Puppet (14 page)

He hesitates. “Jennifer.”

“Why are they always named Jennifer?” she asks, picturing Sean’s new wife.

“What?”

“So what exactly is the story with you and this Jennifer?” she recovers quickly.

“It’s exactly none of your business.”

“Aw, come on. Tell me.”

“There’s nothing to tell. We’ve only been dating a few months.”

“That’s long enough to tell.”

“What about you?” Ben asks, suddenly switching gears, going on the offensive, as any attorney worth his salt would do. “Involved with anyone special since your most recent divorce?”

“Ouch. No. How’d you know about that anyway?”

He shrugs. “No great mystery. I ran into sombody who ran into you in Florida. Keith Halpern, I think it was.”

“Oh, yes. Good old Keith.” The first time she’d slept with Keith Halpern, she was sixteen years old. The last time was two years ago, after literally bumping into the now-successful stockbroker at the Palm Beach Grill. He was in Florida on holiday, he’d explained. His wife was visiting her parents in Boca for a few days; maybe they could get together for a drink? Her divorce had just been finalized; she was feeling more than a little vulnerable; she’d probably told him more than he needed to know. Clearly, he’d been only too happy to share that information with his former classmate.

The conversation drifts to a halt. Ben turns on the radio, switches from one channel to another before anything has time to register on Amanda’s consciousness. The flat line of the highway stretches out endlessly before her. There is nothing remotely interesting on either side of the road. “How far away
is
this place?” she asks as Ben exits onto Highway 427.

“We’re almost there.”

“We’re back at the airport, for heaven’s sake.”

Ben turns right at Dixon and continues to the first traffic light, then turns left on Carlingview Road, heading north. “Just a few more minutes.”

Amanda swivels her head to look out the rear window, realizes the city has all but disappeared behind her. “Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.”

“Maybe not,” he agrees.

“Did you speak to my mother this morning?”

“No.”

“So she still doesn’t know I’m here?”

“I’m hoping the shock of seeing you will loosen her tongue.”

“I wouldn’t count on anything.”

“I never do.”

They continue north to Disco Road, then proceed east about three hundred feet, turning into a long driveway on the south side of the street.

Doesn’t exactly make you want to get the white suit out of storage and start dancing, Amanda thinks, staring at the ugly, squat, brown-brick building looming ominously in the middle of the strangely named street. “Could it be any more depressing?” She pictures the prisons in south Florida, with their pastel-colored facades surrounded by scenic moats and exotic vegetation. Not even palm trees waving in a warm breeze would help this architectural monstrosity, she decides as Ben searches for a parking space in the crowded lot.

“I can drop you off at the door, if you’d like. Then you won’t have to trudge through the snow.”

“No, that’s okay. I’m in no rush to go inside. Besides, I have my new boots.” Again, she stretches her legs out in front of her, offering her footwear for his perusal.

This time he obliges her with a glance. “Very nice.” He pulls the sports car into a spot near the back of the lot, shuts off the engine, exhales a deep breath of air. “You ready?”

“Can we just sit here for a few minutes?”

“Amanda …”

“Just for a few minutes.”

He nods.

“It’s a big place,” Amanda says, stalling for time. “I didn’t realize Toronto was such a hotbed of crime where women are concerned.”

“The men’s prison is around back.” He points to the side of the building. “You’re seeing both buildings.”

Amanda closes her eyes in an effort to see nothing at all. “How’d you get involved in this mess anyway? Did my mother call you?”

“No. I read about her arrest in the morning paper, and I volunteered my services.”

“Why on earth would you do that?”

“I don’t know. I guess I felt a certain sense of obligation.”

“Obligation? She was barely civil to you when we were married.”

“Maybe that’s why I did it.”

“Because she was barely civil?”

“Because we used to be married.”

Amanda brings her arms around her body, hugs herself with her hands. “You’re saying you did it for me?”

“I’m saying I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do.”

“Even though she’s guilty?”

“Especially if she’s guilty.”

Amanda tries to laugh. “Don’t tell me you actually believe that nonsense about everyone being entitled to the best possible defense, regardless of guilt or innocence?”

“Don’t you?”

“I guess,” she acknowledges reluctantly, shivering inside her black wool coat. “It’s getting harder though. I mean, occasionally, it would be nice to have a client who really
didn’t
do it.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

“Like both of us ending up lawyers?”

“Like both of us ending up lawyers and then freezing to death in the parking lot of the Metro West Detention Center.”

“You’re saying it’s time to go inside?”

“I’m saying it’s time to go inside.”

If anything, Amanda finds the interior of the Metro West Detention Center even uglier and more depressing than its outside. “What you see is definitely what you get,” she mutters, as they step inside the first set of doors and wait to be admitted.

The guard sitting inside the thick glass booth beyond the second set of doors takes his time buzzing them in, then it’s the usual routine of metal detectors and identification checks, of exposing the insides of purses and briefcases, and having personal belongings handled and scrutinized. “Sign in here,” an officer instructs, pushing a clipboard across a low table, and regarding Amanda suspiciously.

Amanda stares at the man defiantly, silently daring him to detect a resemblance to her mother. In truth, she is an interesting combination and contradiction of both her parents. Her mother’s full mouth resides inside her father’s strong jaw; her father’s soft eyes harbor her mother’s fierce stare.

“This way,” the officer says, leading them through dreary corridors leaking the odor of stale human flesh, a smell so unpleasantly pervasive that not even the stench of Javex can mask it.

“You come here often?” Amanda whispers to Ben, as the guard leads them into a small, windowless room.

“Too often,” he replies, mistaking her attempt at humor for a legitimate question.

“The prisoner will be down shortly,” the guard says, about to exit.

“Do you think we could get another chair in here?” Ben asks.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Amanda listens to the officer’s footsteps as they retreat down the corridor. She touches the back of one of two uncomfortable-looking, gray plastic chairs that sit on either side of a small, rectangular wood table. “Think all prisons use the same decorator?”

“Jails ’R Us,” Ben quips.

Amanda paces back and forth between the table and the wall. She pushes her hair away from her face, unbuttons her coat, then buttons it up again.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Ben says.

Amanda shakes her head. She needs to be standing when she sees her mother. Unconsciously she straightens her shoulders and pulls herself up to her full height, knowing it won’t be long before her mother cuts her down to size.

“Are you all right?”

Amanda feels her mouth go dry, her breath grow labored. She fights the urge to burst into tears and run screaming from the room. “I’m not sure I can do this.”

“You can do it.”

“What if I don’t
want
to do it?”

“Sometimes we have to do things we’d rather not.”

“Since when did you become such a goddamn grownup?” Amanda snaps, then looks guiltily at the floor.

Since you left
, she hears him say, although he says nothing.

She watches his boots as he approaches, feels the warmth of his breath as he moves closer, his slight hesitation before taking her in his arms, hugging her close.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “You’re going to be fine.”

“I don’t feel fine.” Although that’s not entirely true, she realizes, her body relaxing against his, luxuriating in the strong familiarity of his touch. We were always such a perfect fit, she thinks, resting her cheek against the shoulder of his leather jacket.

Isn’t that why you left?
she hears him ask.

“She can’t hurt you anymore, Mandy,” Ben says softly.

Abruptly Amanda pulls out of his arms. “Don’t call me that.”

He moves quickly from her side, unzips his jacket, throws it over the back of one of the chairs, opens his briefcase, begins rifling through it. “Sorry.”

“It’s just that I hate nicknames.”

“I know. Sorry. It won’t happen again.”

“I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

He says nothing further, although he doesn’t have to. His posture, stiff to the point of rigid, says it all.

“I’m sorry,” she offers.

“No problem.” He flashes his best lawyer’s smile. We’ll keep this strictly business, the smile says.

Amanda hears footsteps in the hall, finds herself backing into a corner, and holding her breath as the door to the small room opens. A guard pokes his head inside. “They said you needed another chair?” He hands a chair to Ben without coming inside.

Amanda releases the breath in her lungs, wipes an errant tear from her eye, laughs out loud. What am I so damn nervous about? she wonders. My mother is in jail, for God’s sake. There’s no way she can hurt me anymore.

And then the door opens again, and Amanda finds herself face-to-face with the woman she’s been running away from for most of her adult life.

W
HAT
Amanda sees: a small woman in an unflattering prison uniform, a dark green sweat suit trimmed in garish pink. The woman looks remarkably young for her almost sixty-two years, despite the total absence of makeup, her face calm, unmarked by worry, unscarred by remorse. Her hair is a circle of short blond curls. Her eyes are pale and blue, and they widen only slightly when they spot Amanda. A flash of longing passes through them, but it is so brief, Amanda isn’t sure whether it was real or something she made up, a by-product of her own misplaced longing.

Her mother says nothing, causing Amanda to wonder if the woman even knows who she is. Is it possible she’s suffering from dementia? Don’t you recognize me, Mother? she wants to ask, but is unable to find her voice. Perhaps the same holds true for her mother. Perhaps she is so overwhelmed at seeing her only child after all this time that she can’t speak, her normally harsh tongue lying flabby and inert at the bottom of her mouth, like a dying fish in a pail. Perhaps she is embarrassed, even ashamed, considering the circumstances that have
brought them back together. More likely, she simply has nothing to say to the young woman she only fleetingly acknowledged to begin with. It would obviously take more effort than Amanda is worth.

“I called Amanda and told her what happened,” Ben is explaining. “She flew in last night from Florida.”

Her mother walks to the chair at the end of the table and sits down, says nothing.

What Amanda feels: fury.

She wants to throw herself at this woman and shake her until something—
anything
—registers in those malignantly placid blue eyes.
Say something
, she wants to scream, her mother’s silence worse than any insult she could have hurled, her continuing indifference almost too much to bear.
I deserve an explanation. For why you murdered a man in cold blood. For why you treated me the way you did. For why you never loved me.

What she says: “It’s nice to see you too, Mother.”

The last time Amanda saw her mother was just after her father’s funeral. The funeral was a small affair, attended by family, a few business colleagues of her father’s, and several of the neighbors. There were no friends to speak of because her parents had no friends. Her mother’s wild mood swings and erratic behavior had seen to that. Not that Edward Price seemed to miss them; he’d devoted his life to looking after his unhappy wife. In the end, his reward had been a massive heart attack and a premature grave.

After the funeral, Amanda and Ben had accompanied her mother back home. Old Mrs. MacGiver, their neighbor from across the street, had sent over a homemade lemon cake, and Amanda was cutting it into slices
while Ben busied himself making coffee. Her mother glared at them from her seat at the kitchen table, as if aware of their presence for the first time that day. “This isn’t a party,” she said, downing a large glass of vodka.

“Nobody said it was.” Amanda bit down on her tongue to keep from saying more. “I just thought you might want to eat something.” She deposited a piece of cake in front of her mother.

Her mother pushed it away. “You’re wrong.”

“Well, at least I’m consistent.”

“Still with the mouth.” Her mother’s head shook with disapproval. “Always with the mouth.”

“Would you like a cup of coffee, Mrs. Price?” Ben interrupted.

Gwen Price stared past him as if he weren’t there. “You broke your father’s heart,” she said to Amanda.

“What are you talking about?”

“Amanda …,” Ben cautioned. Don’t bite, his eyes warned. But it was too late. Amanda’s mouth was already circling the bait, preparing to swallow the deadly hook.

“You think he didn’t know his daughter was a slut?”

“Okay, Mrs. Price, I think you’ve said enough.”

“Staying out all night, drinking, running off with some delinquent in a fancy sports car.”

“Why, Mother, I didn’t think you cared.”

“He wanted so much for you. He had dreams about you becoming a lawyer. He always wanted to be a lawyer, you know, but his parents couldn’t afford to send him to college. You didn’t know that, did you?”

“How would I?” Amanda demanded, choking back tears. “He barely spoke to me.”

“You were never around.”

“That’s bullshit.”