Part 16 (1/2)

The only reason I was able to drag myself out of bed at all those first few months was because there was someone more needy than I was. As a newborn, Claire didn't have a choice. She had to be fed and diapered and held. She kept me so grounded in the present that I had to let go of my hold on the past. I credit her with saving my life. Maybe that's why I am so determined to reciprocate.

But even having Claire to care for was not foolproof. The smallest things would send me into a downward spiral: while pressing seven birthday candles into her cake, I'd think of Elizabeth, who would have been fourteen. I'd open a box in the garage and breathe in the scent of the miniature cigars Kurt liked to smoke every now and then. I'd open up a pot of Vaseline and see Elizabeth's tiny finger print, preserved on the surface. I would pull a book off a shelf and a shopping list would flutter out of it, in Kurt's handwriting: thumbtacks, milk, rock salt. thumbtacks, milk, rock salt.

What I would like to tell Shay Bourne about the impact this crime had on my family is that it erased my family, period. What I would like to do is bring him back to the moment Claire, four, perched on the stairs to stare at a picture of Elizabeth and asked where the girl who looked like her lived. I would like him to know what it feels like to have to run your hand up the terrain of your own body, and underneath your nights.h.i.+rt, only to realize that you cannot surprise yourself with your own touch.

I would like to show him the spot in the room he built, Claire's old nursery, where there is a bloodstain on the floorboards that I cannot scrub clean. I'd like to tell him that even though I carpeted the room years ago and turned it into a guest bedroom, I still do not walk across it, but instead tiptoe around the perimeter when I have to go inside.

I would like to show him the bills that came from the hospital every time Claire was sent there, which quickly consumed the money we received from the insurance company after Kurt died. I'd like him to come with me to the bank, the day I broke down in front of the teller and told her that I wanted to liquidate the college fund of Elizabeth Nealon.

I would like to feel that moment when Elizabeth was sitting in my lap and I was reading to her, and she went boneless and soft, asleep in my arms. I would like to hear Kurt call me Red again, for my hair, and tangle his fingers in it as we watch television in the bedroom at night. I would like to pick up the dirty socks that Elizabeth strewed about the house, a tiny tornado, the same reason I once yelled at her. I would love to fight with Kurt over the size of the MasterCard bill.

If they had to die, I would have loved to have known in advance, so that I could take each second spent with them and know to hold on to it, instead of a.s.suming there would be a million more. If they had to die, I would have loved to have been there, to be the last face they saw, instead of his.

I would like to tell Shay Bourne to go to h.e.l.l, because wherever he winds up after he dies, it had better not be anywhere close to my daughter and my husband.

MICHAEL.

”Why?” June Nealon asked. Her voice was striped with rust and sorrow, and in her lap, her hands twisted. ”Why did you do it?” She lifted her gaze, staring at Shay. ”I let you into my home. I gave you a job. I trusted trusted you. And you, you took everything I had.” you. And you, you took everything I had.”

Shay's mouth was working silently. He moved from side to side in his little booth, hitting his forehead sometimes. His eyes fluttered, as if he was trying hard to organize what he had to say. ”I can fix it,” he said finally.

”You can't fix anything,” she said tightly.

”Your other little girl-”

June stiffened. ”Don't you talk about her. Don't you even breathe her name. Just tell me. I've waited eleven years to hear it. Tell me why you did this.”

He squeezed his eyes shut; sweat had broken out on his brow. He was whispering, a litany meant to convince himself, or maybe June. I leaned forward, but the noise from the kitchen obliterated his words. And then whatever had been sizzling was taken off the grill, and we all heard Shay, loud and clear: ”She was better off dead.”

June shot to her feet. Her face was so pale that I feared she would fall over, and I rose just in case. Then blood rushed, hot, into her cheeks. ”You b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” she said, and she ran outside.

Maggie tugged on my jacket. ”Go,” she mouthed.

I followed June past the two officers and through the anteroom. She burst through the double doors and into the parking lot without even bothering to pick up her driver's license at the control booth, trading back her visitor's pa.s.s. I was certain she would rather go to the DMV and pay for a replacement than set foot in this prison again.

”June,” I yelled. ”Please. Wait.”

I finally cornered her at her car, an old Ford Taurus with duct tape around the rear b.u.mper. She was sobbing so hard that she couldn't get the key into the lock.

”Let me.” I opened the door and held it for her so that she could sit down, but she didn't. ”June, I'm sorry-”

”How could he say that? She was a little girl. A beautiful, smart, perfect little girl.”

I gathered her into my arms and let her cry on my shoulder. Later, she would regret doing this; later, she would feel that I had manipulated the situation. But for right now, I held her until she could catch her breath.

Redemption had very little to do with the big picture, and far more to do with the particulars. Jesus might forgive Shay, but what good was that if Shay didn't forgive himself? It was that impetus that drove him to give up his heart, just as I was driven to help him do it because it would cancel out my vote to execute him in the first place. We couldn't erase our mistakes, so we did the next best thing and tried to do something that distracted attention from them.

”I wish I could have met your daughter,” I said softly.

June pulled away from me. ”I wish you could have, too.”

”I didn't ask you here to hurt you all over again. Shay truly does want to make amends. He knows the one good thing to come out of his life might be his death.” I looked at the Constantine wire running along the top of the prison fence: a crown of thorns for a man who wanted to be a savior. ”He's taken away the rest of your family,” I said. ”If nothing else, let him help you keep Claire.”

June ducked into her car. She was crying again as she lurched out of the parking spot. I watched her pause at the exit of the prison, her blinker marking time.

Then, suddenly, her brake lights came on. She sped backward, stopping beside me with only inches to spare. She unrolled the window on the driver's side. ”I'll take his heart,” June said, her voice thick. ”I'll take it, and I'll watch that son of a b.i.t.c.h die, and we still still won't be even.” won't be even.”

Too stunned to find any words, I nodded. I watched June drive off, her taillights winking as red as the eyes of any devil.

Maggie

”Well,” I said when I saw Father Michael walking back into the prison, dazed, ”that sucked.”

At the sound of my voice, he looked up. ”She's taking the heart.”

My mouth dropped open. ”You're kidding.”

”No. She's taking it for all the wrong reasons ... but she's taking it.”

I could not believe it. Following the debacle in the restorative justice meeting, I would have more easily accepted that she'd gone out to buy an Uzi to exact her own justice against Shay Bourne. My mind began to kick into high gear: if June Nealon wanted Shay's heart-for whatever reason-then there was a great deal I had to do.

”I'll need you to write an affidavit, saying that you're Shay's spiritual advisor and that his religious beliefs include donating his heart.”

He drew in his breath. ”Maggie, I can't put my name on a court doc.u.ment about Shay-”

”Sure you can. Just lie,” I said, ”and go to confession afterward. You're not doing this for you; you're doing it for Shay. And we'll need a cardiologist to examine Shay, to see if his heart's even a match for Claire.”

The priest closed his eyes and nodded. ”Should I go in and tell him?”

”No,” I said, smiling. ”Let me.”

After a slight detour, I walked through the metal detectors again and was taken to the attorney-client room outside I-tier. A few minutes later, a grumbling officer showed up with Shay. ”He keeps getting moved around like this, the state's going to have to hire him a chauffeur.”

I rubbed my thumb and forefinger together, the world's smallest violin.

Shay ran his hands through his hair, making it stand on end; the s.h.i.+rt of his prison scrubs was untucked. ”I'm sorry,” he said immediately.

”I'm not the one who could have used the apology,” I replied.

”I know.” He squinched his eyes shut, shook his head. ”There were eleven years of words in my head, and I couldn't get them out the way I wanted.”