into her room, me shuffling along with my feet and hands in cuffs. I was glad to see Paige there with her mother.
I felt a little awkward just standing there staring down at Miz Bourdillon in her wheelchair, so I said, “Hello, Miz Bourdillon.”
“Hello, Henry.” It came out real garbled like and then Paige whispered to me, “I’ll help you if you can’t understand her.”
I nodded. “You have a real nice room here.” Looked like a fancy hotel room to me, not like something you’d find at a hospital, except for the bed.
She gave a little nod, and Paige said, “Yeah. We’re glad we could get Momma in this facility. It’s the best for recovering from head trauma.”
She was sitting up all straight and awkward in a wheelchair, and she had on a sweat shirt—a real pretty bright blue one with Duke written across the front in cursive—and had an afghan over her lap. I could tell her head had been shaved, but she had on a bright blue beret so that only the sides of her stubby hair showed.
I remembered when I’d followed her, how her hair was all thick and a pretty shade of brown. Now it was all gone.
“Have a seat, Henry,” Paige said, motioning to a nice cushioned chair. I shuffled to the armchair and sat down as light as possible. I kept trying to see if I was scaring Miz Bourdillon, me in my prison clothes and my hands and feet cuffed and that detective beside me with a handgun in his belt, but Miz Bourdillon didn’t show any signs of fear.
I fumbled with the handcuffs and tried to find my voice.
“Would you like something to drink, Henry?” Sure was glad Paige was there to interpret the conversation, because it didn’t seem like Miz Bourdillon was gonna be able to say much. I’d been prepared for that.
“A glass of water would be real nice. Thank you.”
Paige left the room and then came back with a tall clear glass. “Need anything, Momma?” she asked, after setting the glass on a pretty round table beside me. I wondered if they’d moved their own furniture into the rehab place.
Miz Bourdillon shook her head, just barely, but I saw it.
“You can go on and ask your questions, Henry. I’ve told Momma a little bit about them too.” Paige sat down again beside her mother.
“I just, well, your books stirred up so many questions in my mind. I wanted to ask you about them.” I looked over at Detective Blaylock, and he handed me my copy of These Mountains around Us. “This is the only one I got here with me, but I’ve read four of them now.” And I held it out for her to see.
“It’s your latest novel, Momma,” Paige said, but looked to me like Miz Bourdillon recognized it herself.
I tried to make sense with my questions. “It’s all about what you call grace. Seems like in every story there’s a lot of grace. People who are real religious or not religious at all, but they’re in some pretty awful situations, and they don’t think they can ever be forgiven because of all the horrible things they’ve done or that have been done to them. And I wondered, do you really believe that they could? I like the way you write about grace and forgiveness. It sounds so good. Do you really believe it works that way?”
Miz Bourdillon’s hand quivered slightly. It didn’t look like she had much control over it. Paige scooted her chair over even closer to her mother and took her mother’s hand real gently in hers. Miz Bo
urdillon looked worried, like she was trying to remember something, and then she mumbled something real deep and guttural that I didn’t understand.
“In your new novel, it’s in that part where the poor freedwoman has forgiven the awful man who abused her and took her son away, and then she asked God to forgive her for her wanting Him to take her own life.” I looked over at Miz Bourdillon, but she was just listening, like she had been. “And finally she’s up in those mountains and just starts feeling that grace and forgiveness. Like God’s creation has been there forever and reminds her that He has too, and how big He is, and how much He loves her. And it settles on her so she really accepts it.” I think my face was all red by now. “Least that’s how it sounded to me.”
I thumbed through the novel, my hands shaking a bit. I wasn’t any good at reading out loud, didn’t like to do it. But I needed to ask her, so I brushed the sweat from my eyes, found the page I’d marked, and began to read.
“‘The mountains hold my imagination, and I feel a call to their beauty. Then they fade out of view as the mist floats above and around them, like puffs of smoke. I hover in the mist; I feel the calling of the dawn. I see the first ray of light piercing through the mist and I know. I am forgiven.’ Do you believe that anyone can be forgiven?”
Miz Bourdillon rubbed her hands awkwardly together and seemed real tired all of a sudden. But then she looked at me with her pretty brown eyes, really looked at me, like she could see me, and was concentrating real hard. She lifted a hand and said, “Yes. I believe it.”
Paige answered for her again. “Momma believes we can be forgiven, even for the worst acts. The Bible is filled with stories of very ordinary people who get into all kinds of trouble, and yet they are forgiven. The secret is what Momma’s characters have. A repentant heart. One who wants forgiveness. And an acceptance of God’s grace. Nothing earned. Just grace.”
When I Close My Eyes Page 25