“We don’t know. That’s the other reason she’s here. But her body got so weak she had a heart attack. Now we have to work very hard to help Melinda recover.”
“But she’ll be OK, right? She’ll be able to come home, right?”
“A lot will depend on her. But with the right treatment she should be able to go home.”
The nurse led me to the elevator. I left slowly. Lindy was starving herself? I couldn’t wrap my thoughts around the idea. Why would Lindy starve herself? For what possible reason? I always thought that Lindy had a disease; that something was happening to her. I didn’t think she was doing something to herself. Why would Lindy want to starve herself?
Chapter Twenty
When I got home, there was a car in the driveway. I remembered Mr. Richards and wondered what bad news he was bringing now. But, for once, I was wrong. Mr. Richards and my mom were sitting at the dining room table. Mom looked...well, she didn’t exactly look happy but she didn’t look as bad as she had been.
“Hello, Gus.” Mr. Richards stood as I entered the house. He extended his hand and I shook it.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, not greeting either Mr. Richards or my mom.
“I was just explaining to your mom that your brother is going to stand trial.”
“Stand trial? What does that mean?” I asked not sitting down, “Is he well now?”
Mr. Richards glanced at my mother then back at me.
“As I was explaining to your mother, Daniel has been moved to the county jail. The hospital says he can assist in his own defense. I have met with him and I have my doubts whether he really will be able to assist much. However, they have him on medication and he seems to have stabilized so we can start the process of getting ready for Daniel to be tried. I am going to have him examined again before we proceed. After talking with Daniel, I have decided that an insanity defense just might work in his case.” Mr. Richards was speaking smoothly and firmly.
“What does that mean?” I asked. “What does the insanity defense mean?”
“It means that I am going to try to prove that Daniel was not responsible for his crimes because he suffers from a mental disease. I am going to try to prove that he was not aware that he was doing something wrong when he killed Naomi Tillson and Phillip Moretti.”
“How can you prove that?” I asked the air more than Mr. Richards. How can you prove that someone didn’t know shooting a woman in the head wasn’t wrong?
“Luckily, your brother kept rather extensive journals. The police have them as evidence. He has also been under the care of doctors. It seems he was very delusional during the commission of the crimes.”
“Does that mean he will be able to come home?” my mother asked. Her face was so hopeful it hurt me to look at her.
“No,” Mr. Richards said, “no, I’m sorry. If the jury acquits him, he’ll have to stay in the hospital for a long time. However, it does open the door for him to come home someday.”
My mother sucked in air. You could just hear her filling with hope but I knew it wasn’t real hope. Danny would never come home. I had accepted that, my mother never would.
“Please don’t get your hopes up,” Mr. Richards went on, “first there will be the trial. That could take a very long time. But I will keep you informed. There is some good news, however. You will be able to visit Daniel in the county jail when he isn’t in court. Call the jail, the number is in the phone book. They have regular visiting hours. It would be good for Daniel to get some family support. You will also be able to attend the trial if you’d like. You wouldn’t have to come every day. But it might be good for Daniel if he saw you there. ”
Mr. Richards stood up.
“Oh thank you, thank you,” my mother kept repeating.
I watched Mr. Richards drive away. This was the first good news we received in a long time. We certainly needed it. I also knew this would be good for my mother. If Daniel was close, even if he was in jail, and my mother could visit him maybe she would come out of this funk she was in. Maybe Dan was getting better. He was seeing a doctor and getting medication. Maybe then I could leave with Lindy and not feel guilty. Even though I tried not to I, too, began to fill with hope.
Chapter Twenty-One
Melinda Mavis Stevenson died Tuesday, February 17, 1975, after a long illness. She is survived by her parents, Linda and Frank Stevenson. There will be no visitation. Mass of the Resurrection at St. Mary’s of the Snow will be celebrated Thursday, February 19th at noon. Burial will be at the convenience of the family.
I promised myself I wouldn’t read the paper but the headline was too obvious: “Sawyer Shooter to Stand Trial.” Another read, “Sawyer Shooter to Plead Insanity.” I wasn’t happy about the idea of a trial. All our personal business would be plastered in the papers each day. I didn’t want our names in everyone’s mouths. But, finally, we were moving forward. Things were finally happening again. I got the feeling that somehow, after the trial, problems would resolve and we would be able to live again. Once the trial was over, it would be over. Whether Dan was guilty or incompetent didn’t much matter; what mattered was the whole thing would be done.
It was late afternoon before I got to the hospital. That day, my mom had a lot of errands she wanted me to run. It was a good sign. It meant she was starting to live again, too, so I didn’t complain. I also wanted to get flowers for Lindy. I arrived as the early winter sun was beginning to dip below the horizon. I tried to find the nice nurse who let me in to see her the day before. I couldn’t find her so I stopped at the nurses’ station.
“I’m here to see Melinda Stevenson,” I said. A nurse looked up. She didn’t look convinced so I added, “I was here yesterday.”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “Miss Stevenson is not here.”
“Where is she?”
I should have known right in that moment. The nurse stood straight and silent. There were other nurses at the desk. They all stopped their work and looked at me.
“I’m so sorry,” the nurse said, “but Melinda passed away this morning.”
I just stood there frozen to the spot. I knew the nurse had said something but I couldn’t make sense of it.
“Melinda...” the nurse started to speak. She stepped out from behind the desk and put her hand on my shoulder, “Her heart was just too weak. I’m so sorry.”
I threw the flowers on the floor; hot tears were forming in my eyes. Not knowing what to do, I turned and raced for the stairs.
“Young man!” someone was calling. “Young man, please come back.”
I sat in my car for hours in the cold unable to move. When I finally got home, it was very late and dark.
I read her obituary in the next day’s paper. It was brief:
I read the obituary many times. I kept it on the dresser in my new room, the one that still smelled of paint. When I thought I had imagined her death, I would go to my room and re-read it. I had not imagined it. I did not know how this could be happening to me.
The day after Lindy died, I read that Frank Stevenson had been arrested for molesting his fifteen-year-old daughter. They showed a picture of him in the paper in handcuffs. They explained that an autopsy had been done and signs of abuse had been discovered. Now I knew why Lindy had been so desperate to leave town. The day following that, I went to the Mass of the Resurrection at St. Mary’s of the Snow but it felt like no celebration. I sat way in the back. Only Lindy’s mother was there and a few people who must have been relatives. The next day, I found her new grave in the Heavenly Rest Cemetery. The new grave in the white snow had not been difficult to find at all.
Then there was just one big next day that never ended. It didn’t matter if it was Monday or Saturday or Tuesday. It was just one big same day after same day. I stopped going to the library, and just like Lindy had said, my report card came back with all Bs. I didn’t ever tell my mother about Lindy or her death. She never noticed any change in me because all her days were the same, too. If the news was good
from Mr. Richards, she’d get up and leave her bedroom, if it was bad, she would sleep all day. Daniel got put in solitary confinement so we couldn’t go and visit him. The editorials in the paper called for his death. The phone got turned off. When the electricity got turned off, I finally went to the bank. My mother still had some money from the insurance company, so I paid for the electricity but never did get the phone turned back on. I didn’t want to deal with the calls.
Thanksgiving came, as did Christmas. My mother and I celebrated neither. I don’t know if she even knew they had come and gone. When my mother couldn’t go and see Daniel, she tried to send a package to the jail but for reasons never explained to us it was returned. When it came back, it was mostly empty. Someone had stolen the contents. Daniel was sent back to the hospital in Hutton for a few weeks but Mr. Richards said not to worry; things were progressing. But they weren’t. Nothing was progressing. Nothing would ever be progressing ever again.
There was snow on the ground now, so Mom must have noticed the change of season. But then again, maybe not. My aunt and uncle invited us to Holyoke for Easter. But I know my mom didn’t respond. They had a buyer for their house in the early spring. I drove by and saw the moving truck outside. It looked like a nice family: a young couple and a baby.
I started to sneak swallows out of my mother’s vodka bottles. At first, it was just to sleep at night. Then it was all the time. She never knew. It helped me sleep and sleep was all I wanted to do anymore. I remembered Lindy saying, “I just want to fall asleep someday. Forever.” Now I knew what she meant. I wanted to fall asleep and not wake up. I craved that forever sleep and yet something made me keep waking up.
Chapter Twenty-Two
On April 6, 1976, a month before my seventeenth birthday, the bicentennial year, two uniformed officers came to our door. My brother Daniel had been killed during a fight upon his return to the county jail. He had been stabbed in the stomach and bled out before they could get him to the emergency room. I didn’t even bother to ask how much time had passed between my brother getting stabbed and his ambulance ride to the emergency room. My mother stared at the officers, her hair matted against her head, her bare shins sticking out from beneath her robe. The next day the papers read, “Sawyer Shooter Killed in Jail Fight.” Letters to the editor said he got what he deserved. There were pictures of the smiling Tillsons and Morettis in the paper.
We had only graveside services for my brother. He was buried next to my father. Uncle Elliot and Aunt May came down for the service. It was such a beautiful day: clear blue sky, the flowers were blooming and the buds on the trees were greening into leaves. My mother had grown thin over the winter. She wore a dark blue suit and it hung limp on her frame. Her hair had turned white. My hair had gotten long and I combed it back like a young Elvis Presley, not because I wanted to look stylish but because it was easy.
After the service, my uncle tried to give the priest forty dollars but he refused it. I walked over to Lindy’s grave. Her mother had not yet gotten her a stone, and the small silver placard with her name, year of birth and death was all that marked the spot. The dirt was still bare and rough. My uncle approached me and put his arm around my shoulder. We were quiet for a while.
“Well, you know it’s probably for the best.”
I heard his words but they did not register.
“What?” I said, pulling away from him.
“There was no good ending to this, Bud, no good ending at all. This is probably the best ending there could have been.”
I stood there for a moment looking at my uncle.
“So, you’re saying that the best thing for Danny was to be stabbed in the stomach in a fucking nut house where they were probably over medicating him and abusing him? Yeah, Uncle Elliot, that’s a great ending. I’m so happy for Danny. I’m so happy for me and Mom. This is a great ending. Why don’t we have a party and invite the whole town? How would that be, dear old Uncle Elliot?”
“I don’t know what’s got into you,” he said. “You used to be such a good kid. Now you’re nothing but a backtalking little bastard.”
“And you’re such a swell guy, is that it?”
“I did a lot for you and your brother. For your mother.”
“Really, Uncle Elliot? You did so much for us? The only reason you did anything for us is because you were embarrassed. You were embarrassed about what people would say about us, about you. You didn’t care about us. You cared about what people were saying. And when we needed you the most, you abandoned us.”
“I did a lot for you two. You can’t deny that.”
“The only reason you did anything for us is because my father committed suicide. You wanted people to say what a great guy you were by taking care of his kids. You were shamed into taking care of us. But look at where that got you, right?”
“You really are an ungrateful little brat. This is all your mother’s fault. She drove my brother off that bridge; I have no doubt of that. Then look at what she did to Danny. And now you.”
“You blame Mom for all of this?”
I could not believe what I was hearing.
“He never should have married her. He was going to join the Navy, get out of this town, make something of himself, then your mother...” Uncle Elliot stopped speaking“My mother what?”
“She got pregnant. It’s the oldest trick in the book. Trapping a man.”
I hit him and hit him hard. I landed my punch directly to his jaw. But my uncle was a much bigger man than I am. He caught me hard in the side of the head and I fell on Lindy’s grave.
“Elliot!” I heard both my aunt and mother scream. “What are you doing?”
I tasted the dirt on the top of Lindy’s grave in my mouth.
“You son of a bitch,” I growled wiping the dirt from my mouth. “You selfish, self-serving son of a bitch.”
My mother was kneeling beside me and my aunt was pulling on my uncle.
“Go with them, Mom,” I said. “I’ll walk home.”
“What happened?” She was smoothing my chin with her hand, wiping off the dirt.
“It’s ok, Mom. Really. Just go with them. I’ll walk home.”
“It’s almost four miles, honey.”
“It’s ok. I will walk home. It’ll be good for me.”
She helped me to my feet. My aunt and uncle were in the car. The windows were closed but I could still hear my uncle yelling. My mother left hesitantly. I encouraged her. I watched the car drive away. I sat for a long time next to Lindy’s grave. It was dark when I finally decided to walk home.
Chapter Twenty-Three
At the end of June I got my high school diploma in the mail. I did not show my mother. I brought it to Lindy’s grave and left it there. I started going out at night, bringing a bottle of vodka and drinking on Lindy’s grave until I passed out or morning came, whichever happened first. I would wake up, my head near her grave marker. Or I’d wake up in the car. Sometimes, it took me awhile to remember where I was. I didn’t care.
One morning, after a full night of drinking in the graveyard, I failed to negotiate a curve and the car went over the embankment. I left it there and walked home. I fell asleep on my bed fully clothed. My mother woke me the next day, shaking me lightly.
“Gus, Gus, wake up please,”
“I’m tired, Mom,” I pulled the pillow around my head. It ached.
“Gus, there’s a police officer at the door. He said he found your car.”
I pulled myself to a sitting position. My mother was in her robe. There was bright light in the window. I assumed it was early afternoon. My mouth was dry and tasted bitter.
“Give me a minute.”
My mother left me. I pulled off my clothes. They were dirty from the night before. I washed my face in the bathroom; there was a bruise on my forehead. I tried to comb my hair over to cover it. I brushed my teeth and put on a clean T-shirt and a pair of jeans.
“Good morning, Mr. Woodard,” the officer greeted me with a false c
heerfulness. There were two of them standing in the middle of the living room, both in Sawyer blue with a large gold patch on the left arm.
“Good morning,” I said.
“Do you know where your car is, Mr. Woodard?” his tone was sarcastic.
“In the driveway.” I tried to sound confident, clearheaded but my head was pounding.
“It wouldn’t be down an embankment on Dempsey Road now, would it?”
“No.” I shook my head. I went to the window, looked out where my car should have been, pretended to look for it there.
“What happened to it? Who took it?” I looked at them.
“You wouldn’t have been out last night, would you have, Mr. Woodard?”
“No.” I tried to sound incredulous.
“I told you he was here with me all night,” my mother said firmly.
Was my mother lying or did she really think I was here all night? Had she really become so detached from reality she had no idea I spent most of my nights away from her?
The officer nodded his head.
“You wouldn’t have been drinking last night, would you have, Mr. Woodard.”
“Absolutely not!” my mother gasped. “Gus is seventeen.”
We had not celebrated my seventeenth birthday. Actually, I thought my mother had forgotten all about it.
“Well, we’re going to have to take you in. I think you were out last night and tied one on. I think you were too drunk to negotiate that turn and I think you crashed your car. Then you walked home and your mom is covering for you. We’re going to charge you with at least leaving the scene of a motor vehicle accident.”
He was spinning me around, pulling out handcuffs.
‘No, no, you can’t do that,” my mother grabbed me. She was not steady on her feet and she fell.
“Mom!” I shouted and then said, “You bastards.”
He tightened the cuffs hard. No one offered to help my mother up. She sat on the floor, dazed and startled.
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