CHAPTER SEVEN
The jail was never quiet at night, but it was quieter than in daylight. Alexa Reed shifted on her cot so she could see the single star shining through the tiny window of her cell. She guessed it must be midnight. Everyone seemed to be asleep except for someone crying softly down the hall. Probably a new prisoner. Everyone cried at first until the sheer futility of grief became apparent.
Someone had come to see her today. Or was it yesterday? All the days ran together, and she couldn’t remember which was which. A woman with deep dark eyes and a scar down one cheek. A ragged, unexpected scar in a beautiful face. And she’d had a man with her. Tall, warm hands, and the kindest eyes she’d ever seen. They said they’d come to help her. If anyone could help, they looked as if it might be them. But no one could end the nightmare she was awake in.
If she thought too long about Meggie and Sam, she’d start to cry like the lost soul down the hall. She hadn’t seen them since the third of June. It must be July by now. No, probably more like August. Wrapped in her semi-conscious state, she had lost the ability to speak, so she could not ask what day it was. There were words in her head, but none of them would come into her mouth to be made into sounds. Grief had left her mute, but it didn’t matter. No one had believed anything she’d told them about that awful night. Mute was better than being called a liar.
She wished she could wake up and find herself back in the rented cottage in Pacific Beach with Meggie and Sam. She would have given anything to be following the old routine of supper, bath, bedtime story, prayers, and goodnight kiss. She was glad she’d never taken even a minute of it for granted.
She could see Sam’s chubby little hands playing with the cut-up bits of fish sticks on his Winnie The Pooh plate. He was out of the high chair now and into a booster seat at the table, but he had to stretch just a little to reach his food. He loved to wipe the bits of fish through the ketchup at least twice and then stuff them in his mouth, giggling at Meggie because he knew he was supposed to use his fork. Meggie, who took her older sister status very seriously, alway frowned and reminded him about that fork. Then Sam would look at Alexa and giggle some more because he’d gotten the hoped for rise out of his sister.
Alexa missed bath time, too. Meggie and Sam loved to play with Sam’s shiny black plastic submarine. Sam scooted it across the water, making what he imagined were boat noises even after Alexa reminded him subs ran silently. Meggie, who was endlessly patient and precocious, liked to take the red, green, and yellow baby subs out of the mother ship and line them up on the edge of the tub coming up with new patterns every night.
Alexa didn’t mind if they splashed a little. Michael, who had much stricter rules, was never there to complain. If he was in town, he was at the office until after midnight. But more often he was on the road for weeks at a time. Meggie and Sam never saw him; and they were both a little bit afraid of him. But she shouldn’t think about that.
After the games in the tub and after trying to sing Row, Row, Row, Your Boat as a round, there was always that wonderful moment of lifting each precious little body out of the water, wrapping their chubby pinkness in big fluffy terry towels, and breathing in the smell of gentle soap and baby shampoo. Alexa marveled at each perfect finger and toe as she helped them into pajamas. At six, Meggie could do everything except button her nightgown in the back. But Sam, who was five, would dance naked down the hall to escape clothes altogether if he could.
They shared a room. When it was time for Sam to give up his crib, he’d been frightened unless he could sleep in Meggie’s room. Alexa always sat on Meggie’s bed with the two of them between her to read their bedtime story. Sam’s favorite was Goodnight Moon, but Meggie adored Runaway Bunny. She loved the part where the Baby Bunny asks the Mother Bunny what would happen if he ran away, and the Mother Bunny says she’d come after him. Meggie always asked, “You’d come after us, too, wouldn’t you?”
That was before Michael realized how effectively he could use family court to terrorize them. He had cemented them as a threesome by leaving them alone together. And then he launched his attack to destroy them. The star twinkled down at Alexa, reminding her to stop thinking about Michael and his scorched earth litigation tactics to preserve whatever remnants of sanity she had left. Since the horror of being arrested on June third and the even greater nightmare of the preliminary hearing, she could stay in her semi-conscious state, floating free from everything that surrounded her only if she didn’t think about Michael and Brigman. If those memories crept in, or worse yet if she talked about what they had done, it would bring her crashing back to the horror of being locked in this cell. That’s why she was glad she could no longer speak, and that’s why she was glad she couldn’t talk to the man and the woman who’d come today. Or yesterday. She wasn’t sure.
The man’s eyes haunted her. They were so kind. She hadn’t seen eyes like that since her father died. She’d been just Meggie’s age when her parents went off to church one wet Sunday morning, leaving her with Gramma Beth because Alexa had a sore throat. Her father’s mother lived with them, and she often stayed with Alexa when her parents went out.
Who would have thought a drunk driver would crash into their car at 9:30 on a Sunday morning? Gramma Beth said her parents skipped church that day and went straight to heaven where they became angels looking after her. The childhood fiction was still comforting. The star twinkled down at her, saying, yes, your parents are still watching over you, and now Gramma Beth is with them. You aren’t alone. She liked to think all three were standing right there in the dark cell with her. She hoped they’d come for her soon. People who went into the white tunnel and then returned always said your loved ones were there to help you pass over. Her parents and Gramma Beth would be there when it was time.
She had tried to endure the horrors so that she could get back to Meggie and Sam. She knew what it was like to have your parents vanish. The woman with the scar and the man with the kind eyes had been trying to tell her to hang on a little longer. But she already knew that was useless. Michael had done exactly what he’d threatened to do: he’d made sure she was separated from her children forever.
If she’d had Meggie and Sam with someone like the man with the kind eyes, they’d still be together. The four of them would have been a forever family. She had known Michael was a mistake as soon as she was pregnant with Meggie, but she had thought she could endure for her children. She’d been dangerously wrong.
Her precious star was nearly out of sight. A star was a sign of hope. When she was a child, the priest had always insisted God would never let his people give up hope. She’d believed that through everything Michael had done to her until the day they arrested her for double murder. She closed her eyes and wished she could be ten years old again, sitting with her grandmother in St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, wearing her perfect attendance Sunday school pin and singing the hymns. Sometimes now she sang hymns to herself. Not out loud because she couldn’t speak. But in her head. One was beginning to play over and over now. “Savior, like a shepherd le-ad us.” Alexa had always loved the way “lead” was drawn out by the melody. What was the next line? She couldn’t forget that; chanting hymns to herself kept her floating in her out-of-body world. Ah, here it was. “Much we need thy tender care.” She knew she wouldn’t forget.
Nothing could ever be more precious to her than Meggie and Sam. Since Gramma Beth had died, they were the only people on earth who needed her. The thought of them with Coleman and Myrna Reed was more than she could bear. So she wouldn’t think about it. The star was gone, and it was time to stop thinking about anything.
But thoughts are hard to stop. Another hymn began to sing to her: “When I tread the verge of Jordan, all my anxious fears subside.” You crossed the river Jordan to reach the promised land. Death was now her promised land. Coleman wanted her to die, and she wanted to die, too. But not his way. Not after twenty years in a cell like this one, waiting while the lawyers like the ones who’d come today tried in vain to save her life. Would Justice Moreno still be on the Supreme Court when her last death row appeal came before the justices? Mary Moreno had liked her; she’d warned her not to marry Michael.
But, of course, neither Coleman nor Mary could hear her case if they were still on the Court when the end came for her. More words of the hymn comforted her: “Guide me oh thou great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. I am weak but Thou are mighty.” Alexa was weak, but God wouldn’t let her down. She’d die, but not Coleman Reed’s way. God would find her the dignified exit she deserved because He still loved her. And He loved Meggie and Sam, too. God wouldn’t want them saddled with the stigma of their mother’s execution. No, He’d find a better way out of life for her. She had first thought starving herself was the answer; but the guards threatened to force feed her, so she ate just enough to prevent that and nothing more.
For now, she could only lie on this cot, waiting for the star every night, and praying God would come and get her very soon. He could see she was still the ten-year-old in the perfect attendance Sunday school pin, holding her grandmother’s hand; and she knew He’d answer her prayer. She knew it as surely as she knew she hadn’t killed anyone.