Everything She Ever Wanted (46 page)

attorney in Atlanta.
 
"Baby," Tom pleaded.
 
"You just got too much hate

and revenge built up that you got to stop."

In between visits, Pat and Tom spoke on the phone.
 
Every evening, the

guards in the Fulton County jail carried telephones from cell to cell,

and each prisoner had his allotted time to talk.
 
In order to "buy"

phone time, Tom traded everything he could to his fellow prisoners.
 
He

didn't smoke, but he bought cartons of cigarettes to barter for time.

He gave his cell mates the best bunk, his desserts, and other choice

items off his food trays.
 
He did chores, read legal papers for the

illiterate, and even prevailed upon Pat to call the wives and

girlfriends of his fellow prisoners to deliver messages-a task she

performed grudgingly-so that he could have some of the other men's

phone time.

Their phone talk was so precious to them.
 
They discussed everything

from legal strategy to what they would do in the future.
 
Pat recorded

their conversations, she told Tom, so she could listen to his voice

later and not be so alone.
 
She could never accept that despite all the

minutes he collected from other prisoners, Tom's time on the phone was

limited.
 
She blamed him when he had to hang up precipitously.

With each legal setback, Pat grew more negative.
 
She reminded Tom in

every phone call that he was going to prison for at least twelve years

and that she would be "an old woman" when he got out.
 
Her voice was

very soft, alternately choked with tears and icily accusatory.
 
His was

desperate as he pleaded with her to try to understand.
 
But it seemed

there was no way he could win with Pat in their phone conversations.

Each time he heard her voice, he hoped they could have a loving, warm

call, but she twisted his words, found fault in almost everything he

said, and accused him of being cruel to her.
 
Tom was baffled.
 
She

knew he would never do anything to hurt her.
 
What more did he have to

do to prove he still loved her?

Pat preferred to be Tom's only visitor and discouraged even family

members from going to see him.
 
She told him that Paw and Nona

complained about the cold, the guards, the long walk up the corridor,

and that he shouldn't ask them to visit.
 
She even complained on

occasion about Boppo.
 
If she did allow her family to visit Tom, she

wrote out questions she wanted them to ask him.

When Susan or Debbie or Ronnie left Tom, Pat debriefed them to be sure

that she knew everything they had discussed with him.

Most of all, Pat detested Matthew Rawley,* a college friend of Tom's.

He was a minister and tremendously supportive of Tom, who needed all

the bolstering he could get.
 
When Rawley first came back into Tom's

life, Pat had appeared to like him well enough, although she debated

religious issues with him continually.
 
"Show me.
 
Show me where the

Bible says that," she would demand.
 
"If there is a God, then show me

in the Bible."
 
He listened patiently to her arguments and then pointed

out his source, but Pat came to hate the young minister when she

learned that Tom sometimes asked his advice.

From then on, every time Pat heard that Matt had visited Tom in jail,

she pitched a fit.
 
She spent much of their precious telephone time

accusing Tom of betraying her by letting him visit.

In the end, she demanded that he choose between herself and the Rev.

Rawley.

Of course, Tom chose his wife.

Boppo and Papa, who had once had every expectation of living a

comfortable retirement, were now fending off creditors.
 
The Dodson

Drive house was long gone, and it looked as if they were going to lose

the Tell Road farm too.
 
Pat and Ronnie were, of course, living with

them, and Ronnie was sent to the same military school that Tom had

attended.
 
Boppo was very protective of the skinny, quiet boy, and she

insisted that he at least have proper schooling, despite their reduced

circumstances.
 
He was no student and couldn't maintain the C average

the school required.

He dropped out in the ninth grade.

Both Susan and Debbie hit rocky places in their marriages.

Bill Alford told Susan he didn't want to be married anymore.

Susan and her friend Sonja Salo were accepted for training as flight

attendants on Eastern Airlines.
 
Susan and Bill were divorced, but they

remarried within six months.
 
Bill took care of Sean while Susan moved

temporarily to Newark, New Jersey, to attend Eastern's six-month

training school.
 
But whatever else was going on in the family, it was

of minor importance compared with Pat's predicament.
 
She wouldn't let

anyone forget it, or the injustice that was being done to Tom.
 
And as

if in confirmation of all the disparaging things Pat and Margureitte

had said about Tom's ex-wife, his children, Sherry and Russ, were

removed from their mother's custody by children's protective

authorities.

There was a possibility that Little Carolyn would have visitation

rights, if she straightened out her life and found a permanent

residence.
 
In the meantime, Big Carolyn's brother, Seaborn Lawrence,

was caring for them, despite Tom's wish that they go to Pat.

Ed Garland's motion for a new trial was delayed on February 20.
 
With

that piece of bad news and at Pat's repeated urgings, Tom's letters to

his grandparents grew more pressured.
 
The same theme wound through all

of them.
 
They must not trust Jean Boggsshe was only trying to get

their money.
 
They must believe in him and in Pat, who could be counted

on to take care of them in their old age.
 
Pat warned Tom of the danger

that his grandparents' wills could easily be broken if someone

unscrupulous influenced them.
 
That would be a catastrophe for them,

she explained, now that he was in Jail.
 
He was currently an heir, but

her name was not on those wills.
 
He was locked up, she pointed out,

and if one of his grandparents should die and her name was not

specified as executor, whatever would happen to the other?
 
Who would

care for the surviving grandparent?

Moreover, they had to be realistic.
 
His grandparents' money and

property could quite possibly bypass Tom.
 
He had already lost his

birthright, his parents' assets, and now Pat cautioned him that he

would probably be disinherited by Paw and Nona because they were old

and didn't understand.
 
If that happened, he would never have enough

money for the legal fight needed to get him out of jail.

She was very persuasive and Tom saw the logic behind her arguments.
 
He

wrote another letter.
 
Meanwhile, quietly, subtly, and without much

fuss, Pat was moving into Tom's grandparents' lives.
 
His letters made

Pat seem like family to them, and she visited them as often as she

could, ran errands, sat with Nona, cooked special little meals for

them.
 
Even when she wasn't feeling well, she talked to them on the

phone every day.
 
It was a bad time for the old people; their son and

daughter-inlaw were dead-murdered-and their grandson was in jail.
 
Paw

and Nona had been semi-estranged from their daughter Jean ever since

the trouble when Paw sold his land to Walter instead of her.
 
The old

people's lives had a vast empty spot and Pat began to fill it.

She carried messages back and forth between Tom and his grandparents.

Sometimes she took Debbie with her to help out in the little house on

Washington Road, and Boppo often stopped by to visit.

As each new day passed, Pat revealed a different facet of her mercurial

personality.
 
With Tom, she was alternately accusatory or loving, "his

Pat" who couldn't survive without him.
 
With his attorneys, she was

imperious and demanding, and her voice had a stainless-steel edge.

When she was with Paw and Nona, she gave them advice and took charge of

their lives.
 
With her parents, as always, she was a dependent, spoiled

child given to tears and temper tantrums.
 
She worried Boppo sick when,

in a fit of anger, she would hop into the watermelon red Cougar they

had given her and roar off down Tell Road.
 
She drove like a maniac,

leaving a cloud of dust behind her.
 
Invariably, she would then edge

her car back down the road and park it where the barn hid it from the

house.
 
If Boppo or Papa spotted her there and came out to try to talk

sense to her, she'd flick on the lights and speed off again.

Pat and Tom usually talked on the phone late at night, and each time

Tom hoped they could make it through an entire call without accusations

and depressing thoughts.
 
I love you, darling'.

I miss you more than anything in this world," he whispered one night

into the phone.
 
"You're my Pat, and you'll always be my Pat.
 
We gonna

make it, Sugar.
 
I need you more than anything in this world.
 
You're

my life-my whole entire life wrapped up in my Pat, okay?

"Okay," she murmured flatly.

It was not going to be a good phone call and he had only a few minutes

to talk.
 
"I'll mail you a letter tonight.
 
Shug, I'm going to try to

call you back."

"I'll talk to you Monday," she said without one word of endearment.

"I'm going to try to call you back.
 
I love you."

"Okay.
 
I'll talk to you on Monday.........

He had done something to make her angry.
 
She could change so quickly

from being sweet to being mad at him, and he seldom knew what he had

done to cause it.
 
He lay back on his bunk and listened to the radio.