Dogwood Read online

  I wanted to scream. I wanted to be forgiven for the awful thing I’d done. I didn’t want to feel guilty. It was my fault. If it would bring them back, I’d gladly take their place. I wanted us to be a family again instead of walking corpses. Just going through life like zombies on that Night of the Living Dead movie. I haven’t seen it, but one of my friends told me about it.

  Everyone has a story, he said again.

  What good will it do for me to write something down?

  He put his hands together, index fingers pointing up like a steeple, and touched his lips. Red lips in the middle of that beard. Nothing good ever hides, he said.

  Nothing bad does either, I said. It eventually pokes its head up at some point and bites your rear end.

  He smiled. True. But it’s best to get it into the open quickly where we can all see it. Begin to understand. Live with it. Work with it.

  I wished I could smile like he did, a light coming through his eyes as if you could see as far back as you wanted all the way to the end of something. But behind the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, I noticed a little sadness. I wondered what his story was. What had he seen and done? Why was he some two-bit counselor in this place talking to a kid who’d killed his sisters?

  You were only eleven, you know, he said.

  I should have known better. If I’d obeyed, this whole thing wouldn’t have happened and we’d be celebrating Tanny’s birthday.

  He nodded. You made a mistake. You didn’t mean to—

  I killed them.

  He sat for a long time looking at me. I hate it when grown-ups stare at kids. The room felt like it needed music. Something playing in the background. Maybe if he opened a window a bird would chirp or something and break the silence.

  He tapped a pencil. Will you write it?

  What choice do I have?

  He reached for the pad on my lap.

  I pulled it away and held on. I can’t promise I’ll get it right.

  Is that what you think I want? I don’t want it right. I want it to be good. And true.

  I’m saying it won’t be any good. How long do you think it will take?

  He handed me another pad. Write about them until you’re ready to talk.

  Wait. You mean my sisters or—?

  Everyone has a story, he interrupted. Tell theirs.

  I looked at the pads, the green running across the pages in perfect lines, as if they could go on to infinity. Parallel lines do that. That’s what Mrs. Arnold said when we were studying math. They just go on and on and on and never touch. Hard to imagine something going so far as to never touch. Kind of sad, too, in a way. I squared the edges and tucked the pads under an arm. His words echoed in my head, through the halls.

  Good things can come from pain, he said. Not all of it is good, of course, but some of it. And the places it leads are good places, not bad. Never be afraid of the places pain will take you.

  Like a hospital?

  He smiled.

  So I left and found out he was right. Everyone does have a story.

  Will

  Clarkston Federal Correctional Institution

  Clarkston, West Virginia

  I can’t stop my hands from shaking. Just like at the trial. Uncontrollable. It doesn’t even help if I shove them in my pockets.

  With the fluorescent lights over me so strong, I can see a ghost of my reflection. I’ve avoided mirrors for twelve years. Only two months to go, but I don’t think I’ll ever look in a mirror again and not remember what’s happened. It’s enough to turn a strong man’s stomach.

  Men elected president enter the White House with dark hair, full of vigor, and most leave a few years later looking twenty years older. I would have taken the White House over Clarkston. I entered this white house weighing 195. If I can stay above 150, I’ll be happy.

  The solace comes when I close my eyes and think of home. What the neighbors are doing. Fishing with Uncle Luther. Or with my dad. I’ll never do that again. The excitement of hunting season. There are people up the hollow who were in grade school when I left. They’re out of college now or in prison. Maybe out of college and in prison.

  The chair squeaks as I lean forward and rest my elbows on the Formica countertop. The letter came a week ago. The explanation was a bit confusing, but it said she would visit. And now I sit with my stomach in knots, unable to let the thought enter my mind that it might really be her.

  My first two months here were spent crafting letters, pouring out my heart, detailing my feelings. Half of them I threw away, convinced I’d said too much or too little. The other half I sent.

  Every letter went unanswered.

  I heard rumors, of course. Wild ones that she had moved away or was pregnant and had a shotgun wedding. Carson, my brother, called her unspeakable names. But every waking moment of the last dozen years, I’ve thought of her.

  Down the row, a voice echoes off the scratched Plexiglas. Tears. Hands reaching. An inmate falsely accused. A mother weeping. It seems so cliché now.

  Yet I can’t deny a flicker of hope. After a year I stopped sending letters, but I never stopped writing. Or loving. There are things I have to do once I get out. Hard things. People I have to face. But if I can just see her once more . . .

  Every night for twelve years, I’ve turned off the light and interlaced my fingers behind my head, drifting off to a dream of a house on a hill overlooking a meadow and a sea of West Virginia mountains and trees rolling like an ocean. I’m returning from work swinging a lunch box. I stop and pick up a child who runs to me. Then she appears on the porch, in sandals, relaxed, holding a frosty glass of tea, smiling at both of us. I long for that dream to become reality, but I know it’s only a dream.

  Someone moves behind me and I jerk around, a reflex developed for survival.

  “Take it easy,” the guard says, his hands out. “Just got the word that they’re here.”

  I nod. “Thanks.”

  Bobby Ray

  This was not what I expected. I walked into the station and found a dark green desk that looked like something shipped back from Vietnam.

  “Your uniform is down at the cleaners,” the secretary said, a brunette turned blonde turned redhead. Maggie looked like one of those girls from high school who threw herself into food and hair coloring with equal gusto. She could be pretty, but now she is just cleavage and wide hips and jokes about her weight to protect herself. In the days to come, I would learn that she didn’t get much help from the others in the office, especially Wes, a patrol officer who worked nights. He was thin, had eyes like a weasel, and walked like he owned the world.

  “Ought to come with me tonight over to the Blue Moon,” Wes said to her. He winked at me. “They’ve got a wet T-shirt contest, and there’s no doubt in my mind—”

  “Just stop it,” Maggie said, sorting through the mail on her desk. “You ever heard of sexual harassment?”

  “I’ve never heard a sexual harassment I didn’t like.”

  The door opened and a bell jingled. Two men walked in, the older with the presence of Moses. He had a slick, lizardlike face, and from the Barbasol smell I guessed he’d just had a shave at the barbershop. The silver at his temples gave way to light brown hair that looked like the color of some barn cat I used to toss in the pond behind our house. Something between an orange tabby and the tail of a calico. The man had a chest as wide as the door, it seemed, and he carried himself like a prizefighter.

  The second man was younger but had the same barrel chest and stout build. His hair was short, and he had a dark mustache.

  “Morning, Chief,” Maggie said. “Guess that’s the last time I’ll be saying that.”

  The older man put a hand on the counter and leaned against it, draining a spent piece of spearmint gum. “Now, Maggie, I’ll always be chief to you, won’t I?”

  She smiled. “I guess you will.”

  “You won’t mind that, will you, Son?” he said, turning to the man behind him.

  His name
was Eddie. I’d met him when I interviewed for the job a month ago. He flipped through letters and papers in his mailbox, disinterested. “As long as they up my pay, I don’t care what you call him.”

  The chief turned and smiled, his eyes shining. “Wes? Everything go all right last night?”

  “Hardly a peep, sir. Caught two kids going at it in the backseat of their Focus over on Virginia Avenue.”

  The chief laughed, the gum sticking to his teeth. “Those don’t have much room in the back. Sounds painful. You write them up?”

  “Nah, it was a friend of mine’s little brother. I put the fear of God in him and told him to wipe the steam off the windows and leave.”

  The chief stepped toward me. “You must be Bobby Ray.”

  “Yes, sir. It’s an honor to meet you, sir.”

  He shook my hand. His skin was cold and surprisingly soft. “You’re Cecilia and Robert’s boy, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You have a sister, a little older than you. Right?”

  “Karin.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Fine. Thanks for asking. She has her ups and downs, of course.”

  “Well, we all do, don’t we?”

  “Yes, sir. We do.”

  He took a Hershey’s Kiss from a jar on Maggie’s desk and unwrapped it. “Well, I’m passing the baton to somebody you can trust. Wouldn’t have retired if I didn’t know I could leave this place in good hands.”

  “Got that right,” Wes said.

  The chief nodded. “Yeah, Eddie here learned from the best, if I do say so myself.”

  Eddie had his sleeves rolled up, a smirk on his face, as if he wasn’t buying the compliments. The tag under his star said “Buret.” He had the look of a lone bull in an open field, his upper arms the size of my thighs. He shook my hand—the same grip as his father’s. “Good to see you again. Welcome to the force.”

  The phone rang, and Maggie put her hand over the mouthpiece. “Chief, it’s the mayor.”

  “Better get the office cleaned out, old-timer,” Eddie said. “I want to move in this afternoon.”

  The chief shook his head and closed the door. I could hear his voice through the window. “Mayor, how are we today?”

  “Wes, you coming to the breakfast?” Eddie said.

  “If you can spare me.”

  Eddie looked at me. “Figured you could hold down the fort while we say good-bye to the old geezer.”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll keep my radio on just in case.”

  “I don’t have my uniform yet.”

  “That’s all right. You’ll just be answering the phone. Maggie’s coming with us.” Eddie opened a desk drawer and pulled out a service revolver, a .38 Smith & Wesson in a holster with Mace, a radio, and a nightstick. Then a silver badge in a leather holder. “We’ll grab your uniform on the way back from the restaurant. Any questions?”

  “If somebody calls with an emergency?”

  He wrote down the number for the restaurant. “Nobody’ll call.”

  I brought in a box of my stuff as the four piled into both cruisers and screeched away. Eddie ran the lights. One last spin for the memory, I guessed.

  I settled into the corner desk, going through the drawers to see what was there. Eddie had told me during the interview process that the previous officer had taken a job in Charleston. I must have answered his questions satisfactorily. He knew I was a native and understood the people.

  “Dogwood’s never gonna be a big city,” Eddie had said. “And to be honest, I don’t want it to be. I want to keep things quiet as they’ve always been.”

  I put out the picture of Lynda and me—a shot we’d taken on our honeymoon at Pipestem, a state park a couple of hours away. Then one from a few months ago, her stomach slightly paunched, my hand on her belly. Another reason I had quickly taken the job. I needed an income and some benefits for the new family.

  Another picture showed lots of sand and my buddies looking tough, square-jawed, kneeling near a Chinook. After my military service, I’d gone into officer training and landed a job in Wheeling. With Orson—my affectionate name for our baby—on the way and the grandparents excited about their first grandchild, moving back seemed the best option. Lynda’s parents live in Winfield, only fifteen minutes away, so it made sense. We found a house, the old Benedict farm that had been divided into several parcels. With the money I’d saved and gifts from both sets of parents, we made a down payment and moved in with Lynda’s folks until I could remodel. We had a long way to go—the water pipes were worse than I thought and the roof was a sieve—but I was hopeful we could be in before the baby came.

  The third and last picture was of Karin and me when we were kids. It was Halloween—I was six; she was ten. She wore a frilly ballerina costume, and I held a motorcycle helmet and had written #43 on a white T-shirt to look like Richard Petty. Our faces were pressed together, cheek to cheek. I’m glad we got a photo of Karin smiling and happy.

  The bell jingled and two women entered. The younger one wore tight cutoffs, her shirt tied to show off tight-as-a-drum abs. Her dirty blonde hair hung down, and each time she blinked, her split ends moved. Her lips were pouty, and her teeth protruded slightly. She had a smoker’s cough.

  The older woman was large with a dimpled chin and gray-streaked dark hair. Her arms looked like the Michelin Man’s, and she wore polyester slacks that made an audible whine as she walked.

  “Can I help you, ladies?”

  “Where’s Eddie?” the older woman said.

  “He’s out for a couple of hours. Can I help?”

  “You the new guy?”

  I offered my hand and she took it. “Bobby Ray Ashworth. I don’t have my uniform yet.”

  “Robert and Cecilia’s boy?” she said.

  “That’s right.”

  She looked me up and down and spied my wedding ring. “My, my, Doris Jean. The good ones get taken too fast.”

  The other woman lifted a hand, her fingers stained yellow. “We’re here about my brother Arron.”

  The older woman introduced herself as Emma Spurlock, the mother of Arron and Doris Jean. For years I’d heard the family name associated with everything from petty thievery and vandalism to house fires. The Spurlocks had so many kids that it was said you could throw a rock on their tin roof and they’d be running outside for days. Each time a child reached the age where he could strike a box of matches or flick a Bic lighter, the fire department was put on notice.

  “I filed a missing person’s report on Arron two days ago, and I haven’t heard a thing from Eddie.”

  I found the right cabinet and was impressed with Maggie’s filing abilities. I hadn’t expected much. But the missing person’s file was empty. I asked the two to hang on while I went to Eddie’s office and looked through the papers on his desk. The report wasn’t there.

  “Like I said, it’s my first day. Let me take your number and have Eddie call you as soon as he gets back.”

  “We’ve got some more information for him,” Doris Jean said.

  “How long has Arron been missing?”

  “Since last weekend. He left work about eight and went over to the pool hall. Nobody seen him after that and he didn’t come home.”

  “We told all this to Eddie,” Mrs. Spurlock said.

  I wrote down their number and taped the piece of paper to Eddie’s door.

  “Arron’s a good boy,” Mrs. Spurlock said. “He works hard.”

  “Where was he employed?”

  “Over at the Exxon station. Been there almost five years now. I’m worried sick.”

  I nodded. “We’ll do our best, ma’am.”

  Karin

  Ruthie arrived at the church office, her black purse slung over her arm like she had an appointment with God himself, and asked to see me. I was in a women’s ministry meeting mired in the specifics of the spring luncheon, so I excused myself and met her in the hall.

  I showed Ruthie to m
y husband’s office—Richard was home working on a sermon or the new budget—and closed the door behind us. We faced each other in chairs near his desk. She stared through me, and I found myself studying the design on the spine of The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge.

  “Why did you want to see me?” I said.

  “You came to my place a couple of days ago. What did you want?”

  Ruthie was at least seventy with thinning gray hair and skin that hung from her neck like a turkey wattle. Her eyes had that narrow quality you see in Pulitzer Prize winners who have pain running through their veins, having seen too much of the world, having written about the deeper things of life. Her stare wiped the smile from my face, and I could tell she knew something.

  “You were on the list of people to invite, and I was told you didn’t have a phone,” I said.

  Ruthie squinted. “Invite me to what?”

  “The spring luncheon. I’m on the committee, and we’re trying to come up with—”

  “Don’t you have that in May? That’s months away.”

  “Yes, we’re trying to get the word out early.”

  I ran down the list of particulars—our special speaker, the menu, the child care.

  After I finished my spiel, Ruthie gave me her patented stare. “What’s wrong in your life?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  She opened her purse, took out a tissue, and pulled her glasses off, showing two red marks indelibly left on the bridge of her nose. She wiped the lenses and placed them firmly on the red marks. “Something’s going on, and God sent me here to find out what it is.”

  Oxygen left the room for a second, and I had to consciously open my mouth and suck in a couple of breaths. Of course there was something wrong. Terribly wrong. But only God and I knew it, and he wasn’t letting me in on what it was.

  “Are you cheating on your husband?” she said.

  “Of course not! Why would you ask a thing like that?”

  Ruthie stuffed the tissue back in her purse. If everyone lived like Ruthie, Kleenex would go out of business. “It took a lot to get me here today. Ask those ladies. They’ll tell you how long it’s been since I’ve been here. And if you don’t want my help, that’s fine.”