The Confessions of Frances Godwin (16 page)

Clouds drifted overhead, covering a waning gibbous moon like strips of gauze.

I pushed the ejector rod and dropped the four remaining rounds into the palm of my hand.

I was back at the harvest table when Ruthy called from the parking lot, downstairs, about three o’clock. Stella didn’t want a doctor, didn’t want the police.

Ruthy’s long red hair was darker than Tommy’s. When she tossed her head you could see a little white birthmark on the side of her neck, shaped like a sock. She stayed in the guest room with Stella. Shared the little half bath. They had to shower in the big bathroom off my bedroom. Stella turned away from me when she came in to take a shower in the morning. Her hair was caked with dirt.

“How is she?” I asked Ruthy, out in the kitchen.

“Able to sit up and take nourishment.”

“That’s what her dad used to say.”

Ruthy was a lovely woman. Beautiful. Tough. Alive. Jaunty. Her hair was still wet from her shower. Her jeans were too long and formed a puddle around her shoes. She acted like a woman who wanted to be seen and heard, acknowledged.

“You remind me of my husband’s first wife,” I said.

“Is that good?”

“Good but complicated,” I said. “She came all the way from New York to the memorial. She was very kind to me. She was a good woman, but she couldn’t stand the Midwest.”

I drove out to Thrushwood Farms to get some pepper bacon. Stella’s favorite. Pepper bacon and poached eggs. Stella stayed in her room. Ruthy took her breakfast to her.

“Why can’t she come out and eat at the table?”

“Give her some time,” Ruthy said.

We were sitting out on the deck. Ruthy was wearing some of my clothes. She was peeling an orange. I’d brought up the Italian flower pots from the garage but hadn’t planted anything. The pots were plastic, not terra-cotta, but they looked real, and they were beautiful. Different colors.

“I haven’t gotten around to planting anything yet,” I said. “I haven’t been up to it.”

“It’s not too late,” Ruthy said.

Jimmy called from Milwaukee about ten o’clock.

“What happened?” I asked.

“She jumped out of the truck. Crazy bitch.”

“You pushed her, Jimmy.”

“She tell you that?”

“Jimmy,” I said, “you made things miserable for my husband at the end of his life and you’ve made life miserable for my daughter. For your uncle, too. You’re lucky you’re not back in jail right now. And you will be if you touch Stella again. She’s done with you. Through. Finito. Basta.”

I was standing in the kitchen. Ruthy was making signs: “Stella’s got to tell him herself,” she mouthed. I handed Ruthy the phone and she took it to Stella, in the bedroom, and closed the door. I couldn’t hear.

A few minutes later Jimmy called again. “You’re going to bring her to the truck stop tonight,” he said. “You don’t want me to come up there, do you?”

“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t want you to come up here. I don’t ever want to see you again.”

“Tell that bitch dyke Ruthy she’s starting to repel me.”

“I think she already knows that.”

“Eleven o’clock,” he said. “Tonight. Be there. Bring my wife, you hear, or I swear to God .
.
.” He didn’t finish swearing.

I didn’t say anything.

“You hear?” he said. “I want to hear you say it.”

“I’ll be there,” I said.

I was glad that Ruthy was with us. For both moral and physical support. We took Stella to the hospital in the afternoon. It turned out she had a ruptured spleen and a cracked rib. And she’d also, the doctor told us later, had a miscarriage after she arrived at the hospital. She was not going to need surgery, but she’d have to stay in the hospital for a few days.

Back at the apartment Ruthy and I did the dishes. Two women in the kitchen. We let Camilla lick the plates before we put them in the dishwasher.

“I know a couple of guys at the truck stop who’d be happy to put Jimmy in the hospital,” Ruthy said. “More than a couple. But I wanted to talk to you first. He’ll be there tonight. He’ll have to sleep for a while, fill in his log book.”

I put a hand on Ruthy’s shoulders. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me too,” Ruthy said. “We should plant some flowers tomorrow.”

What would Scipio Africanus do with a punk like Jimmy? Scipio, Scipio who defeated Hannibal. What would Pompey do? Pompey the Great, who rid the Mediterranean of pirates in three months. What would Caesar do? Caesar
 . . . 
Well, Shakespeare got Caesar all wrong. Caesar was a real jerk. He walked around with a body guard of gladiators. No question about it, though, guys like Scipio and Pompey and Caesar wouldn’t have put up with Jimmy.

But going back a little farther. Remember Cato the Elder:
Carthago delenda est.
Carthage must be destroyed. That’s what I was feeling:
Giacomo delenda est.
Jimmy has to be destroyed. Or at least warned off.

Camilla rode shotgun during the ninety-minute drive. I left her in the car at the truck stop.

It took me a while to find Jimmy’s truck—
GAGLIANO
BROS
.
PRODUCE
— which was parked between two refrigerator trucks—reefers—in a long line of semis. Big rigs. They were making a lot of noise, emitting blue petroleum fumes. Their engines were running, making the ground tremble, and the refrigeration units were running.

I waited for Jimmy. I had to pee but I didn’t want to go into the restaurant, so I squatted and peed by the truck. The .38 was tucked in my purse, like a good luck charm.

I gathered my strength, my nerve, while I waited, wiping my hands on my shirt before touching the pistol in my purse, holding my nerves tighter and tighter, crouching mentally, crouching in order to spring forward, like a sprinter with one foot on the starting block. Wanting to see Jimmy before he saw me, before he knew I was watching.

He finally showed, coming around the cab. High on something. He didn’t see me at first. And then he did.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Had he forgotten? “Where is she?”

“Nice to see you, Jimmy. Let’s just sit in the truck for a few minutes. We need to talk.”

“Where’s that crazy wife of mine?” We got in the truck.

“You mean my daughter?”

“Your crazy daughter, then.”

“Jimmy, tell me what happened. I want to hear it from you.”

“You got a lot of nerve messing in my business, you know.”

“Just tell me what happened.”

He hesitated, as if he’d just changed his mind about what he was going to say. “She jumped out of the truck, you know. What the fuck did she think she was doing? She just opened the door and jumped out. Good thing I was only going about forty. On the ramp.”

“That was really lucky,” I said. “And lucky that somebody stopped and picked her up.”

“I figured somebody would. No way I could stop. The next exit isn’t till Mendota. By the time I got back she’d of been gone.”

I shook my head. “Jimmy. That was my daughter you shoved out of the truck and left on the highway. My daughter.”

“She really knows how to push my buttons.”

“What does that mean, ‘push my buttons.’ What buttons are you talking about? I never saw any buttons on a man.”

“You’ve got some nerve. That woman you’re talking about is my lawful wife, and if you think—”

“She was my daughter before she was your wife, and she’ll be my daughter
after
she stops being your wife.”

“Fuck you.”

“Jimmy, I’m not here to negotiate. I’m here to tell you what the score is. Stella’s going to file for a divorce, and you’re going to say yes to everything she asks for. And don’t forget the chandelier. That chandelier was worth sixty thousand dollars. I took photos. I kept the dangles with your fingerprints on them. And I’ll tell the police how her spleen got ruptured. It was a blow to her lower left chest.

“One way or another you’ll be looking at some serious prison time. You’re a convicted felon, out on parole. You never would have gotten your commercial driver’s license if it hadn’t been for your uncle.”

“What the fuck’s a spleen?”

“It’s a Greek word, Jimmy. If you were big-spleened, that meant ‘big-hearted.’ She was big-spleened. She had to be to put up with you. And she was pregnant. She miscarried, so you’ll be looking at a murder charge, too. ‘Murder one,’ isn’t that what they say on the cop shows?”

Jimmy was having trouble speaking. It was as if he had run out of words. I knew how he felt. There was nothing more to say. I’d been planning to threaten him, to scare him, but now I was hoping he’d lunge at me. But he just sat there, dumb as a stone. And then he recovered himself and said, “You are so full of shit I can’t believe it.”

“Jimmy,” I said. “I have something to show you.” I took the long-barreled .38 out of my large purse in one smooth motion, one I’d practiced.

The sight of the revolver revived Jimmy. At least he started to laugh. More like honking than laughing.

“Jimmy,” I said, “put your hands on the steering wheel and keep them there.”

“You know what,” he said. “You haven’t got the nerve, and I don’t give a fuck.”

“You’re looking at murder one, Jimmy,” I said. “Now tell me about the chandelier.”

“Hey,” he said. “If your stupid dick of a husband hadn’t been so uptight about the fucking car, none of this would of happened. He couldn’t drive it himself, and so he couldn’t stand to have anyone else drive it.”

“Did you use a baseball bat on the chandelier?”

He laughed. “I pulled that fucker out of the ceiling with my bare hands and then I stomped all over those little dangly things. It felt good.”

“That’s what I wanted to know. Now keep your hands on the steering wheel.”

“Mrs. G,” he said, “I’m going to count to ten, and we’re going to get out of this cab and we’re going to walk over to your car and get Stella. And if you give me any grief you’ll be sorry for the rest of your life. You’ll find out that what Stella went through was like a Sunday school picnic. Like a walk in the park. Like going swimming in a lake when the water’s just right, real still and a little bit cold, not too cold, but cold, you know what I mean?”

“This was my dad’s gun,” I said. “He used it to shoot hogs. After we got married Paul used to do the shooting .
.
. Hogs, Jimmy. One shot, right behind the ear. Once a year for fourteen years. He put those hogs right down. One shot.”

“One,” he said. “You can just get out of the cab. We’ll go over to your car and get Stella and you can head back home, and Stell’n I’ll be on our way. I had a couple of pills a while ago. They’ll get me to Milwaukee, but I don’t want to fuck around here too long.”

“Jimmy,” I said. “Stella’s not in the car, she’s in the hospital.”

“Two.”

I no longer felt like the director of this drama; I was one of the actors, and we were improvising. I was a swimmer who’d been caught up in a strong current that was carrying her out to sea.

“Three.”

“And then I want you to leave her alone. That’s what it’s going to take right now. You’ve got to give me your word that you’re going to leave her alone. No telephone calls. No showing up in Galesburg.”

“Four. She’s got too much of a hold on me for that. All I got to do is touch her and she’s ready to go, you know what I mean? Maybe you still remember what it was like?”

“She’s not here,” I said. “She’s in the hospital.”

“Sometimes it’s like the cars coming at me on the other side of the highway are animals, wolves. You know what I mean?” He paused and held up five fingers. “Then I’m sure she’s getting looked after okay
.
Tell her I’ll be coming for her soon as she’s out.”

“She’ll be there a week, Jimmy.”

“Six. You gonna shoot me or what?”

I cocked the hammer to let him know I was serious. “I’ll shoot you when you get to ‘nine.’ How’s that? Either that or you give me your word that you’ll never see her again.”

“Seven. Right here,” he said, touching his forehead with the tip of his middle finger and sticking his head forward.

“Eight.”

I kept my eyes open and didn’t argue with myself before squeezing the trigger. The hammer was already cocked. I didn’t want to wait for “nine.” I could see him tensing up to make a move, and I didn’t think he’d wait for the full count. As I squeezed the trigger I could feel every moment of my life leading up to this point. (Of course, whatever point you’re at, every moment of your life has been leading up to it.) I shot him in the chest the first time, because I didn’t want to take a chance on missing, and because I didn’t want to get spattered with blood. And then I put a second bullet in his heart. The reefers on either side of us were generating so much noise no one could have heard the shots.

Afterward I couldn’t breathe and I thought for a minute I’d been shot myself. I put my hand on my heart and kept it there while I wiped the door handle with a handkerchief that I clutched in my other hand. I didn’t take a breath till I got back to my car and put my hand on Camilla’s head and my heart started to slow down.