Close Your Eyes (25 page)

“Lauren,” said Detective Crosby.

“Hi,” I said.

“I’m calling with some news,” said Detective Crosby. “Are you sitting down?”

“No,” I said. I looked around for a bench, but an amorous couple was wedged into the only available spot. I sank down on the front steps of Hyde Park Café. “Yes,” I said.

“Lauren, we just arrested a woman for the murder of your mother,” said Detective Crosby. “She’s in police custody. Her name is Victoria Bright.”

“What?” I said. I put my hand to my throat.

“We’re still getting all the facts,” said Detective Crosby. “We got Victoria’s name from a woman who contacted us with very convincing new evidence. She decided to come forward after all this time. And, well, it looks like Victoria Bright’s fingerprints match a set that was found at your house.”

“What?” I said.

“This is a really good day, Lauren. We have a call in to your father. There will be a new trial.”

“My father?” I said. I started laughing and crying at the same time. I waited for the smoky feeling, but things stayed clear.

“I’ll be in touch, Lauren,” said Detective Crosby.

“Oh my God,” I said. I repeated, “Oh my God.” The sun was hot on my face. I heard the bus pull away from the bus stop, and I saw a little girl standing by the ice cream shop next door, holding a strawberry cone. The pregnant woman came outside and sat down next to me.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m going to go now,” she said. “I hoped I would be here when you got the call.”

“My father …” I said.

“Thank you for telling me about Austin,” she said. “It seems like a good place.”

“I can’t believe this,” I said.

“Believe it,” said the woman. Without asking, she leaned over and embraced me. Surprising myself, I leaned in to her. I felt comforted, peaceful, in this woman’s arms. Her belly touched mine, and I thought I felt her baby—an elbow or a foot—although that may have been my imagination.

Sarah let me go and stood.

“Please be in touch,” I said.

“I’d like that,” said Sarah.

As I watched, she began to walk south on Duval Street. Something in her stride was familiar. She held herself like Alex, I realized—the way she moved seemed to convey an inner confidence. She turned back and met my eyes. I lifted a hand in farewell. I hoped we would meet again.

2

In the cavernous church, Mae bowed her head. She pressed her hands together in prayer and saw that they were old, the veins prominent and dark. She remembered her mother saying, as she shuffled slowly to take communion,
This isn’t me, honey. This old person isn’t me
.

Mae was an old person now. But she could still remember the August morning when she’d unpacked Victoria’s overnight bag and found a red dress, soaking wet. “Victoria!” she’d called. “What on earth is
this
?”

Victoria had stood in the doorway of the laundry room, pale. She was wearing a bathrobe. Seventeen! She was just seventeen.

“Why is your dress wet?” asked Mae.

“I went swimming,” said Victoria.

“Swimming! Where?”

“We went to a party on the beach.” Victoria held up her hand as if to stop her mother from talking. She was shaking. “Listen,” she said. “Mom, something really bad happened.”

“Tell me,” said Mae. She sank back onto her heels, the dress falling to the floor. Victoria came to Mae and sat in her lap like a child. Mae ran her fingers through her daughter’s hair. Victoria began to cry, racking sobs.

“What happened, baby?” said Mae.

“It was a party,” said Victoria. “I was drinking. I drank so much.”

“It’s okay, honey,” said Mae. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

“No,” said Victoria, turning her face to her mother. “No! No, Mom! No!” She balled her hands into fists and shoved them into her eye sockets, saying, “No, no, no …”

“Get ahold of yourself, Victoria,” said Mae.

“I was drunk. We were at a party on the beach,” said Victoria.

Mae shook her head, trying to take it in. Her daughter on some beach, drunk …

Victoria went on, “I went to find Sylvia’s father—it was the same town. I thought I could just
talk
to him. I wanted to make him understand. Sylvia needs him!”

“Sylvia’s father?” said Mae. Her head spun. “What are you talking about?”

“I— I found some whiskey,” babbled Victoria. “It was in a glass bottle—a decanter. I just thought … I don’t know what I thought. I was going to drink some. I was going to talk to Sylvia’s dad. I went upstairs. I thought maybe I would find a place to sleep or something. I forgot which house …”

“Good Christ,” whispered Mae.

“Listen to me,” said Victoria, seizing her mother’s shoulders painfully. “Listen to me.” Mae nodded, her mind already a few minutes ahead. Victoria would finish this story, and Mae would call Preston, who would know a lawyer.
Breaking and entering, unlawful trespassing …

“I went upstairs,” said Victoria. “There was a lady. She got out of bed. She was mad. She came toward me. I … I was scared. I thought I’d get in trouble. I just— I wasn’t thinking. I thought I’d knock her down so I could run away. I hit her. I hit her with the decanter. I hit her really hard, and she fell.”

Mae gasped.

“I ran. I ran to the beach, and I swam out with the … with what was left of the decanter. I swam as far as I could, and then I dropped it.”

“Was this woman,” said Mae, her hand over her mouth, “was this woman okay?”

“I don’t know,” said Victoria, pushing her fists into her eyes again, shaking her head. “I don’t think so,” she whispered. Then she looked up at her mother. “What do I do? Mom, what do I do?”

In that moment, Mae made a decision. She saw the possible avenues, and she chose one. “Don’t ever tell anyone else what you’ve told me,” she said. “This never happened. Don’t say a word.”

Victoria pressed her lips together and nodded. Mae held her tightly.

And until she was arrested, twenty-four years later, Victoria never again told the story. When the police came to Lark Academy, when the woman’s death was in the paper, when the husband was arrested and sent to jail. They were silent, the both of them.

And furthermore
.

Now, staring at her hands, Mae listened to Father Richard talk about sin. She thought about her husband, who had died of a heart attack on the golf course. She did not feel he surrounded her and watched over her. Nor did she believe he was in hell. He was simply gone.

When the police came for Victoria, they handcuffed her in front of her daughters. Mae drove behind the cruiser to the Holt station. As they interviewed Victoria, Mae sat next to a soda machine in a long hallway. She stared at her wedding ring, twisted it around and around on her finger.

Finally, between two police officers, Victoria emerged. She was still shackled. Mae stood. She almost hoped Victoria had told the police what she—Mae—had done in advising Victoria to stay silent. Then Mae would be arrested as well.

“I told the truth, Mom,” said Victoria. She looked almost relieved. She held her mother’s gaze, and the police did not move toward Mae. She had told the truth, her eyes said, but not the whole truth. She had protected her mother.

Mae embraced her daughter. “I should have saved
you
,” she whispered.

“You tried,” said Victoria.

A child was being baptized in St. Gabriel’s, a boy. As he poured the water, Father Richard said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. May the Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath regenerated thee by water and the Holy Spirit, and Who hath given thee the remission of all thy sins, may He Himself anoint thee with the Christ of Salvation, in the same Christ Jesus our Lord, unto life eternal.”

Winter sunlight shone through the stained-glass windows with a cold intensity. Mae would spend Christmas with her granddaughters and their father. After the New Year, they would move to Greece without her. Mae had bought them books that they would not read. She had unpacked the crèche, laid the wooden baby Jesus in his hay-bale bed, and set his mother next to him, watching over him, her head bowed in reverence.

Mae rose and walked toward the altar, though she did not know the family. The baby began to cry as his original sin was washed away, and the sound pierced Mae’s heart clean through. She reached toward the infant, and he looked at her. His eyes were as green as jade.

3

Sitting, stunned, on the front steps of Hyde Park Café, I marveled at the fact that everything looked the same, though my whole life had changed. My father was innocent. He had loved my mother. Also, he loved me.

The afternoon sun warmed the top of my head and my shoulders. Jesus H. Christ, I was happy. I felt like my childhood night-light, glowing. Joy, I supposed—this was what joy felt like—your body filling with light. I wanted to run into the street, screaming the news. I tilted my head upward, focusing on a lone, wispy cloud. I whispered, “Thank you.”

I was never taught to believe in God, in anything. Our family did not go to any religious services. We did not celebrate Ramadan or Hanukkah, and we celebrated Christmas only in a secular way. But on Sunday mornings, when I was small, my mother would fix Alex and me bowls of cereal and settle us on the couch for cartoons. My parents would retreat to their upstairs bedroom and lock the door.

I loved Froot Loops and Cap’n Crunch. On Sundays, we were allowed as much cereal as we could cram in our mouths, and we lay on the couch for hours. When our parents came downstairs, our mother was freshly showered, flushed, and ravenous. The joy our parents found in each other was undeniable, and their passion never waned.

The pleasure they found upstairs, while Alex and I munched sugary O’s, was what bound them. But after my mother’s death, I believed that my father’s passion for my mother had made him capable of something awful. I had seen his face when my mother admired Mr. Schwickrath’s present, his eyes narrow with anger. I had imagined they fought, and their love had exploded into something that could lead my father to pick up a heavy glass object and swing.

But I had been wrong. Now the knowledge washed over me: my parents’ love had not changed into something dark. It had been complicated, like all love, but our family’s happiness had not been a mirage.

My father, with his imported cigarettes and his fancy stereo, trying to fit in. He had written me for years, and I had not had the courage to read one letter. I felt guilty. I felt happy. I felt like going inside and finishing my lunch—so that is what I did.

Later, I called my father. Gerry sat next to me on the couch with an open bag of SunChips. The person who answered the phone (a guard? an operator?) told me that Izaan would have to call me back.

“Please tell him it’s his daughter,” I said. “Please tell him …”

“What?”

“Tell him I called,” I said.

“Okay, lady,” said the man on the other end of the line.

I hung up the phone. “What’s going to happen?” said Gerry.

“There’s going to be a trial,” I said. “A new trial.”

“Would you like a SunChip?” asked Gerry.

“Thank you,” I said, “but no.”

Gerry put his hand on the side of my face. “He didn’t do it,” he said.

“I know,” I said. Gerry smiled. “It feels so good,” I said. “It feels impossibly great to have a father.” I put my arms around my boyfriend and I held him tight.

The sky was luminous outside the windows of our house. On the coffee table were two glasses of sweet tea. Handsome wedged his nose into the space between us. The phone rang, and I took a breath before lifting my head from Gerry’s shoulder. “I’m scared,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter what you say,” said Gerry. “That’s the point of love.”

“Really?” I said.

“Yes,” said Gerry.

I picked up the phone. “Hello?” I said.

“Is this Lauren Mahdian?” said a strange voice. It was a man’s voice, but there was nothing about it that was familiar. I felt a sinking sensation in my gut. The voice did not sound right.

“Yes,” I said. “Who is this?”

“Ms. Mahdian,” said the man. “I’m calling about your brother, Alex Mahdian.”

“Oh, no,” I said. “This is the wrong call.” I dropped the phone and stood quickly. “It’s not him,” I said to Gerry. It took seven steps to reach the front door, which I flung open. “It’s not my father!” I yelled as I ran outside. I looked wildly up and down Maplewood Avenue. There had to be a direction I could turn, I thought. There must be a place I could go where I would not have to hear what the man on the phone was going to tell me. Going west on Thirty-eighth led downtown, past a coffee shop, a piñata store, and the Fiesta grocery. If I turned east, I would hit Patterson park and pool and the neighborhood surrounding it. I chose east, and began to sprint.

Gerry came outside. I head him yell, “Lauren!” I didn’t turn around. “Lauren!” called Gerry. “Come back, Lauren!”

I was barefoot, but I kept going. I felt the blood pumping through my body. I turned onto Ashwood Road, passing broken-down houses, very nice houses, yards that were cared for and yards that were a mess. I ran without a destination in mind, just away, just away.

But Gerry was faster. He overtook me at the corner of Ashwood and Green, grabbing me around the waist and pulling me down. I fought him, I screamed, I bit his arm and said, “No, no, no!”

“Stop,” whispered Gerry. “Stay still,” he said, “shhhh.”

“Please,” I said, looking into his clear blue eyes.

“They found him,” said Gerry. “They found Alex. He’s alive.”

4

Everyone loves their siblings. Gerry has a brother and a sister, and when the three of them get together, it’s like a reunited tribe—Gerry gets giddy, goofy, he’s completely understood. But I can scarcely describe how I felt when I first heard Alex’s voice on the phone from Baghdad. It was as if I’d completed the most arduous journey, and was taking my last steps toward a golden door.

I began crying as Gerry handed me the phone.

“Is this Lauren?” Alex’s voice was shaky, confused in a way that reminded me of Gramma.