by M. Leighton
I can tell he doesn’t like it, but he doesn’t argue. “Why don’t you brush your teeth and stuff while I walk Sloane out?”
He grunts something and pushes past me, obviously displeased. But at least he’s not fighting me at every turn.
I help Sloane with the last of the dishes and then go back to check on Travis. He’s lying, fully clothed, diagonal across his bed, crashed.
I pull the door up so that we don’t wake him and I walk Sloane out.
She stops on the stoop. “So, this girl…”
I turn to face my sister. “What about her?”
“You love her.” She’s not grinning or teasing me. She’s not gloating or goading me. She’s genuine and serious. And maybe even a little worried.
“So what if I do?”
She nods, holding her tongue for a few seconds. “I just…I wish that…”
When her pause doesn’t end, I prompt her. “What the hell, woman? Spit it out.”
“I know how you are, Sig. I know you’ve never really wanted to love somebody, not in the permanent kind of way.”
“I love you idiots that I’m related to,” I say jokingly.
“That’s not what I mean and you know it. It’s just that… God, I just hate that when you finally found someone to give your heart to, she turns out to be a felon. One that comes with enough baggage to–”
“Stop right there,” I interrupt, my temper flaring. “She’s not a felon. And she has less baggage than I do. A sick mother and a brother. That’s all, but it’s enough to break most people.” I take a deep breath to calm down. “Look, you don’t even know her and I’d appreciate you keeping comments like this to yourself until you at least meet her. She’s not who you think she is.”
Her eyebrows are raised, her eyes wide, and she’s backtracking. “Okay, okay. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just thought…”
“Well don’t. Don’t think. You don’t know half of what’s going on. Dad only knows what I told him.”
This time she does smile. “Maybe Dad knows more than what you think.”
“Like what?”
“He thinks you love her.”
“So what if I do?”
“Nothing. Not…well, not really. We all want that for you.”
“Thanks, but I don’t need your permission.”
“I know you don’t. Look, don’t get all defensive. I’m just worried about you.”
“Well, don’t be. I know what I’m doing.”
“Sig, you’ve never wanted…this. This kind of relationship. Love. And I’m just concerned that now that you’re jumping in…”
“I’m not jumping in.”
“Okay, okay. I just…Just forget it.” She raises her hands in surrender.
Now I feel bad. I sigh and run a hand through my hair. “I appreciate the concern, but I know what I’m doing. Just trust me.”
“I do trust you, Sig. I just worry about what will happen if this doesn’t work out like you think. You never wanted to fall in love, to risk losing someone like we lost Mom. And now that you’re taking the chance, it’s on a woman who…”
“It’ll all work out. One way or the other. I promised her I’d fix this and I have every intention of keeping that promise.”
After a few seconds of mulling over my words, Sloane narrows her eyes on me. “You-you aren’t considering doing something stupid, are you?”
“Like what?”
She leans in closer, like if looks hard enough she might be able to find an answer. “Like something stupid.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve talked to the DA. It’ll all work out.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“It will.”
“But if it doesn’t?” Her voice is getting louder, more frantic. “Sig, promise me that you won’t do something crazy like throw your life away for this girl.”
“I’m not going to–”
“Sig, promise me.”
I stare down into my sister’s knowing eyes, so much wiser than what I ever gave her credit for. Maybe living with a tattoo artist has given her a lot of life experience in a short amount of time.
“I can’t promise you anything,” I confess evenly.
Sloane gasps. She knows what this means for someone like me. For someone like the people in our family, who bleed blue and never bend when it comes to the law. “You’d do that? For her?”
She’s asking if I’d give up my career for Tommi. If I’d give up my family for her. If I’d give up my life, all that I’ve worked for and all that I know for her.
And the answer is yes. Because my entire existence would be shit without her.
I cross my arms over my chest. “I’d do anything for her. I just hope I won’t have to.”
Mouth hanging open, Sloane stares at me for a couple of minutes before she says anything else. And even then, she’s brief. “I hope she’s worth it.”
“She is. She already is.”
My sister leans in, rising up on her toes to kiss my cheek. “I love you, big brother.”
“I love you, too, little troublemaker.”
Her smile is hardly visible as she turns and walks off down the driveway.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - TOMMI
I haven’t slept a wink all night long. I’ve cried until I ache from my stomach all the way up to the top of my head, yet I’m not tired. Not really. I’m exhausted, but I’m not tired. My mind won’t shut off long enough to let me get tired.
I’ve been curled up in a ball on my cot most of the night. I tried to sleep, even pretended to be asleep for a while. It was the middle of the night–I don’t know what time exactly–when I heard muffled footsteps coming down the hall of the jail. I didn’t move. I just waited. It was dark in my cell, but fairly bright outside it. Through the slits of my eyes, I saw an enormous shadow fall over me. I didn’t need to see the details of his face or his body to know that it was Sig. I could smell him, sense him, feel him. I don’t know why I feigned sleep. But I did.
He stood watching me for a long time. Maybe close to fifteen minutes. At one point, I saw him shift and lean his forehead against the bars. I heard him sigh so deeply, I think I felt his breath fall across my cheek. But he didn’t say anything. Didn’t make another sound, in fact. Neither did I. What do you say to the man you love when he’s the man who put you in jail?
Well, last night I said nothing.
I wanted to ask about Travis, but I couldn’t bare it. Of course, I wanted him to be okay, but in a way, I hated the thought of him being just fine without me. All of a sudden, in the lonely concrete square of my life, it felt as though I wasn’t needed. Anywhere. By anybody. That even though I’d lived a lie and killed to protect him, Travis would just move on and be fine without me. That’s what I should want. It’s what I do want. It’s just hard to see that right now. When I’m locked up and everyone else is free.
After that, the harsh light of day seemed to bring nothing good. I was left alone with nothing but doubts and regrets and fears, crowding in on me. Eating away at me. Slow, like a cancer that was gnawing ruthlessly at my soul.
Sometime around lunch, I suppose, the DA came to see me. He told me that Tonin produced my brother’s frozen body and that the medical examiner will be conducting an autopsy immediately. He asked me what would be found. I told him.
He asked me other questions, let me tell my side of things. It was all very clinical and unemotional. I’m not sure that worked in my favor, but I just felt so cold and so…numb. Like I’d cried so much, I was empty inside.
After he left, I was taken back to my cell. To wait, I guess. To be tortured by minutes that tick by like years and a bleakness that threatened to drag me under.
Now, it’s afternoon. Despite the sun slanting through the window at the end of the hall, the world is getting darker and darker. I feel myself sinking into oblivion and the desire to resist it lessens with every passing minute.
Some time later–minutes or hours, I don’
t know–Sig comes. I don’t get up. I can’t. My legs, my arms, my head, they’re so heavy. So, so heavy.
He waits for me to move. When I don’t, he leaves for a few seconds and then comes back to an electronic click and the opening of my cell door.
He walks slowly into my little cubicle of hell. He says nothing. I say nothing. He watches me for a few seconds and then gently picks up my feet, sits on the end of my tiny bed, and sets them softly in his lap. Immediately, I feel his warmth seeping through my jumpsuit like he’s the only source of heat in a thousand miles. It almost scalds the skin of my calves. He doesn’t touch me for the longest time, like he’s afraid to. But then, as he relaxes against the cold concrete block of my cell, I feel his hand fall on my leg and he begins to trace imaginary shapes on my ankle.
That night, he comes back again. I pretend to sleep. He watches me without a word. Like a carbon copy of the night before.
The next day, the DA returns early. He shows me all kinds of papers and reads me all kinds of laws.
Basically, what the M.E. found corroborates my story. My brother was killed with one blow to the back of his head. He died instantly. Strangely, that gives me great comfort. I close my eyes. Squeeze them tight, fighting off another bout of tears. It surprises me to feel the burn and prickle of them. They seem to be the only thing sharp enough to penetrate my fog of late. But it doesn’t last long. Afterward, I’m merely apathetic as the DA talks to me about a confession and what it would mean, about the deal he would recommend to the judge and the implications of it. And his hope, not his promise, that it will go as planned.
All in all, despite the fancy terms that make it sound as though I’ll be a free woman if this works out, he still treats me like a common criminal, right down to the way his lips curl up in disgust when he looks at me.
I can’t blame him, though. When it boils down to it, I am a criminal. No judge will be able to wash that away, no matter what they decide to do with me. It’s the way the world will see me. The way Travis will see me. And Sig. The way I’ll see myself. I’ll always be a murderer. A girl who sold her soul to the devil. A woman who’s more a liability to the people around her than a help. Somehow bringing it all out into the light like this makes it seem more real. Uglier. Less escapable. I’ll never be able to leave the past behind. Because I’m the past. I’m the black stain on our lives now.
It occurs to me, on more than one occasion, that it might be better if they’d just put me to death. There are two people I love who would be so much better off without me. I bring nothing good to their lives. Because I am nothing good.
They’ll be fine. Great, even. Sig will make sure Travis is taken care of. I know in my heart that he will. They’ll put Momma in a facility where she can be better cared for, by someone smarter than me. And without that to worry about, the two things that I’ve worried about for half of my life, there’s nothing keeping me here. I will only bring hurt and embarrassment and shame to those I love if I stay.
I wrap my arms around my waist, drawing my legs up and turning my face into the musty County pillow. The hollow ache, the soul-deep pain–I don’t know how much longer I can suffer through it. I only want to be put out of my misery. And if the State of Georgia won’t do it, I wonder if I will have the courage to?
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - SIG
Eight days. That’s how long it takes the law to realize and accept the things that I’ve known all along–Tommi isn’t a felon. She’s a woman who grew from a girl who reacted in fear to a dangerous situation. Simple as that.
The judge agreed to the misdemeanor charges on both counts. He gave her community service for forging her mother’s checks, mainly because her mother is still alive and the recipient of the care afforded by the checks. If she had been dead, he might not have gone so easy on her. As for the murder, with all the facts that they were able to obtain, including the medical examiner’s report and Travis’s sworn statement about what he witnessed the night of his brother’s death, the case was open and closed.
Travis’s situation will take a little more time, but I’m not worried. He’s in better shape, legally, than Tommi was. He has agreed to testify against Chaps, which gained him a lot of leniency. And that fact that he’s no flight risk, which I personally guaranteed, means he gets to remain free.
All in all, everything worked out as I had hoped and planned. Tommi is free to pursue her life as Tia Lawrence with only a couple of misdemeanors attached to her sealed juvenile record, nothing that would ever prevent her from becoming gainfully employed. Travis will continue on in school. Everyone should live happily ever after.
Only it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like there’s a dark cloud and I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Travis and I arrived here at the jail fifteen minutes ago to get Tommi. We brought her clean street clothes to wear home rather than the ones she was booked in. If I had to guess, I’d say she’ll burn those as soon as she can. I probably would.
Tommi took the clothes with a vacant smile and when she was changed, the officer brought her down to collect her belongings and sign out. A free woman. But a changed one, it seems.
In the truck, I ask her, “Wanna get something to eat?”
“Let’s get pizza. We haven’t had it in a while,” Travis says, smiling at me in the rearview mirror.
I laugh. “Yeah, it’s not like we’ve had it twice for dinner and once for lunch in the last eight days.”
I glance over at Tommi. She’s staring out the windshield, a sad curve to her lips and a haunted look in her eyes. “Maybe we could get it to go. That way, you two could drop me at the house and then go get it to bring home. I’m a little tired and I could use a few minutes alone, if you don’t mind.”
I want to argue. I want to ask her what’s wrong. I want to make her smile and appreciate the second chance she’s been given. But I do none of those things. I guess she just needs time and space. It’s hard to tell what this whole traumatic experience has done to her.
“Sure. We can do that.” I peer into the rearview. “Right, Travis?”
He nods and flops back against the seat.
At her house, I walk Tommi to the door. She seems frail and unsteady. “Are you sure you’ll be okay here by yourself?”
She tries to give me a reassuring smile, but fails miserably. “I’m sure. I just need some time. Alone.”
I nod. I get it.
I get it, but I don’t like it. “Okay. Well, we won’t be long. And then be prepared to celebrate. Italian style.”
She nods again. Smiles slightly again. She’s like some strange reflection of the person I kissed just a little more than a week ago–not quite real, ready to shatter if I touch her.
I push the front door open. Before she crosses the threshold, I gently take her upper arm, stopping her. She looks up at me with those big, glistening green eyes. They’re so sad and empty they hurt me all the way to my soul.
I bend toward her slowly, so as not to startle her, and I press my lips to her cheek right near her mouth. Her skin is cool and clammy. “I’ll be right back.”
Again, she nods and pulls away from me, closing the door behind her before I can even make it off the step.
I try not to let Travis see my worry, but I can tell that he’s upset by her bizarrely distant behavior, too. I guess, like me, he thought she’d be ecstatic to have come out of this relatively unscathed. Only she doesn’t seem to be. In some ways, it doesn’t feel like she’s come out of this at all.
I call in the pizza and we pick it up, along with some breadsticks and soda. We drive straight home.
Back at the house, Travis walks on ahead while I carry everything in. I’m just setting the pizza on the kitchen table when I hear Travis’s shrill, “Sig!”
I don’t know why my name would alarm me so much. I don’t know why I would feel like someone reached inside my chest and ripped my heart out, breaking ribs and tearing skin in the process. I don’t know why I would feel like my life is hanging
in the balance, or like the sun might never shine again, but I do. All from one word.
I feel the blood drain away from my face when I race around the corner and see Travis sinking to his knees in front of the open bathroom door. Bile rises in my throat and my stomach turns in on itself before I even get a look inside. Some part of me already knows what I’ll find.
And that I can’t bear it.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - TOMMI
My body feels cold, which is a stark contrast to the trickling warmth coming from my wrists. It’s strange, though, because I notice it in a vague, sort of detached way like I might notice the sound of a lawnmower in the distance as I hang clothes on the line.
I let my mind drift in that direction, recalling a few happy memories of Travis when he was younger, playing badminton out back with me. I did the best I could for him. The very best I could.
Then, as if by magic, I hear him. It’s Travis. His voice is unmistakable. Only it sounds different. Panicked.
Reality comes rushing back, albeit a bit fuzzily, as I think about what I’ve done. I feel my first pang of regret. So lost in my own misery was I that, for once, I didn’t think of how Travis might feel about losing me, only that he’d be better off without me. But will he? Will he be better off with no family at all, versus one that’s as broken as I am? Will he be better off with one more nightmare to add to the long list of terrors he has to try and outrun, outlive?
I gasp, pulling air into my lungs. That’s when I catch the scent of something breathtakingly familiar.
Sig.
He always smells like soap and leather. I don’t know why. I’ve never seen him in leather, but it’s what I think of when I inhale him.
More sadness, more regret course through me, pouring out through the slices in my skin in rivers of red.
I feel big hands slide tenderly under my knees and back, lifting me out of the tub and cradling me against a hard chest. I sigh in relief, unable to think of a single place I’d rather be until I am simply…no more. Dead. Gone.