Authors: David Ellis
“Right.”
“I pulled all this shit, Shelly, and Ronnie saved me. You got a good kid there.”
She
did
have a kid. She had always known it, and was even able to put a face and name to the concept over the last few months. Now, for some reason, as things were coming to a close, the notion seemed to have more meaning. Something she couldn’t put her finger on, that stirred her emotions in a way that she had never felt.
The tears surprised her, how quickly they came. She was in a fragile state in every way, but still. She wasn’t a crier. She wiped at her face.
“So—what’s gonna happen now, do you think?” he asked.
She composed herself after a moment. She walked over to him, placed a hand on his shoulder. “We’re not on tomorrow. The prosecutor and I are going to see what can be done.”
“You think they’ll drop the case?”
She sighed. “Honestly?”
“No, lie to me.”
“I don’t think they’ll drop this case, Alex. And I don’t think the judge will throw it out, either. The heat is too great. There’s politics. There’s a dead cop.”
Alex seemed to deflate. He apparently thought that things would change with this revelation.
“Get some sleep,” she told him. “Let me be the lawyer. I’m going to talk to Ronnie, and I’ll come back tomorrow and we’ll get prepared for the rest of this.”
“Okay,” he agreed. “But you’re the one who needs sleep.”
She kissed him on the cheek and left him in the cell. She reached into her bag for her cell phone, which had been turned off. When the screen lit up, it told her she had four messages. She listened to her voice mail as she waited for the elevator to the courthouse lobby. The reception was less than perfect, but she had no trouble making out the callers, because all four
messages, spread out over the last hour and a half, were from the same person.
Maribelle Rodriguez, the chief of staff to Governor Langdon Trotter.
She could imagine the chaos in the state capital, or wherever he was. It would have taken the press all of two minutes, after the revelations in court hours ago, to hunt down the governor and ambush him with questions. And she hadn’t called to warn him. Never mind that she had been lying unconscious on a courtroom floor. That was a distinction that would be lost on an elected official, in the heat of a re-election campaign, who suddenly had a great deal of explaining to do. He would want to coordinate his comments with Shelly, and perhaps add a few private comments of his own.
Well, he’ll have to wait,
she said to herself.
S
HELLY WALKED INTO
the interview room at the county lockup. Ronnie Masters still wore a blue button-down shirt and khaki pants, looked like he was readying himself for church.
He looked different to her, though, more at ease than ever before. All of the calculating was over. He had had a mission all along, and that mission was apparently accomplished.
“How are you doing?” he asked her.
“The bump on my head is fine,” she said. “I’m not sure about the rest of me.”
“What are they gonna do about Alex?”
She sighed. “I don’t know. Probably keep going.”
“But you’ll win now.”
“Probably. You and I need to talk about your testimony. That’s one of the reasons I’m here.”
“What’s the other?”
“The other—” She looked up at the ceiling. She thought of all the times she had spoken with Ronnie about Alex, back when she thought Alex was her son. All of the questions Ronnie had asked. Was she ashamed of her son? Was she mad that her son had come to find her?
She opened her hands. “I’m sorry, Ronnie.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“I’m sorry because—because—”
“Because you gave me up for adoption?” he asked. “That wasn’t such a bad move.”
“Because I didn’t come to find you. Because I didn’t try.”
She felt another shiver run through her. She could never pinpoint exactly why she had never looked up her son. There were plenty of rationalizations. She didn’t want to burst into a happy child’s life and cause chaos. She feared her child’s rejection. She would never know the reasons. Maybe that was no longer the point.
“The whole thing was probably tough on you,” Ronnie said.
“Tough on
me.
” She grimaced. “Ronnie, I—” She felt her throat close, the emotion rise. She thought of her own parents, the years lost after Ronnie was conceived.
She walked over and sat next to him. “Listen. I don’t really know what I’m doing. It’s not like there’s a manual or anything.” Her hand lingered in the air.
“A manual for what?”
“I—” She framed her hands in the air. “I—we need to—I want to be a part of things. I don’t know how this is going to work. I just—”
“Just be my friend, Shelly. I already have a mom.” He said it with such simplicity. Shelly was impressed by his strength, grateful for his generosity.
She touched his hand. “I can do that. I want to do that.”
Her cell phone rang. She held her breath. This was the fifth phone call.
“You should answer that,” Ronnie said.
“It can wait. We have to talk about your testimony.”
“Maybe it’s important.”
“It can
wait.
” She went to her bag and removed a notepad. Then she put it down. She thought of her father. She thought of family. She looked back at Ronnie.
“I have always loved my child,” she said, surprised at the strength of her voice. “I didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl or anything else. But I have always carried around so much love for that child. I know it’s hard to understand, because I didn’t do anything about—”
“You think it’s hard for
me
to understand?” Ronnie stood up. “You loved someone you had never met. So did I. I understand. Is that what you need to hear? I forgive you. Okay? It was tough, and you have all kinds of thoughts swirling around your head.
It’s a lot different when it moves from the abstract to real. Believe me, I get it. Just—don’t get so worked up about labels. Let’s just—y’know—hang together. Watch each other’s backs. Have some fun once in a while. Stay a—a part of each other.”
She walked over and extended a hand. He took it and pulled her into a hug. “There,” he said. “Not so bad, was it? Friends hug.”
“Okay.” Her throat choked, but she felt unimaginable relief. He was making this so easy for her. “Now, as inappropriate as it may seem, we really do need to talk about your testimony.” She grabbed his shoulder, then moved to the other side of the table and picked up her notepad.
“Can I have ten bucks for the movies tonight?” he asked.
She laughed.
“Can I stay out past my curfew?”
“Cease and desist.” She raised a hand.
“Can I sleep over at Billy’s?”
“Only if you clean your room. Now, can we talk about your testimony?”
“Hey—” He shrugged. “You’re the one who wants to make up for lost time.”
Lost time. Time lost. She had spent so long pining over it, she had forgotten to turn her head forward. Her cell phone rang again. She reached for it and turned it off.
S
HELLY FOUGHT THROUGH
reporters that had gathered around the county jail, and jumped into a cab. A taxi to her house from downtown could set her back as much as twenty dollars and was typically unheard of for her, but she couldn’t fathom the thought of dozens of reporters following her to the bus stop. Safely in the taxi, she dialed the number Mari Rodriguez had left her.
“Mari, it’s Shelly.”
“Shelly—God, I’ve been calling you all day.”
“I take it the news has reached you.”
“You could say that. He wants to see you, Shelly. He’s been in a budget meeting all day but he told me to pull him out when I got hold of you.”
“I’m heading home.”
“I’ll tell him.”
“This news isn’t—” She wasn’t going to apologize. No. There was nothing for which she needed to say she was sorry.
“Mari,” she said, “I didn’t want this. I had no idea who this cop was.”
“I understand.”
“This is going to hurt, isn’t it?”
A pause. Mari was a good sort.
“You could say that,” she said.
Shelly clicked off the phone and dropped her head back on the carseat. She thought of the headlines for her father. She tried
to rationalize each piece of information. A private adoption was not a crime. His grandson’s involvement, in some way, in a cop shooting. His loose-cannon daughter. It was the collective whole. Messy, is what it was.
Her phone rang again.
“Shelly, it’s Joel. Jesus Christ!”
“Hi, Joel.”
“I’m reading this on-line. The
Watch.
Ronnie’s your
son
? Miroballi—”
“All true,” she said.
“‘A grandson who’s never been acknowledged by the Trotter family.’ ‘A daughter, outcast from the family—’”
“It says that?” She came forward in the seat, felt a wave of nausea.
“‘Did the governor involve himself in the prosecution?’ ‘Did his daughter know this all along?’”
“Oh, Jesus.”
“It’s not pretty, Shel. Did you really faint?”
She moaned.
“And I got some news for you, Counselor.”
“Tell me it’s good, Joel. I can’t take anything else right now.”
“Depends on your perspective. Guess which west-side drug dealer woke up this morning without any arms?”
“No.”
“Mr. Edward Todavia, one and the same.”
She did a quick calculation. Ronnie Masters was in the county lockup last night. She immediately scolded herself for even considering it.
“That’s the Cans for you. He got notorious. They don’t like publicity.”
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” she said.
“Not in my cab, lady,” the driver called back.
“That’s one less scumbag on the street,” Joel said. “Don’t lose sleep over that guy.”
“It’s up here on the left,” she told the cab driver.
“You got plenty else to lose sleep over, I’m afraid,” Joel added.
S
HELLY WALKED DOWN
the hallway upon hearing the whine of the intercom buzzer. She hit the button for entry into her building and walked over by the door. She unlocked it and found herself taking steps backward, away from the door.
The state plane from the capital would have landed, by her estimation, about twenty-five minutes ago.
He came in by himself, without any security detail. He seemed startled, for some reason, to see her. Perhaps he’d been lost in thought. Perhaps he’d been busy calculating the damage to his political campaign. There had been some talk of a vice presidential bid down the road, perhaps even the top spot. Why not? He was a tall, handsome, personable conservative from a large Midwestern state.
That was over now. No question. Stuff like this? Just too messy. He’d be lucky to hold on to his current job now.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” she said, standing firm. She immediately regretted the capitulation.
He looked at her with a quizzical expression, cocked his head. And then she saw something she had not ever seen before. She saw tears in the eyes of her father.
“
You’re
sor—” His throat closed. Something else she had never seen.
It was a moment she couldn’t describe, one that she never would be able to explain. A breakthrough. A spark, maybe, that each of them had been awaiting. She didn’t know who moved to
whom. Later, she would remember that they met in the middle. They held each other tightly, desperately, their bodies trembling. No words were spoken for what seemed like forever, as if they were trying to recover so much with this embrace. Just like that, and she felt it sweep over her, felt time melt away.
His head turned, his mouth moved to her ear. “What kind of a father am I?” he whispered, his voice trembling. “What kind of a father am I, when my beautiful little girl can’t tell me that she was—that somebody had—had hurt my little—”
“I should have told you, Daddy. I’m so—”
“No,” he whispered gently. “It wasn’t your job to tell me. It was
my
job to
ask.
I prosecuted so many of those cases, and when it came to my own daughter—” He stroked her hair. “I thought you were being stubborn. I swear that’s what I thought. I swear.”
She didn’t have a reply to that. She just held on to him as tightly as she could.
“You had to go through all of that alone. And I made you feel
worse.
Oh, God, Shelly, can you ever forgive me?”
“I already have.” She pulled back from him. She tried to smile, but her lips were still trembling.
He cupped his hand around her chin, and this seemed to calm him. “I am so proud of you and so ashamed of myself.”
She shook her head but couldn’t speak.
“I want my daughter back,” he said.
“She’s back,” she managed. And she meant it. Could that really be all it took to erase years of barriers and resentment? Was that, in the end, all she ever really wanted, to hear these words?
He smiled at her. His steel-blue eyes were entirely bloodshot now. The strong, stoic mask was washed away. It seemed appropriate, somehow, that she was seeing something new in him at this moment.
He touched the back of her neck tenderly. “You hurt yourself today. You fainted.”
“I’m fine,” she answered, and then chuckled. “Do you think I could have possibly found a more public way for this to come out?”
He smiled. They both did. “It doesn’t matter,” he said.
“This is going to hurt you—”
“It doesn’t matter.” He slowly shook his head.
Their breathing evened out. They looked at each other, their smiles slowly growing. He petted her hair, wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“I’m going to do something I’ve never done before,” she told him.
He looked into her eyes, noted the expression on her face. He tilted his head so their foreheads touched. In some ways, nothing had changed. He could still keep a step ahead of her.
“You’re going to vote for me,” he said.
F
EBRUARY 11, 2004.
A feeling he cannot escape: Someone is watching. He has no visual confirmation but it’s a sense, his gut telling him that he’s not alone as he stands on the street outside the athletic club on the commercial district’s west side. The bitter evening air stings his sweaty body, the light wind shooting over the top of his long black coat and filling the space within his sweatshirt. His fellow players have left in their various directions, to high-priced condos along the city’s lakefront or, in some cases, to student housing at whatever school they are attending. Not so for this young man. He will walk four blocks to the Austin bus that will transport him to the city’s south side, to his middle-class home.