Sleep Toward Heaven (15 page)

Jackie comes back to Karen. “I’ll start over?” she says.

“Yes,” says Karen. “Don’t be afraid.”

“Come on,” says the guard quietly. “It’s time,” he says. Jackie nods, and heads to the door. Keys rattle, the slide of the bars, footsteps. “Goodbye!” cries Jackie, and she is gone.

With a whoosh of applause, the TV comes on. “And how are you this morning, Kathie Lee?” says Regis Philbin.

The hours of Jackie’s dying day pass slowly. The sewing machines hum as Veronica and Tiffany work. They are only allowed to watch the channels that do not talk about Jackie. Karen cannot read. She cannot think. She watches the ceiling of her cell. If she watches long enough, the cracks become pictures, monsters, animals. Everyone is quiet, even Sharleen. Lunch is tuna sandwiches and chocolate bars, a treat, as if they would trade Jackie, mean as she is, for a candy bar.

The mail comes at noon, but Karen never gets any mail. When the guard stops outside her door, Karen thinks it is time for a search, and holds out her hands for the circles of metal. Instead, a letter is slipped into her cell. Karen picks it up with trembling fingers.

The letter is light, and has been opened by the guards: a neat razor cut across the top of the envelope. The paper is very white. Karen holds it to her nose, but it does not smell of anything. There is no return address. The postmark says AUSTIN, TX.

Carefully, she slides the sheet of paper out of the envelope, and unfolds it. The handwriting is sloped and neat:

To Ms. Lowens,

I cannot believe that if I write this letter, and put it in the mail, it will reach your hands. What do your hands look like? I never looked at them in the trial. Do you bite your nails?

Henry used to bite his nails. He was my husband. He used to nick himself when he shaved, and crawl around on all fours to play with the dog, and bring me coffee in bed. He loved old music, and gardening, especially tomatoes. He loved cold beer, and fishing, and me.

I want you to understand what you did. When I wake up, and go to work, and come home, and eat dinner alone in front of the television, I want you to know that you took my life away. I don’t know if you are sorry, or if you even care. I don’t know if you want forgiveness, but you will never have it. I can never forgive you, and you have also done this: you have made me into someone who is filled with hate.

My mother tells me that this will get easier. It has been five years. Every night, I dread the morning.

Mrs. Henry Mills

Karen reads the letter, imagining the beautiful woman, Celia. Does she know that Karen watched her husband die? Would it help her to know? Karen waits for the guilt. She waits to feel sorry, to yearn for forgiveness. She waits, but nothing comes. It is too late, and she is tired. She is ready to leave this world.

D
eath Row did not look the way Franny had expected it to. For one thing, there was the television, which was so loud Franny had to fight the urge to cover her ears: BUT BILLY IS DEAD, HOW CAN HE POSSIBLY BE THE FATHER OF YOUR CHILD, VIRGINIA? WELL, DARREN, THERE ARE THINGS YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW…

In front of the television (WHAT ARE YOU TELLING ME, VIRGINIA? JUST SPIT IT OUT, DAMN YOU!), there was a metal table screwed to the floor, with chairs around it. On the table was a pack of cards and a magazine: Quilting for Beginners.

The floor was concrete, with a large, rusty drain in the middle. And the smell! It was different from the smell in the rest of the prison. It had a bitter, sour edge with no reassuring antiseptic. Underneath the screaming television (YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT BILLY, I SWEAR YOU DON’T! DON’T MAKE ME TELL YOU!), Franny could hear a river of small sighs, moans, and breathing.

Behind the concrete area were the cells. Franny knew that sometimes the women were allowed into the common area, but they were locked up during Franny’s visit. Hamm, who had been chosen to give Franny her official tour, led Franny around, pointing out each woman. There was Sharleen, a huge black woman, her head thrown back, the hollow of her neck slick. Sharleen murmured in her sleep, and Franny saw the lurid paintings she had made on the walls of her cell, the chalk stars.

Next was Tiffany’s cell (Franny could see shelves of makeup; Tiffany did not look up from her People magazine), and then Veronica’s, covered with what looked like wedding photographs.

There was an empty cell next to Veronica’s. The woman named Jackie had been taken to Huntsville, and her belongings had been removed.

The cell that held the woman from Uvalde, the woman named Karen, was last. She looked asleep when Franny stood before her cell; her breathing was steady and her eyes were closed. On her bed was a copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude and a letter. “This one here’s got AIDS. She’s got it bad,” said Hamm.

Karen opened her eyes. From her wasted face, they shone, twin orbs of green fire. Orange around the pupils. Anna’s eyes.

Franny gasped. “You OK there, Doc?” said Hamm, and Franny steadied herself.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course.”

When Karen looked at her, Franny felt exposed and frightened. She tried to imagine a life with nothing, and nothing to lose.

She tried to look at Karen with a clinical eye. Karen was in bad shape, and needed to be started on a stronger drug regimen immediately. Franny made a mental note to ask about her T-cell count. Karen’s weight loss was evident in her sunken cheekbones.

She watched Franny steadily. Franny could see the little girl in front of the trailer, the small child Karen had been. Franny did not look away. She felt an unidentifiable emotion; a mixture of panic and anticipation.

“Hi,” said Karen.

“Hi,” said Franny.

“Well, that’ll be all,” said Hamm, taking Franny’s elbow. Franny wanted to say something to the woman with Anna’s eyes, something soothing—I can save you—but she was silent. As Hamm led her to the exit, Franny heard scraping metal and locks turning. Footsteps rang along the hallway, coming toward them.

Bars slid aside, and Janice Gaddon appeared. She looked exhausted, but her face was composed. She ignored Franny, faced the prisoners. She put her hands on her hips, and Franny saw her features harden. Inside the prison, Janice was so different from the woman who had sat barefoot under the stars, drinking wine and telling stories.

All of the prisoners stood up, and some held the bars for support. “Jackie Ford was executed at eleven-fifteen this morning,” said Janice. One of the women, the blonde one named Tiffany, began to wail. Karen sank back to her bed and covered her face with her hands. The older woman, the Black Widow, pressed her eyes shut, and her body began to shake. Grasping the bars of her cell, her fingers grew red. Only Sharleen, on the far end, remained still.

Janice opened her mouth, but then closed it. She looked at the floor. “Are there any questions?” she said finally, in a tight but even voice.

There were no questions.

W
herever I go, I see him out of the corner of my eye. This is not something I mention to anyone. At the supermarket, I will see a man in a suit holding a melon, and he will turn and he will be Henry. I know that Henry is dead, and I know that he did not like melons, never wore a suit, but I see his face, and I have to bite my tongue to keep from calling out.

I want to be rid of the memories. Sometimes, I wish I had never met Henry in the first place, never let him convince me to fly to Vegas on a two-for-one Southwest Airlines deal. How could I not have known, as I held his hand in the Elvis chapel? How could I have stood there in a satin dress, my hair piled on my head, and not seen what was coming? I ate the cake with my hands, letting Henry lick the frosting off my fingers.

If I had never met Henry, I would not have known those mornings in bed, with pages of the paper spread out, Henry’s head bent, the sheets like waves around us. I would not have had that night on the Riverwalk in San Antonio, eating seafood pasta by candlelight, listening to Henry’s story about the way he loved a girl in kindergarten so much that he snuck into the coatroom and kissed her coat every morning. I would not have felt Henry fill me.

Is it worth it? Sometimes I wonder. If I had never been filled by Henry, I would not be so empty now.

T
here is so much time in Karen’s day. She wants to put the letter out of her mind, but she cannot. After a few days, she decides to write back to Celia Mills, and calls her first meeting at the patio to explain the situation. “I don’t know what to write to her,” says Karen.

“Shit,” says Tiffany. “That’s a toughie, hon.” Tiffany has gone to the Medical Center to have her blood tested for the DNA trial, and she has a Band-Aid in the crook of her arm.

“Why?” says Veronica. “That’s what I’d like to know. Why do you want to write to this woman? Why now, after all of this time?”

Karen takes the letter out of its envelope, and presses it flat on the table. “What’s that?” yells Sharleen from her cell.

“Come and see for yourself, Sharleen,” says Tiffany. Sharleen makes a dismissive sound. Veronica rolls her eyes. But then, for the first time, Sharleen comes toward them. She sinks down into a chair. It is Jackie’s chair.

“Let me see,” she says. She grabs the letter, and looks at it.

“I want her to go on with her life, I guess,” says Karen.

“You want to feel better about your own self,” says Veronica. “Before you go to God.”

There is a silence, and then Tiffany stands up from the table. “I have a headache,” she says, walking to her cell.

“Girl, you are acting weird,” says Sharleen.

“Let the woman hate you,” says Veronica to Karen. “Don’t write to her. Leave it alone.”

“I saw him die,” says Karen. “Her husband.”

“And what good is that going to do her?” says Sharleen.

“No good,” says Karen. “No good at all.” She folds the sheet of paper and puts it back inside its envelope.

That night, they gather for the radio show, and of course Dan calls in first. His voice is scratchy, like wool. Tiffany stays in her cell, but looks up when she hears his voice.

“Hi, honey,” says Dan. “I hope you’re listening to me. We should know about the DNA in a week or two. Honey, Bob says we should really be able to use this in the appeal. You’ll be home soon.” His voice breaks. “Next to me,” he says. Karen looks at Tiffany’s eyes. They are dry.

“You better hope you innocent,” says Sharleen, who is sitting in Jackie’s chair again. Tiffany does not answer.

They have become separated: Tiffany and Veronica on one side, with their hopes and plans, and Sharleen and Karen on the other. Karen does not want to be on Sharleen’s side.

F
ranny fell into a pattern quickly, and the days passed. She woke, made coffee, drove to the prison listening to country hits in the Cadillac. All day, she drew blood and administered medications. The women’s faces blended together. Franny was careful not to get to know them.

The only inmate Franny sought out was Karen. Her T-cell count was very low, but Franny hoped that with careful medication she could get better. Franny called Karen into the Medical Center often, and monitored her carefully. Once in a while, they spoke, reaching toward each other with words. Franny asked Karen about her life on Death Row, and Karen answered in a low murmur, telling Franny that she closed her eyes, let go of time, and let hours slip by. Karen told Franny about making tea with the hot coil, and about the Halloween party they had had the previous fall, when Jackie had cut Little Debbie cakes into tiny pieces, to make them last. When Karen spoke of Jackie, her voice fell to a whisper, as if in reverence.

At the end of the day, Franny drove. She drove on the highway sometimes, and sometimes on small back roads. The countryside soothed her, and she even grew to like Uncle Jack’s car, which floated atop the road like a boat. The car was a cool haven in the summer heat. Franny sang along with Reba McEntire and Garth Brooks. The flat, parched land on either side made sense to her. There was rarely anyone outside.

On most evenings, she drank wine to try to ignore the loneliness that surrounded her. Magazines arrived addressed to Uncle Jack, and the contents of the kitchen drawers told his story: a book of matches from a restaurant in Waco; rubber bands carefully wound into a ball. Franny talked to him. I am carrying on your work, she told him, hoping somehow that driving to the prison each morning would help make up for the calls she had never returned, the things she had left unsaid.

Jed Lewis, after approving Franny’s leave, had picked up Franny’s belongings and shipped them to Texas, even finding an airline that would transport a cat. When Franny opened her boxes—Nat had thrown her clothes in haphazardly—she found a letter from Anna’s father, asking her to stay in touch. She called the Gillisons’ house one night, sitting in Uncle Jack’s living room with her cat and a half-empty bottle of wine. When Mr. Gillison answered, however, Franny realized she had nothing to say, and hung up the phone.

She went to the Motor Inn Lounge occasionally, but it was usually empty, and Fred would watch television and ignore her. Franny didn’t have the heart to clean the house; pizza boxes and dirty wine glasses piled up. After seeing Karen’s copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude, Franny checked it out of the library. But even reading, her favorite escape, failed her: the words swam on the page, devoid of meaning. Late at night, instead of sleeping, Franny stared into the darkness and wished she believed in God.

She was gazing out her window one night when the phone rang. She took a sip of her wine. Who could possibly be calling her? She picked up the receiver.

“Dr. Wren? Franny Wren?” It was a man’s voice, deep, wheezy.

“Yes?”

“This is Rick Underwood. I’m a defense lawyer.”

Franny rolled her eyes. “What can I do for you, Mr. Underwood?”

“Rick, please.”

“What can I do for you, Rick?”

“I know you must be very busy. But I need to speak to you. It’s regarding one of my clients, Karen Lowens. I believe you’ve been treating her. By any chance, do you have time…for dinner? A drink?”