The Last Breath

by Kimberly Belle

  “Good Lord, Gia.” Uncle Cal looks pissed. “What on earth happened to you?”

  Fannie gives a snort of laughter and returns to her blood pressure cuff.

  At her right elbow, my father flops his head back onto the pillow and glares up at the ceiling. Balloons bob in the air above his bed, their cheerful colors and message—Welcome Home!—a burning contrast to the bitter man dying beneath them. I don’t have to wonder who they’re from. Anyone who cares enough to have sent them is already here, for Dad’s first night home.

  The same night I just missed.

  The breath hitches halfway down my throat. “It’s just a bruise. I’m fine.”

  “I’m more concerned with where in God’s name you’ve been all night,” Cal says.

  I give him an I’m-thirty-four-so-don’t-even-go-there look. “Out.”

  “Out?” The question carries a ton of weight. Accusation, disappointment, blame. “Out where? Stop. Don’t you dare answer that. I may be an old man, but I’m not that old.”

  I unzip my coat, shucking it along with my bag onto the chair by the door, and head into the kitchen. I don’t have to turn to know the person I hear following me is Cal.

  “You could’ve at least called. What if you’d been in a car wreck, or floating facedown in the Holston River? One more minute and I would’ve filed a missing persons report.”

  “My phone died.”

  Technically, I’m not entirely certain my answer isn’t a fib. I heard my phone’s incessant buzzing while I was...er, otherwise occupied. Somewhere around ten o’clock last night it stopped, I assume because of the battery.

  “You should’ve checked in.”

  I pour cold coffee into a yellow mug and pop it in the microwave. “I didn’t have a charger.”

  There. That one was for sure the truth.

  Cal crosses his arms, leans a hip against the countertop. “Your priorities are messed up, baby girl. Last night was your father’s first night home in sixteen years, and you missed it.”

  His words ignite a slow burn deep in my belly, and guilt combines with my anger and resentment to make a fast flame. I step a little closer, stand a little taller.

  “Excuse me, but as I recall, I was the only one who didn’t miss his homecoming. So don’t talk to me about priorities, and don’t you dare try to guilt-trip me. I put my life on hold to be here, and as far as I can tell, I’m the only one.”

  “You knew I’d only be here on the weekends until I’ve wrapped up my case.”

  “But where are Bo and Lexi? Did either of them tell you they’d help?”

  Cal doesn’t shake his head, but he doesn’t nod, either.

  “Figures.” The microwave dings, and I reach in for my coffee. “A little advance notice would’ve been nice.”

  “I was hoping you could help me talk some sense into those siblings of yours.”

  “I’d have to catch Lexi first.” A splash of resentment for my sister pools on my tongue, and I chase it down with coffee that’s just as bitter. “But Bo promised he’d call sometime today with plans for tomorrow.”

  “Good. Let’s just hope he can muster up enough contrition for your father to forgive him for not getting his sorry ass over here sooner.”

  Not for the first time, I wish I had Cal’s sense of conviction as to my father’s innocence. What about Dean Sullivan’s testimony and the lack of foreign prints, when my father insisted there were intruders?

  What about his injuries, bruises on his forearms and a lump on the back of his head, which the medical witness testified could have been self-inflicted?

  And what about the little nuggets of new information I received from Jeffrey Levine and that reporter, both of which only added fuel of doubt to an already smoldering fire? After all, if Ella Mae was having an affair, that gives my father the one thing the D.A. couldn’t sixteen years ago: motive.

  For all these years, I’ve held on to my questions. Now it’s time I finally get some answers.

  “Did you know Dean Sullivan still lives next door?”

  Cal dips his head in a curt nod.

  “Then you also probably know he turned into the crazy town drunk. But why? What happened to him after the trial?”

  He lifts a shoulder. “I’m not exactly on his Christmas card list.”

  “I hear his statement took six hours to extract. Isn’t that a little suspicious?”

  “Six hours is on the long end, but it’s not unheard of in a murder case.”

  “Six hours would be long enough to coerce someone into a lie.”

  My last word jolts him like a poke with a live wire. He stiffens, snatches me by the biceps, and pulls me deeper into the kitchen, past the table and into the hallway by the back door. And then he whirls around to face me so suddenly I startle, and a swell of coffee sloshes onto the linoleum floor.

  “This is one heck of a fishing expedition you’re taking me on, and I surely don’t like the hook you’re trying to sink in my side. So why don’t you just spit it out? What is it you want to know?”

  “Did you ever hear any rumors of Ella Mae having an affair?”

  My question clearly shocks him. His eyes widen, and his coloring fades more than a few shades. “Who told you anything about an affair?”

  “A reporter asked me about it yesterday, and if jealousy was the reason Dad killed her. He said the D.A.’s office had evidence.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing. I got in my car and drove off.”

  He nods once. “Good. That was good. I don’t want you talking to any reporters.”

  “I’m not stupid, Cal. I interface with the media all the time, and I know how they can twist your words to suit their purposes. What I need to know from you is, is it true?”

  “Of course it’s not true. The D.A. who inherited this case has vowed your father will die in prison. But his allegations of an affair aren’t backed with even one lick of evidence. Ella Mae and Ray were fine. Happily married fine.” He leans back and crosses his arms. “Are we done here?”

  Not even close. “Do you know Jeffrey Levine?”

  Cal’s eyes darken, just for an instant, but long enough for me to see that he knows Jeffrey, and that he doesn’t like him. And then his face melds back into his courtroom mask.

  “Yes, I know of Mr. Levine. Why?”

  “Because I hear he’s writing a book about Dad’s case. One that proclaims he’s innocent, and that his trial was a gross miscarriage of justice.”

  “He’s right. Sending an innocent man to prison for life is a gross miscarriage of justice.”

  “He meant your defense. He called it shoddy.”

  Now Cal doesn’t bother hiding his surprise, or his fury. His neutral expression mushrooms into something livid and then clenches. Slammed brows, squeezed lips. He leans close and lowers his voice, a gesture I know is meant to intimidate his witness.

  “Listen up, darlin’, ’cause I’m only gonna say this once. Mr. Levine is a fool, and you would be, too, to think even for one second I didn’t do everything in my power to keep your father out of prison.”

  Though he didn’t phrase it as a question, I know Cal is waiting for my answer. Did I think, even for a second, that his defense might have been shoddy? Maybe. Jeffrey certainly knows more about the law than I do, and I was eighteen at the time of the trial. I didn’t understand half of what was going on, and I was too traumatized to remember the rest.

  “I’m just trying to figure out why you didn’t fight the verdict.”

  Cal looks away, purses his lips, looks back. “That’s not really an answer, now, is it?”

  I bury my nose in my mug. My memory is good enough to remember Cal’s courtroom moves. His unblinking poker face. The way his moods ricocheted from businesslike to derisive to
cordial and back. This is just the first time I’ve been at the receiving end of his interrogation tactics, and I can’t say I like playing the role of Cal’s witness.

  He grows tired of waiting for an answer I’m not willing to give. “I did fight the verdict, dammit. I filed an appeal with the Tennessee Court of Appeals, but it was denied.”

  “I meant after that. Couldn’t you have kept going, all the way up to the Supreme Court if you had to?”

  Cal all but rolls his eyes. “You watch too much TV, child.”

  “I’m being serious.”

  He fills his lungs with enough air to strain the buttons on his starched Brooks Brothers shirt, then huffs it out, loud and long. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Humor me here, Cal.” I lower my coffee cup and soften my expression, my tone, my attitude. “Please. Please explain it to me.”

  “Your father’s case took me over four months to try. It generated tens of thousands of pages of transcripts, hundreds of exhibits and a stack of pleadings higher than Mount Le Conte.” Cal’s voice has risen at a steady climb, booming on the last word hard enough to shake the windowpanes in the door behind me, and he pauses to regain his composure. “The Appeals Court looked at everything we had, and they still denied us. Based on their reasoning, none of us, including your father, who was rigorously involved in every aspect of his case, had any reason to think filing another appeal would result in a reversal of the verdict.”

  I know I should feel convinced by Cal’s words—I so want to feel convinced—but Jeffrey’s allegations keep nipping at my memories of that awful time. I lean against the back door and gaze at the floor.

  “I remember those months better than you think I do, you know.” My voice is quiet, barely a whisper, and sounds as exhausted as I suddenly feel. “How you practically moved in here, didn’t eat or sleep or go home for weeks at a time. How you hired a team of lawyers, put them up in the Quality Inn on the interstate, covered all of the costs. How after the verdict you picked up where Dad couldn’t, footing the bills for college, buying us books and clothes and cars, inviting us for birthdays and holidays. I remember everything.”

  I look up now, and Cal is watching me intently. His courtroom mask has softened around the edges but is still guarded, and he remains silent. I wonder if he already senses the words that are building in my throat, threatening to choke me.

  “But you still stopped after one lousy appeal.”

  Anger flickers over his expression, followed closely by something else, something I can’t quite read, as well as the undeniable spasm of pain. Is Cal hurt and angry that I don’t understand? Or are his emotions more self-inflicted, fueled by guilt at letting his only brother languish in prison? Either way, I don’t think I want to know the answer.

  We stand in silence for a long moment, an endless moment, and then he turns to leave.

  But a few minutes later, as I’m climbing the stairs to my room, I can’t help but wonder what Jeffrey will say when I tell him he was right.

  15

  CAL AND I spend the rest of Saturday tiptoeing around one another, neither of us willing to bring up Jeffrey Levine or allegations of slutty behavior. Mine or Ella Mae’s. When, late that afternoon, he asks me to run a few errands, I take his request for what it is—a test. I shuttle to the stores without so much as a passing thought about a detour down Main Street.

  Well, maybe a teeny passing thought. A fleeting fantasy. But how could I not? Jake said he would be thinking about me, and what girl would not obsess about that?

  But the point is, I don’t go to Roadkill. I don’t even do a drive-by. I push my carts through Walmart and Winn-Dixie, schlep the merchandise to the trunk and steer my car straight back to a house that is starting to feel more and more like a prison.

  One woman’s prison, another man’s escape from the same.

  Cal meets me at the door, motions for me to follow him into the kitchen.

  “I finally got ahold of your sister.”

  “Congratulations.” I dump the bags on the counter and turn to face him. “Because she’s apparently not speaking to me.”

  “She is tomorrow. She’s expecting the two of us after church.”

  “We’re going to church?” I might even make a face as I say it. Quite frankly, I can’t imagine anything worse. I prefer my services in churches where I can remain anonymous, where the congregation’s judgmental stares don’t taint the air until I choke on every breath, where the sermon of Christian values of forgiveness and acceptance isn’t contradicted by the congregation’s whispered allegations.

  “Of course not. But when somebody tells you to drop by after church, they mean around 12:30.”

  “Then why don’t they just say around 12:30?”

  Cal shakes his head like I just asked him why Tennessee is called the volunteer state. “You really have been gone a long time, haven’t you, baby girl?”

  “What about Bo? He still hasn’t called, and his cell keeps going to voice mail.”

  A long sigh. “I swear, that boy. If he doesn’t get his ass over here soon, I’m—”

  “Hey!” Dad’s voice, fueled by anger and something more desperate, something that shoots through my veins like ice water, cuts Cal off midthreat.

  For an old man, Cal is pretty spry. He rushes to Dad’s bedside, beating me by a good four seconds.

  “What does somebody have to do to get attention from you people, keel over and die?” Dad’s face is squinty and drawn. “I’ve been hollering for the past ten minutes.”

  “What’s wrong?” Cal uses his lawyer voice, now laced with worry.

  “My goddamn back is on fire, that’s what’s wrong. Where the hell is Frannie?”

  “Fannie,” I whisper.

  “I don’t give a shit what her name is, just go get her.” Dad’s face contorts, and he twists on the bed like a garden snake. “Hell’s bells, it’s like somebody stabbed me in the kidney.”

  I watch my father, thinking of all the death I see in the field. Rows and rows of injured and dying alongside mass graves. Wailing mothers mourning a lost child. Soldiers far too young to have died holding guns. I’ve learned to somehow distance myself from their suffering, to not succumb to the emotions of their tragedy, to rescue the survivors without stopping to grieve for their dead.

  But now my training fails me, utterly and completely. My dying father writhes around in agony and I stand here, sneakers stuck to the living room carpet, stiff with indecision.

  Because how do I distance myself from my own tragedy?

  “Gia, get Fannie.” Cal’s order doesn’t register around the emergency-broadcast-system siren blaring in my ears.

  My father clutches his side, practically folds himself double on the bed. “Son of a bitch!”

  Cal jiggles my arm, and I startle to attention. “What?”

  “Go get Fannie. Drag her out of the shower if you need to. Tell her we need her right away.”

  He gives me a less-than-gentle shove in the direction of the stairs, and my body responds. Ninety seconds later I return with Fannie, in her bathrobe and panting, who handles Dad’s complaints with good-natured competence. She assesses his pain level and administers liquid morphine, and within a few minutes the muscles in his face unscrew and his body melts into the mattress.

  Disaster averted—for now. No thanks to me.

  Cal draws a bottomless breath, scrubs his face with his hands. “Can the three of us have a little huddle in the kitchen real quick?”

  My stomach drops into the crawl space under the living room floor. I follow them into the kitchen, bracing myself. Cal’s deep scowl tells me I’m not getting away without a good tongue-lashing.

  But before Cal can launch into me, Fannie intercepts him. “Well, this sure changes the game.”

  I don’t dare meet Cal’s glare,
focusing my eyes on Fannie’s instead. “I know, and I’m really sorry. But I’m better trained than what just happened back there. I swear I’ll do better next time.”

  Fannie blinks at me once, twice. “Sugar, I was talking about your father. His pain level. I wasn’t expecting things to get so volatile so soon.”

  “Oh.”

  “What does that mean?” Cal says.

  “It means things are progressing a whole lot quicker than any of us expected.”

  “Oh,” I say again.

  Not for the first time, Fannie looks at me like she does Dad. Like I’m someone to be taken care of. She gives my arm a few pats. “Don’t you worry, sugar. I come armed with a butt load of morphine. I aim to keep your father comfortable and pain free for whatever time he has left.”

  Cal clears his throat. “The doctor said up to three months.”

  “I’d ballpark it more at three weeks. That’s if we’re very lucky.”

  Cal and I suck in a simultaneous breath. Three weeks? When I filled in the paperwork for my leave of absence five days ago—has it only been five days?—I requested a minimum of three months. Now Fannie is telling me I might only need one?

  A new and unpleasant sense of urgency nips at my conscience and leaves a sour taste on my tongue. One month to prove to everyone I can handle any disaster, including my own, and forge some sort of peace with my dying father. One month—and we’re already a week in.

  I check my watch, turn to Cal. “I’m thinking Bo may need another little shove.”

  “I was just having the same thought.”

  I wriggle my phone from my back pocket, push a few buttons and wait for Bo’s voice mail to kick in, which I knew it would as soon as he saw my number.