Cruel Doubt (50 page)

 

47

Until June of 1991, when she had her phone number changed, Bonnie kept Chris's voice on the answering machine. So that almost three years after he'd tried to have her killed, and almost eighteen months after he'd started serving his prison term, you could still hear his voice by calling Bonnie.

“I'm not there yet,” she told me in June, “but I can see that the road to recovery is open. I know I've still got a lot of anger. Anger towards Chris. And I know that someday I will have to deal with it. But I'm not ready to do it yet. I know it's there but I'm not ready to deal with it. It's a lot easier to lay down new linoleum, or stay up until three in the morning, putting a fresh coat of paint in the kitchen. But I do know, now, that that day must come.

“It's something I'm working on. Just like with Angela. I'd like to have her start to see Dr. Spaulding. I think Dr. Spaulding would be able to draw Angela out in a way that no one else ever has. I think that might do Angela a lot of good. She doesn't need this weighing her down for years to come.”

Bonnie was well aware of how many people, in and out of her family, still had qualms about Angela's role. But Bonnie herself had no doubts. As Angela sensed, Bonnie believed in her and trusted her and wanted only to find a way to help her heal.

* * *

In one late-night conversation with me, Bonnie asked suddenly, her voice faltering, “Why did Lieth get stabbed in the back? He'd been sitting straight up, facing his attacker head-on, fighting for his life. Why did he get stabbed in the back?”

She paused and sighed, and I could tell she was as close to real tears as she'd ever been when speaking to me.

“It was,” she said, “because he had thrown himself across me, trying to cover me up, trying to protect me, trying to somehow save my life. Lieth died trying to make sure I would live.

“And if he could do that for me, I guess what I can do for him is just persevere and get on with it and try to still find something worthwhile in my life.

“It's been a long time since I've been able to think like that, much less say it, but I think I might be getting ready to begin.”

* * *

And that brought back to mind one warm Saturday morning the previous spring when I'd gotten out of the Winston-Salem house with her, down to Welcome, to her real home.

It had been by far the most enjoyable time I'd ever spent with her. She drove me all over the town, stopping at her mother's house so I could admire the quilts and orchids, and so I could see the attic dormitory where she and her sisters had grown up.

We'd gone on into Lexington and she'd showed me the very drive-in (long since shut down) where she'd pulled up next to Steve Pritchard's car.

Then she took me to Finch Park, where she and Lieth and her two little children would come on Saturday mornings—just like this one—when he was down from Cincinnati. This was after she'd overcome her fear that he would forget her once he moved.

Bonnie's step was lighter that morning, as was her mood. There was a flicker of something almost approaching joy that I'd not seen before. It seemed to come just from being, however briefly, and however different the circumstances, back in a place where she'd once felt hope.

There were swans in a large pond, there was a bandstand, there were shade trees, open, grassy fields, a path around the edge of the pond, playground equipment for the children.

This was where she had first seen it. This was where she had first sensed that her future might still hold some measure of happiness: with this man, whose head she cradled in her lap, as together they watched her young children play on the swings.