Just Mercy: A Novel (18 page)

THIRTY-THREE

Bernadette knew they were doing the right thing. Last night’s dream, strange as it was, left her no doubt about that. In the dream, she was in bed with her children, only they had curiously long arms and legs that were wrapped around each other like soggy noodles. An arm reached out to pull someone else into the bed. Then a leg did the same. Again and again they pulled others in until the mass of twisted arms and legs turned into the world’s largest ball of twine, like the one she’d seen during a third-grade field trip to Darwin, Minnesota. Only in the dream, the ball wasn’t twine but a mass of living, breathing bodies. As soon as she woke up that morning, she had told Marty she knew what she had to do, and he had agreed. They had both acknowledged that it wouldn’t be easy, especially for Annamaria, but there was no getting around that.

She called the kids right away and that very afternoon, at five o’clock sharp, Annamaria marched into the kitchen, followed by Fin and Patty, holding hands. Bernadette’s stomach started doing flip-flops. She took in a mouthful of air, blew it back out and silently chanted
breathe in love, breathe out fear
before ushering her family into the living room.

Marty stood next to her in front of the fireplace, and together they watched everyone get settled. Annamaria’s shoulders were pulled back and her head tipped up as she sat on the leather couch in a posture of self-assurance, but her eyes—a collage of anxiety, fear, and confusion—betrayed her. Patty plopped down next to Annamaria with a decisive thump, while Fin lowered himself into a lotus position on the Oriental rug in front of them. They all looked worried, and no wonder; they weren’t used to being summoned to a family meeting about something so important that it couldn’t wait until dinner, especially when Friday was just the next night.

Marty kissed Bernadette on the cheek. “You ready?” he asked.

She cleared her throat and opened her mouth to speak. But when she saw her children’s upturned faces looking first at her and then at Marty, a wave of lightheadedness came over her and beads of sweat broke out on her forehead. She placed her wobbly legs a few feet apart to keep them from caving in and held onto Marty’s arm for support. Then she took in a deep breath and let it out with a long whoosh.

“What’s wrong?” Fin asked.

“Give me a minute.” She held the palm of one hand up and pressed the forefinger of her other hand against her lips. It would be best to just get it all out at once, let them react in whatever way they had to
.
She opened her mouth again, only to find that all the words she’d so carefully rehearsed seemed to vanish.

Marty took her hand in his and nodded his encouragement. “Do you want me to start?” he whispered to her.

She shook her head, pulled her square shoulders back, and took in another deep breath. “There’s something we…” She exhaled.

Three sets of eyes fixed on her.
Now. Tell them now
.
She looked at Marty, and his smile made it possible for her to go on.

“It’s about Rae and her mother.” There was no turning back now. She had to keep going.

“I found out that Maxine Blackwell is… well, she’s not only Rae’s mother.” She gulped in some more air, released it. “She’s Veronica’s
birth
mother, too.”

There, she’d said it. She closed her eyes and waited, not knowing what to expect. No one said anything. Were they still there? Why not a sound? She opened her eyes and saw that Annamaria’s eyebrows were a knot in the middle of her forehead, her lips a tight thin line.

“What the hell makes you think that?” Annamaria’s voice, like shattering glass, broke the silence.

“I can’t tell you how I know.”

Annamaria tucked in her chin and glared upward like an animal ready to pounce. Bernadette braced herself. She’d expected anger to be Annie’s first line of defense, knew it had shielded her from her pain for far too long not to protect her now. But just as anger served as a lifeline between Annie and Veronica, it kept her tied in a negative way to Rae as well. Asking her now to believe, without question, that Veronica was related to the very person she most detested—well, that would be asking too much. Annie would need a lot of time; there was no doubt about it.

No one said anything for what seemed like a very long time. They were in shock—traumatized, no doubt, as she and Marty had been just yesterday. How they’d gotten from the living room to the safety of their bedroom after she first broke the news to him was still a blur to Bernadette. They’d clung to each other for a long time—it seemed like forever—before they had been able to begin talking about it. Even hours later, when there was nothing more to say and Marty had fallen asleep from exhaustion, she’d stared up at the white blades of the ceiling fan flashing against the ghost-like shadows and prayed that he really did believe her, that he really was on her side. Well, she knew Marty was by her side now. And just as he’d come to believe her, so, too, would the others.

Bernadette saw that Patty’s curious eyes, round and wide as spaceships, were almost glowing. “What does this mean, Gran?”

“Maybe my friend Clarissa’s right,” she said with a smile. “Maybe we’re related to everyone on the planet.”

“Six degrees of separation,” Marty said with a shake of his head.

Fin, who had yet to utter a sound, sat in a meditative pose with his eyes closed, the palms of his hands face up on his knees. He was smiling.

“Veronica knows,” he whispered to no one in particular.

“Yes,” Bernadette said.

“I think your mom knew, too, without realizing it,” Marty said. “I think that’s why her heart went soft for Raelynn Blackwell right from the start.”

***

That was it. Annamaria couldn’t stand any more of this. She jumped up from the couch and stumbled out to the front hallway with her lower lip leading the way, her breath shooting out in flames. Then she stalked back to the couch and out to the hallway again, back and forth, back and forth, finally coming to an abrupt stop behind the couch. She dug her sharp fingernails into the soft leather.

“How can you expect us to believe this,” she said with a squinty glare, “when we don’t even know who told you?”

“I trust my source,” she heard her mom say.

“Is there anyone you don’t trust?”

“No need for that,” her dad said. “I didn’t believe it at first, either, if that’s any help. It’s a lot to take in.”

“If I thought it would help, Annie, I’d tell you how I found out, but my source is in enough trouble as it is.”

“So,” Annamaria snorted, “sounds like we have some violation of Texas confidentiality laws or something going on here.”

“Mom wouldn’t have told us if she didn’t know it was true,” Fin retorted.

“But Mom hasn’t told us how she knows it’s true, have you, Mom?”

“It started when I found out that Rae’s baby sister was born on the same day as Veronica… and at the same hospital, too.”

“You’re basing this on a coincidence?” Annamaria was flabbergasted. This was the extent of her mom’s evidence?

“I thought it was just a coincidence at first, too.”

Annamaria crossed her arms and glared at her mom. “Well, there you have it,” she said, “all this grief and drama over nothing.”

“But it turned out not to be. There was only one baby born at the hospital that day. That baby was our Veronica, and her mother was Maxine Blackwell.”

Annamaria snorted and looked away.

“Knowing the details about how your mom made this discovery is not what’s important,” her dad said. “What’s important is how we face this.”

Annamaria couldn’t believe it. Both her parents were against her. Again. She gripped the back of the couch to keep herself from sinking onto the floor. There was only one thing she knew how to do to stay in the fight, to inject reason into the craziness that had descended on her family. She tugged at the jacket of her red power suit and projected herself back to earlier that day when she was in court. She narrowed her eyes at her mom, a hostile witness. Then she looked at her dad and turned him and the others into members of the jury. It wouldn’t do for her to seem shaky in front of any of them. She had to appear confident, in charge, no matter what she felt inside.

“Okay then,” she said in the most professional tone of voice she could manage, “let’s say it’s possible that Veronica and that murderer were related somehow.” She coughed into her hand to cover up the cracking in her voice.

“. . . Which none of us should believe,” she added, raising her voice, “without verification.” She paused, sighed, gulped in some air.

“There is verification, Annie,” her dad said. “It is what it is.”

“Okay, for the sake of argument, let’s say it’s true. The question remains: what difference does it make? I’m not just asking you, Mom, Dad. I’m asking all of you. What the
hell
difference does it make?” She drew her lips together in a circle and released the air from her lungs with a loud puff.

“The answer to that question is in your heart, Annie,” her mom said.

“You have the freedom, as do all of us, to choose how to respond,” her dad said, “to decide what it means.”

“It means,” Fin said, “that Raelynn Blackwell is all that we have left of Veronica.”

“No, Fin,” Annamaria said. “The
correct
answer is that it doesn’t mean anything.”

“It doesn’t mean anything to you that Veronica and Rae are sisters?” Fin said.

“
Nothing.
” Annamaria’s eyes flashed, and her words scorched the air.

“Come on, they’re blood,” Fin said. “
Blood
.”

Annamaria felt rage building inside her. She gritted her teeth. “They are not alike in any way,” she said. “Veronica was born good.”

“And Raelynn Blackwell wasn’t?” Fin said.

“Good, bad, blank slate,” her dad said with a shrug.

“You know what I mean, Dad. Veronica was a good baby. We all know that.”

“She was a happy baby,” Fin said, “with Mom and Dad beside themselves with happiness at the smallest hint of a smile from her and an older sister,
you
, unable to resist her charms no matter how hard she tried and, of course, a brother who anticipated her every need. But what if she’d been neglected or mistreated instead of loved and cared for? If she cried then, would that mean she was a bad baby?”

Patty shuddered. “If you guys didn’t adopt Veronica, she could have ended up like Rae.”

“No, she couldn’t have.” It was Dad’s voice, much louder than usual.

“I shudder to think about what she was spared.” This was Mom.

Annamaria thought she was going to explode. She squeezed her eyes shut. Her hands shook. She slapped at her cheeks until they burned red. “No way, no way, no way. Veronica was
nothing
like her. Nothing at all.” The words kept spitting out of her mouth until the pressure of her mom’s hands on each side of her face made them stop.

“It’s okay, Annie, it’s okay.”

Her dad’s hands were on her arms now, guiding her to the front of the couch, urging her to sit down. Then Patty nestled in close, her arm around her, squeezing her shoulder.

“Why did you have to tell us?” Annamaria heard the distant wail of her voice sounding as if it was coming from someone other than herself, someone little and far away.

“We don’t keep secrets in our family,” her mom said.

“No, we don’t.” It was Dad.

“Gran? If Aunt Veronica and Rae were sisters… then… wouldn’t…”

“Half,” Bernadette said. “They’re
half
sisters.”

“So, like, that means my mom and Uncle Fin are Raelynn Blackwell’s adoptive half-sister and half-brother or something?”

“Yes.” It was Fin. Too loud.

Annamaria’s eyes stung. Her stomach contracted. She bent forward with her face between her knees, her hands over her ears.

“So what are you going to do now, Gran?”

“I’m going to see Rae again.”

“And do what?” Annamaria asked in a weak voice.

“Whatever I can. She’s Veronica’s sister.”

Annamaria’s stomach churned, and its contents started to heave up into her throat. Her eyes watered. “I need some air” was all she could manage to say. With one hand clutching her stomach and the other covering her mouth, she lurched out the front door and stumbled away from the house.

THIRTY-FOUR

A stream of light, on its way toward dusk but not quite dusk, moved across Annamaria’s desk as she stood with her back against the sink, following the rays with her eyes. Nothing was real. Everything was upside down. She had no memory of how she had gotten to her office. All she knew what that she couldn’t stay at her folks’ house another minute, couldn’t listen to them talk about it as if it mattered. As if it changed anything. Veronica was still dead, wasn’t she, and all that talk about good babies and bad babies, about who’s related to whom, didn’t change a damn thing.

She wiped her face with a paper towel. Then she reached into the mini-refrigerator next to the sink and pulled out a bottle of white wine. With the bottle in one hand and a glass in the other, she walked over to her desk and filled the glass to the rim. After a couple of sips, she was calm enough to reach for the phone. Her mom answered right away.

“Are you all right, Annie?”

“I’m okay,” she said, an automatic response. “Is Patty…?”

“She’s fine, honey. We’re making chocolate chip cookies. Let her stay the night. I’ll bring her home first thing in the morning. Where are you? We’re worried about you.”

“I’m at my office.”

There was silence on the other end of the line. Then her mom said, “It might help to talk about it.”

“Just tell Patty I love her. I’ll be all right.” She hung up the phone, fast, before her mom could ask any more questions.

She
would
be all right. All she needed was a glass of wine to cool her down and a legal brief to distract her. She reached into her desk drawer and grabbed a random folder, but the words inside bounced around on the page like Mexican jumping beans. She pinched her eyes, but still the words were nothing but a gray blur. She gave up and sat back, the only sound in the gloomy silence the squeaking of her chair whenever she moved to refill her wine glass. The next thing she knew, her office was dark and the bottle was empty.

Outside the window, lights shimmered here and there from houses tucked into the hillside as families prepared and ate dinners, watched television together, talked. She wondered what her family was doing now, whether Fin was still at her folks’ house. Maybe they were talking about Dad’s cancer; was she missing the most recent update? Maybe they were talking about how Mom was going to break the news to Raelynn Blackwell. Or maybe, just maybe, they were talking about her. She shouldn’t have run out of the house like that. But then, no one had asked her to stay, had they?

A wave of loneliness hit her then with such force that it drove her back to the refrigerator for another bottle of wine. She switched on the floor lamp and flopped onto the couch.

“What the hell are you smiling about?” she said as she lifted the glass to her lips.

She shook her head. So now she was hallucinating? “Fin is not here,” she said out loud. She was alone, in her office, with no one to talk to but herself. No one to see how upset she was at Mom for caring more about Veronica’s murderer than about anyone else—no one to see how worried she was that Fin might cross over the line into insanity—no one to see what was happening to her—no one to hear her confess that, even though she said she didn’t believe it, she knew Mom had told the truth.

“Why the hell don’t you call Mom and tell her that?” she said out loud. But she made no move to do it. No, if she told her mom that she believed what she had said about Veronica and Raelynn Blackwell being sisters, her mom would want to know how she felt about it. And there was no way Annamaria could tell her it was triggering something inside that was so deep she couldn’t reach it, so menacing that she was afraid to even try. No way she could talk about how it took her breath away to feel Patty’s vulnerable body pressed against hers today when they were on the couch, to hear her daughter’s sweet voice—her poor baby trying to reassure her that everything was going to be all right. No way she could admit how terrified she was. No, there was no way she could tell Mom any of that, no way she could understand. How could she, when she couldn’t even understand that all Annamaria had ever wanted was justice for Veronica?

She poured herself another glass of wine and looked at a framed eight-by-ten family picture on the coffee table. The photo had been taken the last time they were all together for Christmas. Mom sat in the middle, with Dad to her right with one arm around her shoulder and the other around Veronica. Fin was next to Veronica, his arm around her, too, intersecting with Dad’s. And there she was, on the other side of Mom, her arms wound around then-six-year-old Patty, who was sitting between her legs.

“I want us back,” she whispered as she picked the picture up and looked into their laughing faces. “I just want us back.”

She pressed her family to her breast with one hand, picked up the wine glass with the other, and stumbled over to her desk. She propped the picture up next to her computer and sat down. What she was about to do didn’t make any sense. But it was the only thing she could think of doing, the one thing she knew how to do best. She turned on the computer and started to type.