Read The First Day of the Rest of My Life Online
Authors: Cathy Lamb
The First Day of the Rest of My Life (39 page)
“Objection,” Terrence said, so weak.
“Overruled,” the judge said, rote.
I turned to the jury. “Please let my momma come home!
Please!
Please!”
Please!
Please!”
“Objection,” Terrence said, even weaker.
“Overruled,” the judge said.
The jury members were in tears and comforting each other.
“I want you to come home, Momma! I want you to come home! Please, Momma! I miss you! I miss you so much! I love you!” My tears streamed down my face, like water from open faucets.
“Okay, I’ve had enough,” the judge said, the best poppa in the world, as he swiped at his eyes.
Dale came up to get me, took my hand, and walked me back to my seat. I was not allowed to hug my momma, but I said to her, loud so she knew I meant it, “I love you!”
She blew a kiss back at me, her face a mask of misery, of desperation.
There were formalities to follow that one would expect over the course of an excruciating trial. The attorneys for each side were up and down, up and down, and there were closing arguments.
Terrence the Ferret’s argument was short. He’d sunk into himself during the trial, stuck down in the seat like he was glue. He did not look at our momma, or at us, only at the jury. “You can’t take the law into your own hands, even if it seems like you should. Mrs. O’Shea can’t do it, either, even if she believes that the men who kidnapped, abused, and photographed her girls deserved to die. She thought they would get out of jail and come after her girls and kill them because of the letters she received, and she was probably right, but she still can’t kill them. You have to find Mrs. O’Shea guilty even if you would have shot those men if they did the same thing to your kids or grandkids. Thanks for your time.” He sat back down in his chair, back hunched.
Dale said, “Close your eyes and picture the faces of your kids and grandkids. See their freckles? Their gap-toothed smiles? Their messy hair? The time they were covered in mud, remember that? What about the way they eat snow cones? It’s all over them, right? Think about their first day of kindergarten, how excited they were to go to school for the first time.”
I watched the jurors’ faces, their eyes closed. Each one of them had a sweet smile.
“Now, folks,” Dale said, his voice bunny soft. “If someone played ice-cream truck with your kids, your grandkids, what would you do?”
Instantly their expressions whizzed to fury.
One juror, a man who was the size of a logging truck, started sobbing and didn’t even bother covering his face. “Oh no, oh no . . .” he moaned. “Oh no . . .”
A woman hissed and raised herself halfway out of her seat.
Another juror stood straight up and yelled to Dale, jabbing his finger in the air, “I would kill him, man, I would
kill
him!” His reaction seemed to surprise him, and he blinked a couple of times.
kill
him!” His reaction seemed to surprise him, and he blinked a couple of times.
The judge banged his gavel.
Dale ended with, “At the beginning of this sad trial, I told you that Marie Elise plumb lost her mind. Heck, with that tumor she has in her head, who knows what that did to the poor woman. She was temporarily insane with rage and grief and fear, wouldn’t you have been? Folks, let’s not keep these girls from their mother for one more day.”
The jury was dismissed.
The jury filed back in under five minutes. It was, and probably still is, the quickest determination of guilt or innocence in the history of this country.
“Jury Forewoman, do you have a verdict?”
“We do, your honor.”
“What say you?”
“In the case of Massachusetts versus Marie Elise O’Shea, we find Mrs. O’Shea,
of course,
not guilty.”
of course,
not guilty.”
The courtroom exploded, deafening cheers and clapping, as the judge pounded his gavel, the reporters scribbled, cameras flashed. The jury forewoman had something else to say. She glowered at the prosecutor. “We do, however, find the prosecutor guilty of being
stupid.
” She shook her finger at the prosecutor. “Very stupid. Case never should have been tried, young man. You’re responsible for bringing more pain to Mrs. O’Shea and her family. Shame on you.
Shame on you!
”
stupid.
” She shook her finger at the prosecutor. “Very stupid. Case never should have been tried, young man. You’re responsible for bringing more pain to Mrs. O’Shea and her family. Shame on you.
Shame on you!
”
The courtroom exploded again, and I jumped over two rows to get to my momma’s hug. She caught me midleap, her face wreathed in smiles, her yellow ribbon flying.
A photographer caught that photo, my excitement, my momma’s radiating joy, my grandparents’ euphoric happiness, the Rubensteins’ fists in the air in triumph.
Annie didn’t smile, but she had her momma back. She had her.
“I love you, Pink Girls,” Momma said, her voice wobbling as she held us close. “I love you so much. I will love you forever and ever. Now give me a kiss.”
How did Momma’s French Beauty Parlor save her life? Everyone loved her. That’s why none of the good prosecuting attorneys would take the case. That’s why we got Terrence the Ferret. The attorneys had to go through tons of jurors before they could find twelve who weren’t close friends of my mom or dad.
My momma shot three men in cold blood. That would be murder. It was clearly premeditated. She hadn’t lost her mind. She was totally sane.
She came home a free woman.
Later that night, snuggled into my momma’s bed with her and Annie, I closed my eyes and waited for my dad to appear. He did. He was smiling, his arms in the air, hands clenched.
Victory.
27
“T
hat reporter, Marlene, called,” Georgie said. She was wearing yellow rain boots, a white skirt, and a yellow sweater. “She wanted to know about your relationship with Steve Shepherd.”
hat reporter, Marlene, called,” Georgie said. She was wearing yellow rain boots, a white skirt, and a yellow sweater. “She wanted to know about your relationship with Steve Shepherd.”
I slammed a book on my desk.
“Whoa. Bad feelings on that one, huh, Madeline? Anyhow, I asked that she-witch why she wanted to know and I got to talking to her and she said you and Steve grew up together and she was pissed off, I could tell, because she said that Steve Shepherd had his attorney file papers against her, too, like you, to stop this article, and Steve told her, himself, over the phone to ‘Back the hell off’ and told her that the article was ‘inappropriate and hurtful’ and ‘What is wrong with you, Marlene?’ ”
Georgie tapped her boot. “Yeah, Marlene wasn’t happy. She said that everyone in Cape Cod, and now this ‘famous writer,’ was down her throat, and she was upset because she has a book herself she’s trying to get published, and she thought that Steve was going to get in the way of that because of who he is.”
Georgie pulled on the ends of her hair, which were dyed yellow to match her outfit. “So. Is Steve an old love of yours or something?”
An old love.
Yes, that would be right.
My only love, too.
Steve and I used to write stories and poems together. We’d run off into the woods, or scramble down to the ocean, or tie on life jackets and paddle a canoe to the middle of a pond and write in journals (me) and notebooks (him). We’d take turns sharing with each other.
He liked snake stories for a while, then he moved on to snake families and all the problems they had with each other. He also wrote informational papers about snakes. I wrote about swans, like my grandma, only my swans were always wild and rode motorcycles and shot arrows and gave advice to all the other swans on how to live their lives, like my momma.
Sometimes I would write a paragraph of a story, he’d add a second paragraph, I’d add the next, switching back and forth, and we’d end up laughing till we were rolling on the grass. Other times I’d give him a silly sentence like, “My name is Frog Man. I like to eat . . .” and he’d have to write a story. He would tell me to write, “If I were a bee I would . . .”
“You’re a good writer, Steve.”
“Thanks, so are you. Do you want to read the fourth chapter of
The Snake and Me
now?”
The Snake and Me
now?”
Sometimes we’d read books, too, back to back under a tree, or lying on our stomachs in the tree house my dad built us. It was odd how many things we both liked to do.
We liked to tease a dog named Frisky. He was a bad, brown dog and liked to bite people. If you could leap over the fence wrapped around his backyard, run to the other side, and leap over the fence again without getting bitten, you won. I tried this run one time; Frisky ran out and bit me on the arm. While the other kids screamed, Steve leaped over the fence, stuck his hands in the dog’s mouth, yanked it open, yelled at me to run, then took off himself when I was over the fence, my pink dress ripping as I leaped off it.
He was like that. He would take the bite for me.
What would have happened if, over the years, I had called him back, or thanked him for the flowers or funny gifts he sent periodically? What would have happened if I had accepted one of his humorous, kind offers to meet him for dinner or fishing or canoeing?
What would have happened?
I sniffled.
What if?
“I’m being blackmailed.”
Annie stilled across the table from me under the gazebo. It was drizzling teeny raindrops, as if the skies wanted only a scattering of attention. Door and Window were with us, white and fluffy, sitting by Annie, their mother.
“By who?” She clenched her jaw: Scream in.
“I don’t know for sure, but I have an idea.” I put my violin, with all its dents and scratches and butterfly blood stain, which came from the blood of my family, back in its case. “I’m sorry, Annie. I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to know. I didn’t want to involve you, didn’t want to upset you,” my voice wobbled, “but I think—”
“I think we’re done with you trying to protect me, that’s what I think,” she snapped. “I don’t need it and I’m sick of it.”
I sat back, verbally smacked.
“I think we’re done with you feeling guilty about what happened to us and you believing that you have to make it up to me for the rest of our lives. I think we’re done with you treating me like a fragile kid sister. I’m trained in hand-to-hand combat, explosives, and weaponry. I know how to poison people, and I can kill anyone with my bare hands. I am not fragile. I am your equal and you need to remember that we were children,
children,
Madeline
,
when everything happened and you were absolutely heroic in what you did to save me, to help me. You hugged me every night when we were kids, you hit all three of those sickos so many times I can’t count, and when we were in that shack, you held my hand constantly, so let it go.” She grabbed both of my hands.
“Let it go
.”
children,
Madeline
,
when everything happened and you were absolutely heroic in what you did to save me, to help me. You hugged me every night when we were kids, you hit all three of those sickos so many times I can’t count, and when we were in that shack, you held my hand constantly, so let it go.” She grabbed both of my hands.
“Let it go
.”
“My whole life I’ve felt like I failed you.”
“You didn’t. You’ve never failed me. Never. We were kids. They were shits. They’re in hell being prodded by a pitchfork and I’m here on The Lavender Farm, with my family, my explosives, my chain saws, and my animals. I’ve got a job taking care of animals that, in their most violent moments, are still tame and polite compared to mankind. So,” she said, businesslike. “Who is it? Who’s blackmailing you?”
“I don’t know.” I was still reeling a bit from what she’d said. Could I let the guilt go?
“I see the envelope you’ve got. Give it to me.”
I handed it to her. She slipped the photos out. Her expression didn’t change much, but she was grim. “This isn’t all of them, is it?”
“No.” It wasn’t even a quarter of them.
“Who are you thinking it is?”
“Do you remember that Pauly had a creepy son who lived with his mother most of the time? He had reddish hair, he was fat, and he pulled down his pants twice in front of us?”
She glared, not at me but at him, the creepy son, the vision in her mind. “His name was Sam.”
“Yes, Sam. He may be living in that house, although it was so run-down, it’d be hard to believe a rat would live there.”
“I’ll take care of it.” Decisive. Done.
“Annie, I want to call the police.”
“Absolutely. Call them. But I need to go to Fiji first and make sure those photographs, whatever is still there, are incinerated, then you can call and we’ll make sure Sam’s going to jail. God knows what he’s doing to other people, so let’s lock the scummy flasher up. Do we have a deal? You can call the police when I return from Fiji.”
I paused. “Yes. But don’t kill him.”
“I’m not going to kill him. It’s not my style. But the photos are going to get a sunburn.”
“Can I come with you?”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Don’t even ask, Madeline. Remember my specialty: Explosives. And I work alone.” She snapped her fingers. “That line, ‘I work alone,’ that’s from a movie, isn’t it? Sure sounded good.”
We laughed. She leaned over and hugged me. “I love you.”
“I love you, too, Annie.”
“Let the guilt go, Madeline. Please. Explode it. It’s killing you.”
I bent my head and nodded. Door and Window crawled under the table and licked my hands. I would try. The guilt was killing me, day by day, constantly. It lived beside my lies to myself.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “It wasn’t mine. It was theirs, and you can’t let them continue to rent space in your head like this. You have to block them out, shoot them, decapitate them. They have to go. The guilt has to go with them.” She hugged me close. “I love you, sister. With all my heart and all my explosives, I love you.”
Annie left the next day for Fiji because she is a wee bit off her rocker. She was back in two days. She did not have a sunburn.
I scoured the papers from my hometown. It did not take long to find the article. “Home owned by former convict burns to the ground. Inspectors believe the home may have been hit by a rogue lightning strike. . . .”
I stared at the ashes of what used to be the shack and the oak tree behind it. The tree was taller than I remembered. We had spent hours studying the knotty trunk, the interlaced branches, and the wind-brushed leaves of that tree. The trunk had burned in the explosion, but it was still standing. I did not miss the analogy there.
“Did you find anything?” I asked her over a pile of nachos with avocado and sour cream at the kitchen table about ten o’clock at night.
“Yep, I did. Pauly’s son, Sam, is the one who’s blackmailing us. There were stacks of photos of us in there, two envelopes addressed to you, one to me, and letters cut from magazines for the notes. I think Marlene tipped him off to who you were during her reporting—she told you she was going to interview Pauly’s, Sherwinn’s, and Gavin’s families—and he went through his dad’s stuff. The police were supposed to gather all that as evidence before his dad’s trial, but obviously there was more. Pauly probably had some under the house or hiding in storage or at the photo shop.”
So Pauly’s son was living in his father’s shack all these years. Disgusting. He was disgusting, his father was disgusting. But there had been no hope for him with a father like Pauly.
“The photos are gone. They’re in Fiji.”
“Thanks for sending them to Fiji.” I envisioned that fiery explosion. “I’m impressed, as always, with your Blown to Kingdom Come skills.”
“Thank you. I pride myself on my talents with explosives.”
“Cheers to that.” We clinked glasses. “Not every woman can blow up houses repeatedly and get away with it.”
“Nope. Takes a lot of skill and training, thank you, and a salute to the United States government and various agencies.”
We ate our nachos, extra cheese for me. “It makes me sick thinking of you even being in that shack again.”
She was quiet for a while. “I waited till he left. He’s fatter now with an odd tuft of hair on top of his head like an upsidedown bird. I sat in that back room where they kept that cage. I stood in the living room where they did those terrible things to us. I looked out the same window at the oak tree. I smelled the pot, the mustiness, the dust, and all these horrible visions pummeled me, like I was being hit and hit and hit, but after about five minutes, I put my head up and I beat the hell out of those memories.”
“Excellent. Did you beat them hard?”
“Yep. I hated being at that shack. It still smelled like infected and crazy male brain. But it was freeing in a weird way, too. We were attacked as little girls by three heinous men. We couldn’t have prevented it. We were victims then but we’re not now.
We are not victims.
Sherwinn, Pauly, and Gavin are all dead. Look what we’ve done with our lives. Look who we are. We’ve overcome what happened to us. We’ve overcome them and their shit-ass ways.”
We are not victims.
Sherwinn, Pauly, and Gavin are all dead. Look what we’ve done with our lives. Look who we are. We’ve overcome what happened to us. We’ve overcome them and their shit-ass ways.”
“Yes, I suppose we have. Or at least I’m working on overcoming them.”
“No one can walk away from that and expect their whole life to be glorious and perfect, but we’re here, Madeline. We’re here and we’re not letting what happened to us for a few months as kids dictate the rest of our lives. We’ve never done that, even if we’ve been chased by nasty visions.” She had another nacho. It crunched. “I’m a vet, you’re a life coach. We work hard, we’re healthy. We have Grandma and Granddad and each other. Good things have happened to us. Many good things.
“And, those three,” Annie went on, “they’re all rotting in graves, maggots in their eye sockets, their bones cracking, while we spend a lot of time walking up and down rows of lavender, helping animals, hiking the property, and you tell everyone from your fancy schmancy downtown office what to do with their lives.”
“That’s true, but I don’t like my fancy schmancy office. I don’t like my fancy schmancy house or my fancy schmancy car. I do like these nachos.” I had another one. I love the crunch of nachos.
“You’re cracked, so am I. If you want to uncrack yourself you should let the lease go on the office, get rid of the house and the car, and start over. Live here permanently.” She dipped her chip in a hunk of guacamole. “But we have the choice to start over.
We’re
still here. No maggots anywhere.”
We’re
still here. No maggots anywhere.”
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