Blood Orange Read online

  “Peluso’s not going for the deal. He just called.”

  “What deal?”

  He told her.

  “You’re stuck then.”

  “Looks that way.” His face sagged. “Gracie says I should ask you what to do next.”

  “If I hadn’t come, would you have called?”

  “No.”

  She realized how far out in the cold she was.

  “He’s a killer, and he’ll kill again. I know it like I know you.” He reddened as they realized together what a faulty analogy this was. “If I get him off, it’s like I’m killing that baby Marsha’s carrying, a little girl like Bailey.”

  In all their late-night conversations about The Law and Justice and the Rights of the Accused, David had never conceived of a defendant like Frank Filmore: rich, educated, and so obviously evil.

  Dana said, “I think you have to go to the judge and ask him to take you off the case.”

  “You and Gracie.”

  “Even if he turns you down, if you do your best to convince him you have irreconcilable differences with your client, that you can’t-“

  “Wecker won’t care. This judge, once you’re on his docket he sets your name in concrete.”

  Dana heard the scratch of his whiskers as he raked his jaw with his nails.

  “If I go to him he’ll keep me on the case and make my life miserable.”

  “Couldn’t you just go to court and do a halfhearted job?” She knew the answer already. It was not in David to do anything halfway, not his work or his marriage.

  He said, “The bitch of it is Peluso’s got no case. I could probably try the case by phone and get Filmore off.”

  The office was dark except for a circle of light from David’s desk lamp. They sat in silence with only their thoughts between them. From the corner of her heart Dana heard a thin but hopeful melody. They had talked without arguing and tried to solve a problem together. This effort, though unproductive, might be a step toward reconciliation.

  “About us …” David’s face had a blank openness that revealed nothing but fatigue.

  The music stopped, and her heart seized.

  “I have to say, Dana, that compared to this thing with Filmore, the stuff between you and me doesn’t seem like much. I can’t think about both at the same time.”

  “Then don’t think, David. Just give me another chance. You believe in second chances. I’m not Frank Filmore. What I did was wrong, and it had monstrous consequences, and I take responsibility for all of it, but I’m just an ordinary person. Not bad like he is.” She paused a second, longing for a nod or an affirming word. He stared down at his desktop. “I’m a good mother, and I love you even if you can’t see that now.”

  She wanted to touch him but didn’t dare. She wouldn’t survive the pain if he cast her off. “Go to the judge tomorrow. Lay out as much as you can. Maybe he’ll surprise you, and if he doesn’t, at least you’ll know you did what you could.”

  It was a feeble solution and satisfied neither of them. But couldn’t he at least nod to let her know that he was listening?

  “When it’s all history,” she said, “you have to be able to live with yourself.”

  He looked up. “What about you? Can you live with yourself?”

  She twisted her hands together. “Barely.”

  “That baby’s going to die and it’ll be my fault.” It always came back to this.

  Another time she would have put her arms around him and told him he was not alone. What happened to him, happened to her. She wanted to do it now but knew that he would interpret it as manipulation.

  “Where’s Bailey?” he asked suddenly.

  “Imogene.” She smiled. “And you know what? She was thrilled to stay over. She laughed, David. And twirled like she used to. When I left, Django was making her a hot dog and Grandma was teaching her the C scale.” She added, “We have so much we need to talk about, David.”

  “I can’t think about anything but the case now.”

  “Are you glad I came?”

  “Go home.”

  She held out her hand. “You too. Come with me.”

  “I told you,” he said, sounding for the first time more irritable than tired. “When the Filmore thing is finished we can talk.”

  As she pulled into the driveway she saw Marsha Filmore at the top of the stairs, wrapped in her mink, a cigarette glowing between her fingers. Dana had avoided the freeway and taken surface streets home, cruising up Fifth Avenue like a tourist with all the time in the world, thinking about what had to happen next.

  “Care for a snort?” Marsha asked, holding up a bottle half full of red wine. “This is the last of Frank’s cellar. When he gets out and sees I drank up several thousand dollars of wine I’ll have to hire a bodyguard for protection.” She giggled as she poured a glass for Dana. “I wish you smoked. I get so fucking sick of being the only smoker all the time.”

  “It’s bad for the baby.”

  Marsha shrugged.

  “You want me to think you don’t care, but I know you do.”

  “In my experience, it doesn’t pay to get too attached.”

  “I don’t think you mean that.”

  “How the hell do you know what I mean?”

  Dana said, “It’s cold out here, and I’m famished. I didn’t eat dinner. Come down to the kitchen. I’ll make us both a BLT.”

  If Marsha preferred to stay on the stairs, Dana would stay with her; but it would be easier to accomplish her task in the comfort of the warm kitchen.

  “I can’t smoke in your house.”

  “Come on,” Dana said, using a girlfriend voice. “You can do without nicotine for an hour.”

  In the kitchen Marsha moved around restlessly as Dana gathered the bacon and tomato for the sandwiches.

  Marsha stood before the wall where Dana had arranged a dozen family photos. “Who are these people?”

  “Friends, David’s family.”

  “Where’s yours?”

  Dana sharpened a knife on the diamond steel. “I never knew my father, and my mother left me with my grandmother when I was lit tle.” Spoken aloud in a matter-of-fact voice, the truth sounded commonplace.

  “I always wanted a big family,” Marsha said. “Guess I married the wrong guy for that, huh?”

  “I’d like to have another baby.”

  “The one you’ve got’s enough.”

  “I think she’d like a sister or brother.”

  “You might get another one the same.”

  “No. I doubt that.”

  “Your funeral.”

  Dana held her breath to keep back the sharp retort that sprang instantly to mind.

  Marsha sat at the counter and stretched her pale, thin legs out in front of her.

  “Don’t you want to take off that coat?”

  “I like it.” Marsha laid her palms on her stomach. “This one won’t stop moving. She’s always butting and kicking around like she’s mad at me.”

  Dana took a breath. “She better calm down before she meets her father.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Dana was so nervous she was afraid her voice would give her away. “I don’t want to say it.”

  “I get it; you’ve been talking to your husband.”

  “I was the one who found the receipt from Owens Garage. I figured it out myself.”

  “Arid now you think you know what’s best for everyone.” Marsha’s tone was insulting. She wrapped her coat around her as if she were cold.

  “I don’t know what’s best for everyone. Just for that baby.” Dana turned the bacon in the skillet. “Frank belongs behind bars where he can’t hurt any more children, Marsha. You know that, but he’s got you so tied up, you’re afraid to say it.”

  Marsha took her cigarettes out of her coat pocket and turned the package end over end on the kitchen counter. “He’s my husband.”

  “He’s a man who kills children.”

  “He needs quiet to think.”r />
  Dana sat at the counter opposite her. “Maybe he does. But that doesn’t change the fact he’s killed at least two little girls, and when he has to, he’ll do it again.”

  “You think you know, but you don’t know anything. It’s not his fault it happens. He never plans it. It’s just he’s so high-strung, and you know how it is with babies, the noise, and sometimes you can’t-“

  “Then he needs to be where there aren’t any babies.”

  “Geniuses have special needs.”

  “Call the police. Tell them the truth.”

  Marsha stood up. “You think you can turn me against him.”

  “Think about Shawna.”

  Marsha’s breathing broke into a short, sharp cry.

  Dana reached across the counter and took a cigarette from her pack and lighted it.

  “I haven’t smoked since high school.” Now was not the time to think about the surgeon general’s report. She took a shallow puff, held the smoke in her mouth and exhaled it as Marsha lit up one of her own. She laid her cigarette across the saucer they were using for an ashtray and assembled the sandwiches.

  “Did Shawna get on your nerves, too?”

  Marsha’s stubborn expression caved. Dana had never seen a more unhappy woman.

  “You think you’re better than me,” Marsha said. “Frank says you’re too middle class to understand someone like me … or him.”

  Dana chuckled. “I am middle class. He’s got me there.”

  “He says your husband’s a good lawyer, though. He says he’ll get him off, and when it happens we can move up to Idaho and start all over.

  “Use your head, Marsha. You know that’s a daydream. In a few weeks you’re going to have a baby daughter, and all babies whine and cry. Every one of them. There’s no way you can train it out of them. It’s normal. And when she does it, you’ll be waiting, knowing what he might do. Even if he does nothing, you’ll never know. You’ll always be afraid.” Dana picked a piece of bacon from between the slices of bread and fed it to Moby. “Frank’s not the only smart person in your family. You’re no dummy. You can figure out what’ll happen. Maybe not right away, maybe you can protect your little girl for a while, but sooner or later …

  “If I tell the police, they’ll put me in prison. Frank says I’m as guilty as he is because I knew, I covered up.”

  “The cops don’t want you. Peluso’ll grant you immunity.” Maybe he would, maybe not. Dana didn’t really care. The point was to get Marsha to tell her story to the authorities. “You’ll be free. Free, and safe with your daughter.”

  “He’ll get out and come after me.”

  “He’s never getting out of prison.”

  “He’ll send someone after me.”

  “Were you always so scared, Marsha? Can’t you remember a time when you weren’t?”

  “Where would we go, my baby and me? How would we live?”

  “You’re an accountant, apparently a good one. People are always looking for someone to manage their money.”

  Marsha squinted at Dana through a blue haze. “I don’t get this. If I go to the cops, there won’t be a trial. Your husband loses his big chance to make a splash.”

  Dana nodded.

  “But if I keep quiet, he can win. It’ll be a big deal.”

  “Forget about David. And your husband. Do it for Shawna and the new baby.”

  Marsha stared at the ash end of her cigarette.

  Dana stubbed out her own and went to the sink to wash her hands. “It wasn’t your fault what happened to Shawna, or to Lolly, either. You didn’t know he was going to kill them. But if something happens to this little girl, it will be your fault because you know now. You know, Marsha.” This was the last of Dana’s arguments. “You have the power to give this little one a happy life. And to give yourself another chance at the same time.”

  Marsha stared at her, eyes wide and her mouth slightly agape.

  “Think about it.”

  “If Frank finds out-“

  “It won’t matter. He’ll be behind bars. He won’t be able to hurt you or anyone ever again.” Dana waited a beat, then reached for her cell phone and laid it on the counter between them.

  fter the AA meeting Lexy went to coffee with the two women .who had introduced themselves at the coffee urn. She was surprised they asked her to join them. The collar intimidated most people. But they were both lapsed Catholics and curious. They wanted to know the differences between the Catholic and Episcopal churches. They’d each had more than enough to do with male priests and asked how it was for her. Did the men respect her? Did the congregation know she was an alcoholic?

  “If you ask me, half the Catholic clergy needs AA,” Marnie, a schoolteacher, said. “Drink and the cloth go together.”

  “‘Specially if you’re Irish,” said Annie, and this started them talking about their Irish families, about their mothers and fathers, drunk uncles and maiden aunts who sipped sherry all day, and how eager they had been to leave home, get married, and start the cycle all over again.

  Lexy listened with half her concentration turned inward. Where her fingertips had touched Dorothy, the whorls of Lexy’s prints still buzzed electrically. Marnie was speaking of her parents and all the mistakes they had made. “In the end, though, you gotta forgive them. It’s plain stupid not to.”

  “Once you’ve had kids yourself-“

  Marnie groaned, and she and Annie laughed, sharing whatever it was they knew by virtue of having been mothers that Lexy never would.

  When women had first been ordained in the Episcopal Church the problem of what to call them had seemed insurmountable. Father was out, of course; and even the standbys Reverend and Pastor had masculine associations in the minds of most people. Ultimately the women Lexy knew had accepted Ma’am or, more commonly, just their first names. Lexy was glad no one called her Mother Neuhaus. She had never wanted to be a mother, and the honorific was so inappropriate it would have embarrassed her with its connotations of, if not maternity, wisdom and sanctity.

  For the first time in many years she thought about her aversion to motherhood and felt the smallest pinch of regret followed by an uncomfortable tightness in her stomach. Would she be more tolerant if she had children? Would she understand people betterDana, her mother?

  Lexy still had not told her mother that Micah was dead. His body remained in the funeral home waiting for her to decide whether to tell her mother a palatable lie or the truth and watch her suffer. Lexy felt meanness in her like nausea. She threw down money to cover the bitter coffee and sweet churro, said good-bye, and hurried out of the restaurant.

  As if by leaving, she could escape herself. She had been touched by God beside Dorothy’s bed, but that was only the beginning, the door opening. She had to take the steps, walk through into whatever waited beyond.

  The air was cool and damp, and she raised her face to it, wanting to be washed clean. As she drove through the dark city, her mother’s image sat beside her. The red and green lights at intersections blurred and doubled and tripled. She blinked, but her eyes filled again, and the tears rolled down her cheeks, unstoppable. She understood how hard most people tried to do the right thing, how often they were like her and made a mess of their lives despite the good intentions.

  You’ve got to forgive them, Marnie had said. It’s plain stupid not to.

  Whatever Dorothy had done to earn her daughter’s resentment, it had been, in the end, pointless. It wasn’t necessary for Lexy to know what caused the rift between Dorothy and Ellen Brownlee; she knew it was as pointless as the anger Lexy had felt against her parents for so long that she could not remember a time when it was not a part of her. The lateness of the hour, the caffeine buzzing through her system, and the otherworldly experience at Dorothy’s bedside combined. For the first time Lexy saw her mother as a child of God, one of the billions of souls struggling in billions of ways to reach the light.

  Lexy had read the Gospels and tried to memorize the Psalms, she had pre
ached and counseled, and ten thousand times she had asked God to forgive her trespasses as she forgave those who trespassed against her. But she had never really understood that the prayer meant she must not just say she forgave, not just say the words and then pretend. She had to forgive. If she wanted God to forgive her, this was the bargain, the deal, the demand.

  Instead of driving home to Pacific Beach, she took the Washington Street exit off Interstate 5 and turned left on Gold finch. It was after two A.M. now, and Bella Luna was shut down tight. There was no one on the Mission Hills streets. She could have walked there wearing a suit of gold and been unchallenged.

  A safe neighborhood, Dana had called it. And then, as if to prove the point, Lexy saw her running down Fort Stockton, wearing her gray sweats and a hooded T-shirt. For years afterward, Lexy wondered if she would ever have gone to Dana’s house to ask her forgiveness had she not seen her that night on the street. And if she had stayed away, would she have been able to move beyond her anger and self-loathing? Dana’s sudden appearance seemed an indication that God meant to help her through the door and support her in the hard times beyond.

  She turned her car into the curb, braked, and put it in Park. She got out and stood by the open door. Dana slowed to a stop. The night was cool enough that her breath condensed in the air between them.

  Lexy said, “Sit with me, will you?” If Dana said no, she would ask again. She would beg if she had to.

  When they were inside with the windows up, the space almost smothered Lexy. She quickly rolled down her window and rested her head on the back of the seat. She wished it could be like when she was with Dorothy and the right words had come to her without effort. Instead she had to struggle through her apology to Dana, muffing words, and sometimes the sentences barely made sense even to her.

  When she finished Dana stared straight ahead. The silence had weight and texture and took up space.

  Lexy tried again. “I wish I could say that I said what I did because I was in shock and I didn’t mean any of it. But I want to try to be honest here. I knew what I was saying, and I meant every word. That’s what shames me the most. There’s something in me, Dana, that can be so cruel and unforgiving. I wanted to hurt you. If I could’ve killed you with words, I would’ve.”