I’ll Become the Sea (13 page)

I take the long way down to Maryland, driving all afternoon on back roads. I keep the windows open and the music loud, hoping the wind and sound will force the thoughts from my mind. All it does is make my head ache.

My headlights illuminate the long gravel driveway of Sarah’s old house. Beyond an overgrown yard, a sagging porch fronts a blue clapboard colonial. Underneath the steps a spare key is hidden inside a fake rock.

This is the place I escaped to, with Sarah. Where breakfast was served every Sunday morning at eight by a mother who took care of her children. Vegetable omelets, homemade muffins. Cloth napkins, because she said Sundays were special and even children needed to feel fancy once in a while. In the guest room, a bed is still made up for me, left eternally for my use during visits to the prison. If Sarah’s mother were not in Cape Cod for the summer, I might feel tempted to lean on her as I sometimes do. But it’s for the best. What I have to do, I need to do alone.

I turn the key and step in, reaching for the light switch. Every inch of the house is known to me. The lights sputter on the tattered couch, the dusty rugs, the large stone fireplace. I drop my bag and sit down in a chair by the window.

The day of my father’s sentencing, my mother and I drove to the courthouse together. We did not expect good news. We had been fighting. In her mind, I had taken her husband, leaving her to fend for herself, something she had never been good at doing. She’d been forced to take a job she hated at the mall, working double shifts. At night she came home to me. A sullen teenager who wanted too much from her, who expected too much.

I don’t know what I thought was going to happen. I waited with her in the courtroom, thinking that once it was over we could find a way to be happy without him. That we were safe. That we could make a new life.

They read his sentence while beside me she gripped her purse against her chest. Afterward, I stopped in the bathroom and she slipped out of the courthouse without me. When I found my way home, the doors to the house were locked. She had taken my key.

I stayed with Sarah for the rest of the summer.

Five years later I met Ben. I loved him instantly. And he loved the person I most wanted to become: intellectual, confident, above it all. The fact that he had little use for the person I actually was did not occur to me then.

I can’t blame him for keeping me at a distance. I wanted him to. I was safe that way. He helped me make sure I would never feel anything again so deeply, that I would never again be caught off guard. And it worked, until I met David. Until David blew all my defenses wide open. Until I gave him the power to hurt me, and he used it.

I sit in the chair at Sarah’s house and look out the window.

What I have to face tomorrow, I will face by myself. I will meet my father. We will agree to a plan for the parole hearing. I will call the man’s family as he has asked me to do and I will move on with my life.

I will put the past behind me.

The whole past.

The beatings. The murder. The prison. Ben. David.

All of it.

*  *  *

He sits with his hands clasped, waiting for me. I walk in and take a seat across the table.

“Hi, Dad.”

He tries for a smile. “Hello, Janie.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Good. I’m good. How about you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Must have been a long drive.”

“Yeah. I stopped last night at Sarah’s old house. Her mom’s out of town. Remember Sarah?”

“Skinny girl, talks a lot?”

“Yes, that’s her.”

“Not staying with your mom then?”

“No.”

“She coming today?”

“I don’t know, Dad.”

“I told her to bring me some more books. I ran out of things to read.”

“Still reading a lot?”

“Not much else to do, is there? When they don’t have you going to meetings and all that.”

“You’ve been going to the meetings?”

“Like a good little boy, yes.”

“How is it?”

“Ah, fine I guess. I know it’s supposed to be good for me. I just can’t relate to these guys.”

“What do you mean?”

“These urban guys. Involved in God knows what. Anyway, I go.”

“You don’t have some things in common, though?”

“Yeah, I know, we all drank. But I’m through with that now. I mean come on, I been in here twelve years. Haven’t laid a hand on it in all that time. You think when I get out I’m gonna take that risk? No. I mean, one day at a time and all that. But I just don’t want it. I don’t think I need a roomful of screw-ups to tell me that.”

“If you get out, though, Dad…”

“Be positive now. When I get out.”

“Okay, when you get out. It’s going to be different, it’s going to be really hard. Maybe you’d want to still go to some meetings, to get some support.”

“Yeah, maybe. But I got your ma, she’ll set me up.”

“You’re looking forward to being back home?”

“Well, yeah, course I am.”

“You’re going to be good to her then?”

He narrows his eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Dad.”

“Of course I’ll be good to her. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Well…”

“I mean she says she’s changed, so why shouldn’t I believe her?”

“She’s…changed?”

“Yeah. You know, she wasn’t the easiest woman to live with.”

“Not an easy woman? What are you…?”

“Come on. Let’s not rewrite history here. I’m no angel, but she can be a handful, and you know that.”

“Dad, I…I think it was hard for her, living with you.”

“Well, sure. I had my temper too.”

“It was…Dad…it was more than temper.”

“Okay, look. I know things got a little rough. But that was the alcohol talking, when those particular incidents took place. That wasn’t me. And anyway…”

“Anyway?”

“Look, I don’t know how we got started talking about this. Bottom line, your mom and I are copacetic. We got an understanding now. So…are we okay?”

Under the table I press my fingernails into the palms of my hands.

Later.

I will think about this later.

“Sure, Dad.”

He smiles at me. “See, I knew you’d understand. You always understand.”

I sit still, waiting for him to speak again.

“So listen.” He leans forward. “About tomorrow…”

“Tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Hey, by the way, I read your statement. Very nice, kiddo, very nice. I think they’ll like that. Bring that to the hearing and we’re golden. I been good in here. Maybe a few scrap-ups, but not lately. I’ve been keeping my nose clean. No reason it won’t go well.”

I swallow, nodding. “Right.”

“You just call the guy’s wife, like we said. Say what you have to say, like we talked about. Just like in the statement you wrote, that was great. And we’ll be home free.”

“Home free.” I hear a bell ring, see the guard in the corner stand.

“That’s our time, Janie.” He stands, blows me a kiss across the table. “See you tomorrow.”

I force myself to rise, to offer him a smile. “Bye, Daddy.”

Walking through the series of locked doors to the outside, I order my mind to stay empty. I keep the thoughts out until I reach the parking lot. And in the hot, closed-up rental car, I put my face in my hands.

A minute later, I pick up the phone.

“City and state, please.”

“Hi. I need a number in Ocean City, Maryland.”

I arrive at the hearing exactly on time, carrying my letter for the parole board sealed in a crisp white envelope.

I sit down next to my mother. In the small, artificially cool room the smell of her floral deodorant is overpowering. She gives me a tight smile and turns to face the wall of two-way glass in front of us. The blinds are closed, but she stares at it as though afraid to miss something.

The family of the man my father killed is in the room. They sit to our right. The son is a teenager now. He holds his mother’s hand. His hair is cut short, almost military style, his pants and dress shirt pressed and clean. If his dad were here, he would be wearing the rumpled, too-large clothes of a regular adolescent, enjoying the luxury of rebellion. Instead he has had a mother to take care of. She leans into his arm, pale.

She waits for the blinds to open, for my father to be brought in. Beside her sits a small group of supporters—siblings and friends, presumably. My mother and I are the only attendants on behalf of my dad.

Two corrections officers stand near the door, there to prevent contact between the two families. They are hardly necessary. We do not acknowledge one another.

The door opens and two men in sport coats enter the room. They tell us what to expect from the meeting: the structure, the possible outcomes. They are professional men, kindly. They speak in the cadence of people who have worked for decades in the legal system.

“Any questions? Anything we’re not clear about?”

We are silent, and they leave, closing the door behind them.

The blinds open. The parole commissioners sit behind a desk, facing us. Before them stand two unopened bottles of water. My father is brought in. He wears prison-issued clothing: a denim shirt, khaki pants, work shoes. He carries a folder in his hand. They seat him in a chair facing the commissioners, his back to us. We can’t see his face.

The man’s family is asked to give their statement. They are reminded to keep their remarks to eight minutes. His widow rises, crossing in front of my mother and me to reach the lectern. She does not look at us. She stands before the commission, holding the sides of the lectern with both hands. Her voice will be transmitted to the other room by speaker.

She stares at my father’s back. I see only her shoulders, the way they begin to shake. She tries to speak and cannot. She looks to her son.

He goes to her, brushing past us, putting his arm around her and guiding her back to the rest of their family. He returns to the lectern himself, alone, facing the commissioners through the glass.

“I…” He clears his throat. “I was five years old when my father died.”

Startled, I think of David. I think of his face when he spoke of losing his father. This child had been even younger.

“He just didn’t come home one night. He was supposed to come home, and then he didn’t. And my mom, she didn’t stop crying for weeks. For months. Look at her. She still can’t even talk about it. He was everything to us. He stopped at a bar for a beer one night. That’s all. He was with some friends. One of them was a woman, and this man…”

He points to my father.

“This man was giving her a hard time. Trying to make her dance with him. The lady worked with my dad—she was the secretary at his office. He was trying to get Mr. Elliott here to back off. That’s what his friends said. He was just trying to get this guy to leave the woman alone, and then he takes out a knife. He took out this huge knife and stabbed my dad in the chest. What kind of a person does something like that? How do you expect someone like that to get rehabilitated? Look, I don’t care what he says. I’m sure he’s gonna say he’s been good and nice in prison and won’t ever hurt anybody again, but you shouldn’t believe him. His…his own daughter doesn’t believe him.”

I close my eyes. I feel my mother’s face turning toward me.

“She called us. She told us she was going to write you a letter, saying he hasn’t changed, he’s just going to do something like this again. That he…that he beat her mother all the time, that he beat her so hard sometimes he almost killed her. She said he was hurting her mom bad that same night that he…that he…and she made him leave the house and that’s when he went to the bar.”

My mother hisses in my ear. “You little bitch.”

The boy turns away from the glass, to me.

“Listen, miss, I just want you to know, it’s not your fault. My mom and I, we never blamed you or your family for anything. He’s the one that did it. He did it.”

He turns back to the commission.

“And I don’t think you should let him out on parole. Not now. It’s only been twelve years. That’s half his sentence. Half. For killing a good man. A husband and a father. He never had a mean word for anybody. He didn’t deserve to die like that. Nobody does. I’m asking you please. Don’t let this man out.”

I have been watching the boy’s back while he speaks. I have been afraid to look through the glass at my father. At last, in the silence, I meet his gaze. He is turned around in his seat, his face hideously blank. I do not look away. The parole commissioners instruct him to face forward. They begin to ask him questions.

He says what anyone would expect him to say. All the lies I convinced myself were true, that even he must believe.

“And what do you make, Mr. Elliott, of the fact that your own family opposes your parole?”

He shifts in his seat. “Family?”

“Your daughter, Mr. Elliott.”

“I don’t have a daughter.”

I drive slowly, winding back to Sarah’s house as the setting sun spills color over the sky. My body feels filled with water. Through the open windows I smell the evening dew in the air, hear the distant honking of geese in the meadows beside the road. Every nerve in my body is humming.

I think about the chicken I will roast in the evening, sitting now in a canvas bag in the backseat, the dark bread I bought at the grocery store, the spinach, the strawberries. I think about the fire I will build outside, watching the birds cascading over the lake.

Beside me on the passenger seat my cell phone rings. I pull over to the side of the road.

“Hello?”

“Jane, it’s me.”

“Oh, Sarah. Thank goodness. Hi.”

“Are you okay?”

I pause, thinking that over. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine. It was hard, but…”

“Listen…”

“I didn’t go through with it.”

“I know. I know what happened. Your mom called me.”

I hold the steering wheel, trying to stay calm as a truck speeds by, rocking the rental car.

“What happened? Is she all right? Why did she call you?”

“She wanted to know where you were. She was out of her mind.”

“What?”

“I could barely get the story out of her.”

I feel the knot rise in my throat, the old familiar ache spreading across my chest.

“She’s coming up to New York to stay with me tonight.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t want her anywhere near you. They denied parole. She said you left during the deliberation. They refused him, honey. And he went into a fit. Stood up and threw his chair. Lunged for the guard, tried to hit him. One of the parole guys started to say he didn’t think your dad was ready to be released, and he went crazy. They had to restrain him, they took him out of the room.”

“Oh, my God.”

“This is probably pointless, but I want her with me. Maybe I can talk some sense into her. Make her understand you’re all she’s got. But right now…I want her away from you. You need to take care of yourself and not listen to her bullshit.”

“But…”

“Knowing you, you’d probably let her off the hook.”

I take a deep, long breath.

“You did exactly the right thing today, Jane.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. And it’s about fucking time.”

“Sarah!”

“Anyway, I wanted you to know what’s going on. But I don’t want you to worry. She’s coming here to me. I’ll make her some lasagna and a glass of wine and we’ll watch some old movies on TV.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

“Shut up.” On the other end of the line, the muffled sound of a tissue crackles against the phone. “Go back to the house and relax tonight. You’ve had the world’s shittiest day. Call me in the morning and let me know how you’re doing. I’ll give you an update on Linda, but for tonight, I don’t want you to think about her. Just you. And listen…”

“Yes?” I reach for a wad of napkins in the glove box.

“I’m proud of you. It took a lot of guts, what you did.”

I smile, blowing my nose. “Thank you.”

“Just remember that tonight. Remember how strong you are.”

“Tonight? What do you mean?”

“Nothing. Just…take care, okay?”

“Okay. I love you, Sarah.”

“I love you too. Now go.”

I put the car into gear and ease back onto the road. Taking a deep breath, I roll the car windows all the way down, drawing the late day air into my lungs.

Driving, I let the wind dry my tears and whip through my hair. I put on some music, turning the volume up high. Leaning back, I give myself over to it, thinking of nothing, letting the music wash over me. By the time I reach the house, I am almost calm.

I turn into the driveway and my heart stops.

David.