With Love from the Inside (24 page)

Sophie's phone buzzed all day with texts about the Secret Chef fund-raiser. Eva, Mindy, then Kate. Then two more from Eva.
I need to talk to u.

Since she'd gotten home from the hospital, Thomas had done nothing but wait on her. He'd even learned to cook. She heard him on the phone with his mother: “So how long do I stir the flour to make the roux?”

After eight days, he finally returned to work.

“Promise me you'll stay off your feet.” He kissed her on the head and pulled out the ottoman for her to put her legs on.

“I promise,” she said. “I can talk on the phone from my chair.”

No one in West Lake knew about Sophie's mom, but it was all she thought about. She begged her doctor to let her off bed rest (“I have this big fund-raising event I'm in charge of!”), but Dr. Johnson wouldn't budge.

“Not until your blood pressure stabilizes.” She'd taken over her records from Jack when she returned from the holidays. Sophie would eventually have to confide in Dr. Johnson, but then Dr. Johnson might “confide” in Jack. She'd tell the world about her mother, but she needed to come to terms with everything herself first.

Can u come over?
Sophie texted Mindy. She hadn't told her about the baby and needed to share some good news. Eva's texts, she ignored.

Mindy arrived with Starbucks and two cherry-frosted cupcakes from her twins' birthday party.

“Can't believe how big they're getting.” Mindy handed the one with the most icing to Sophie. “You need this more than me.”

Sophie stuck her finger in the icing. “Delicious. I'll have to pass on the coffee, though. No caffeine. Doctor's orders.”

“You're pregnant!” Mindy shouted. “That explains your weird behavior!”

“Part of it, anyway.” Sophie unwrapped the cupcake and took a bite. “I'm on bed rest. High blood pressure.”

Mindy scrunched her nose. “Already?”

“Already. I need to stay calm—if I'm good, I hope the doctor will let me get back to normal. Can't have a successful fund-raiser while I'm sitting on my ever-expanding bottom.”

Mindy laughed and then stopped. “Are you happy about the baby?”

“Of course I'm happy about the baby. Why wouldn't I be?” It was a sassy rhetorical question Sophie immediately regretted the moment she asked it. Mindy was asking the kind of questions close friends ask each other when they care to know more.

“Well . . .” Mindy paused.

Sophie put down her cupcake and pressed her hands together, holding them close to her lips. “I'm sorry, Mindy.”

“No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply you didn't want the baby,” Mindy said while picking cupcake crumbs off Sophie's ottoman. “It's just weird, that you left and all, over Christmas.”

Sophie grabbed Mindy's hand so she'd stop with the crumbs. “It was weird,” she said, beating down all the boards and bricks she used to put up. “Sit back, because my story gets even stranger. I went to visit my mom.”

To be honest, Ms. Liz didn't have many words to make me feel better. She couldn't give me any answers with certainty or make any promises that would take my fear away. There was just something about her, though, that made me feel safe. Recognized. Significant. Valued. With her, my feelings never felt judged, and my fears never felt minimized. And today I got to share with her a part of me she's never seen before.

“Exhilaration is what I'm feeling most of the time.” I fought the urge to hug her as I filled her in on the latest news. “I'm so full of joy, these walls, the noise—I barely notice.”

Ms. Liz squinted like she didn't fully recognize me. “Have you talked to her?”

“Not yet. Ben gave me her number.” I ran the words over in my head. I HAVE MY DAUGHTER'S PHONE NUMBER. I actually pinched the top of my thighs to make sure I wasn't dreaming. “I'll call the second I'm allowed. The warden suspended my phone privileges until I get my execution paperwork filled out.”

“What are you going to say to her?” Ms. Liz asked, biting down on her smile.

I've thought about our first conversation so many times. What I'd say. What she'd say. I closed my eyes to relish the thought of that moment. Finally, I said, “I just want to hear her voice.”

“And I'm sure she wants to hear yours.” Ms. Liz placed her hands close to her heart. “Have you talked to Ben?”

“Not since he left last week.” I hoped that wasn't a bad sign.

“I'm sure he's busy.”

“They have to let me out. Don't they?” My wide eyes pleaded with hers to say yes.

“I'd think so,” Ms. Liz said. “How could they not?”

“I'm sure Ben is doing everything he can as fast as he can.” I refuse to give up now. “Have you heard anything about Roni?”

Ms. Liz straightened her skirt and then glanced around the room to see how close the nearest officer was. “You know I'm not supposed to tell you information about another inmate,” she whispered.

I nodded, but encouraged her to continue.

“She's alive. She's in intensive care, but she's alive.”

The officer on duty seemed engrossed in whatever paperwork he was doing, so Ms. Liz leaned in and carried on. “I couldn't stand the thought of Carl Cooper not seeing Roni on Christmas. So I waited for him in the visitors' area on Christmas Day. I told him what happened.”

“Visit's over,” the officer shouted before I could ask her any more questions.

“I took him to meet his daughter,” Ms. Liz whispered, then winked. “Mr. Cooper finally got to meet Roni.”

“Ms. Liz,” I said before the officer escorted me away, “if you see them again, will you tell them I'm sorry?”

—

W
HEN
I
GOT BACK TO MY ROOM,
I made myself sit down. I thanked God for Roni and the time she got to spend with her dad. I prayed they'd have many more visits and that Roni would finally feel what it was like to be loved.

After I finished praying, I forced myself to fill out the warden's papers. The task seemed much less daunting when I reminded myself I might be going home soon. I'd fill out anything if it meant I'd get to talk to Sophie.

Ben had taken the application for executive clemency. “I want to make sure we dot our
i
's and cross every
t
. We don't want to give the governor any reason not to intervene.”

I asked Ben to make sure I get buried in Brookfield, in our family plot—next to Paul and William. He promised he would.

The only forms left for me to tackle were my execution witness list and the last meal. Ben took my will and hand-delivered it to the warden's office.

“Put my name down.” Ben tapped his index finger on the witness list before he left. “If this happens—I want to be there for you. Put Sophie's and Thomas's names down, too.”

I adamantly shook my head. I didn't fear dying, but I did fear Sophie watching me do so.

“I can't put Sophie through that.” No good mother would ever ask her child to do that.

“Let her make the decision. Put her name down and then let her make the decision.”

I'd spun this conversation around in my mind several times since Ben left. Would Sophie be mad if I put her name down? Would she be mad if I didn't? I wished I could ask her, but mostly I wished I didn't have to.

I decided to listen to Ben. I used my left hand to steady my right as I wrote:
Ben Taylor—my attorney and friend. Dr. Thomas Logan—my son-in-law. Mrs. Sophie Logan—my daughter.

Two people in Sophie's immediate circle had her right where she once feared they wanted her—exposed and open to attack, with no refined skills to mount an effective defense. But to her surprise, her worst-case scenario had become a welcomed Utopia.

“I can't imagine the pain you must be going through,” Mindy said after Sophie finished summarizing her past seventeen years without a mother.

Mindy pressed her hand into Sophie's thighs. “This must have been tough for you to carry all alone. Please let me know what I can do. Day or night, I'll be there for you.”

The wounds in Sophie's filleted chest healed some when she heard her friend make this promise.

“I know your mom will be okay. I promise you. This will all work out.”

Sophie felt her heart rate slow down for the first time in a long time.

Mindy appointed herself co-chair of the Secret Chef fund-raiser, keeping Sophie busy with smaller details, anything that could be conquered from a chair, like who should sit next to whom or whether the Oxstyle rose or the lotus with purple flowers might inspire a prospective donor to give more money.

Ben and Sophie exchanged phone calls every evening at 6 p.m. If he didn't have anything new to report, he'd call anyway, “just to see how the pregnancy's going.”

Sometimes Thomas answered. When Sophie held out her hand, he'd reluctantly give her the phone and say, “I'm just trying to relieve some of your stress.”

The truth was, Sophie had never felt better. Sure, she agonized over the possibility the governor would decide not to grant clemency, but what were the chances of that? Her mom was innocent. She pictured the governor at a press conference flanked by her mom and Ben. “What we owe this woman can never be repaid.” The crowd would roar and cameras would flash. Her mom would hug Sophie and say, “I can't wait to hold my new grandbaby.”

“When am I going to get to talk to her?” she asked Ben every time they talked.

“Whenever the warden says she can call,” was his pat but polite answer.

Ben warned her not to get her hopes up, for a phone call or for anything else. “Plan for the best, but prepare for the worst.” Sophie didn't even want to think what that meant in this case. She sat on the deck off her bedroom with her laptop and ordered new linens for the guest bedroom. “Lavender and yellow are my mom's favorite colors,” she explained to Thomas.

He agreed without hesitation to let Sophie's mom come live with them after she was released. “She can stay with us as long as she likes,” he said, rubbing her lower back at night. “Anything to make you smile.”

She was grateful beyond measure for Thomas's quick and unexpected forgiveness. She knew her lies didn't come without consequences, but she'd yet to see them. When she'd asked if he was upset with her, Thomas had said, “We'll talk later, after your health stabilizes.”

He hadn't said it in an alarming way, more in a manner that let Sophie know his rock-solid reality was off-balance. His life's checklist jumbled and out of order. The woman he'd been sleeping next to for all these years was not who she'd advertised. Like the optical illusion that appears to be
a beautiful young lady until you tilt your head and squint your eyes and the picture becomes an old woman. Sophie imagined all kinds of things when she caught Thomas staring at her.

He didn't answer her when she asked what his parents thought. Instead he said, “It only matters what I think.” But the way he snuck into the garage when Carter called told her all she needed to hear.

She overheard him on the phone one evening after he thought she'd gone to bed. “You're looking at this from only a prosecutor's angle. If anyone is at fault, it's the doctors and the hospital.” She tiptoed closer and angled her ear to the door. “Somebody should've figured out this baby was really sick.”

Before Thomas slammed down the phone, Sophie heard him shout, “Screw my status at the hospital. An innocent woman does not deserve to be executed.”

Sophie pretended to be asleep when Thomas snuggled up against her in bed. She hated to see him caught in the middle. She'd have to see his family and explain to them why she'd made up a past to gain a future, but that wasn't going to happen today or tomorrow. In the meantime, nothing could derail her concentration or dampen her enthusiasm. Every moment from here on out would be spent on what she should have been doing all along—helping her mom get off death row.

The warden had received my papers eighteen days ago, but I still hadn't been cleared to make a phone call. I didn't know what was worse—worrying you'd refuse to talk to me or worrying you'd think I didn't want to talk to you. I prayed today would be the day I heard your voice.

“Did you hear Roni's coming back?” Jada said to me.

“No.” I put down my journal. “How do you know?”

“I heard Jones and Mackey say so.”

“Is she okay?”

“Okay enough to return to death row.” Jada stood up and flipped the television on to
The View
.

I slid my pen inside my journal and walked back to my cell. I took the box of handmade Christmas ornaments from under my bed. All seventeen of them wrapped in toilet tissue and stacked in cushioned rows, waiting to be one day opened by Sophie. One of my favorites lay triple-folded for extra protection.

I took it out of the box and told myself Sophie would understand. On top of the paper I wrote:
Please forgive me. Love, Grace.

While the officers chatted about NCAA basketball, I snuck over to Roni's cell and placed the white ceramic ornament in the center of her
bunk. Under the impression of my handprint, in blocked-stamped letters, was the word
FAMILY.

Carmen ran to the telephone to begin her fifteen-minute phone call. I decided to stay in my cell and forgo the torture of hearing her exchange sloppy kisses and sentiments like “I wanna wrap my arms around you, too, baby.” Some things are better off left unimagined.

I wet some brown paper hand towels and started to scrub my toilet.

“Your turn, Bradshaw,” Officer Mackey shouted.

“Me?” I yelled back. I threw the wet towels in my sink and wiped my hands on my pants.

“Hurry up,” he called. “Clock's a-ticking.”

I searched my room for Sophie's number. I found it right where I left it. Under the cover of my Bible. I've prepared myself for this conversation a million times. Now I couldn't remember anything I'd rehearsed.

“Give me the number,” Officer Mackey said as I approached the phone.

I handed him the small yellow piece of paper. For the first time, my mouth didn't feel dry because of him. He dialed the number and then handed me the phone.

“I'll give you an extra five,” he whispered.

“Thank you.” I put my hand over my heart to show him my appreciation.

And then I prayed you'd be home . . . Please, God, let Sophie be home. Please let her answer.