No Defense (22 page)

“What else should I know?” I asked.

“Just that reporters will be desperate to
interview you, and photographers will be after you for your
picture. Maybe even your kids. You need to talk to Jessie and
explain it to her.”

“You’re so full of cheery news, Ben.”

“I’m not happy about this either,” he said.
“I’m lonely without you. Can I come by later, keep you
company?”

“No, but thanks for calling. I mean it.
Bye.”

I hung up the phone and stood stock still
until I realized that I was holding my breath. Lightheaded, I
grabbed the edge of the kitchen counter for support and tried to
breathe. Then I walked slowly down the hall to the guest bathroom,
locked the door, shut the toilet cover, and sat down. I took one
deep breath, then another. As I threw my head back, for one last
deep breath, I noticed the wallpaper: little covered wagons, each
pulled by two horses, guided by a pioneer man with a pioneer woman
at his side. I imagined the man taking care of the woman through
Indian attacks, tornadoes, floods, childbirth, and the other
traumas of pioneer life. Who could help me through this? Who could
make everything better, as my father had always assured me he could
when I was a child?

I came outside at the far end of the mansion
and looked around. The rolling farmland was dotted with cows and
horses. The party was behind me. Halfway up the driveway to the
house, close to the barns, four Hereford cows blocked the way of an
approaching car. The driver flashed his headlights on and off
twice, and the cow facing the car moved on across the road. The
others followed. I thought of the Cow Palace Restaurant and tried
to recall the fun Ben and I had had that day, but I couldn’t find
even the memory of those feelings.

Should I divulge the news now or wait until
the fundraiser was over? I decided to wait and let Daddy have at
least these few hours.

My sense of isolation and anxiety grew as I
stood with most of my family and fifty or so guests under the party
tent. Jessie had given up trying to find Eddie. Instead she was
hitting everyone she knew, a little too hard to be cute. I’d never
seen her act so wild. During a break from the hitting, I heard her
sternly lecturing Will and Hank.

I walked to within earshot.

“If you hadn’t been born,” Jessie said, “I
would still have a daddy.”

I didn’t have the energy to try to explain
to Jessie that Eddie’s leaving had nothing to do with the twins.
Obviously, although I’d tried, I hadn’t done a very good job of
protecting her from the effects of the events of the last three
weeks: my affair with Ben, Eddie leaving, the FBI documents. All
were taking a terrible toll on my family.

My appetite was gone, but I tried a few
bites of food in hopes that my misery would go unnoticed. It was
useless. The very thought of food was nauseating.

“Don’t you feel well?” my mother asked as I
picked at my food. “You’re eating like a bird.” Mother’s curls were
drooping in the heat, but otherwise she looked collected and
comfortable in a lightweight white percale suit. Her American flag
pin was on the right lapel.

“I’m okay, Mother,” I said, more sharply
than I’d intended. I put down my plate and hid my shaking hands in
the pockets of my sleeveless cotton dress.

“I saw something interesting the other day
while I was eating at the Holiday Inn,” Buck said.

“Traitor,” Roland said. “Their food’s
horrible.”

“It’s not as good as yours, Roland, but I
was nearby and I was hungry. Anyway, I was looking out the window
at nothing in particular when a bus pulled up. The destination on
the bus was ‘HEAVEN.’ It was from the New Hope Baptist Church.”

Roland laughed. “Where can I catch that bus?
Because I’m going to need it one day if I’m going to get
there.”

Buck and Jane joined the laughter. Then,
looking toward the podium, Buck exclaimed, “Newell’s about ready to
give his speech. Everybody up there with him,” he suggested.

Mother, Buck, and Jane walked toward
Daddy.

Suddenly I couldn’t stand another second of
this. “Jessie, I’ll be right back,” I said. “Roland, will you keep
an eye on the kids for a minute?” I walked away from the speech and
past the house toward one of the more isolated fields. Two of
Bullock’s huge black and tan German shepherds appeared at my side
and licked my hands.

“Let’s go for a walk,” I said, happy to have
them for company. I clucked my tongue and started down the steep
hill.

The dogs and I walked across the field for a
few minutes, stopping at a new barn I hadn’t noticed during the two
days I’d spent here preparing for the event. Inside it smelled like
pine and looked like a carnival. Strings of Christmas lights hung
from the rafters straight down to the ground and formed a canopy
across the ceiling. I flipped a light switch. All the hanging
lights came on. I smiled despite myself I ran to the other end of
the barn and flipped another switch. The ceiling was awash with
red, yellow, blue, orange, and green.

The dogs barked, then left my side and
trotted between the rows of lights to the entrance I’d just come
through. Roland ran in the door, panting.

“I saw you come down here. Is something
wrong, LuAnn?”

“Who’s with the children?” I asked.

“Your sister. What’s the matter?”

“I guess you’ll know soon enough. The story
about the murders is coming out today and it blames Daddy. Ben
called here to tell me.” I walked around the barn, up and down the
narrow aisles created by the strings of lights. I unscrewed three
of the burned-out bulbs, looked at them in the palm of my hand,
then threw them as hard as I could against the wall. They exploded,
one after the other. The German shepherds ran back and forth
between me and Roland, barking wildly.

“It’s not the end of the world,” Roland
said.

“Maybe it is,” I said. “For me.” I walked to
the door and tried to pass through.

Roland grabbed my arm. “Do you believe what
Dean Reese said?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “Do you?”

“No,” he answered.

“That makes two of us.”

“Come on, nobody in town believes that
crap,” he said.

“But most of the world will believe whatever
they hear on the news. I would if I weren’t his daughter.”

I shook loose from Roland’s grip and pushed
aside several strings of lights so that I could get by them and
lean against the barn wall. Then I slid down to the ground and
called the dogs to me by snapping my thumb and finger together and
patting my thigh. One of the German shepherds passed through the
curtain of hanging lights in front of me and lay down beside me
with his head in my lap. I put my head on the dog’s back.

“I am at a loss,” I said in a whisper. “A
complete and total loss.” I smoothed away the tears as they fell
faster and faster onto the dog’s back. “And I’m so damn tired of
crying. That’s all I do anymore, and I don’t see life getting any
easier any time soon.”

“It will,” Roland said. “I promise. When my
mother died two years ago I didn’t think I could stand it. Every
day for months I woke up with an awful sadness in me. And your
father isn’t dead. He’s in some trouble, but that comes with the
territory. He can take it.”

“
I
can’t! I can’t!” I cried. “Oh
Roland, I need to go home,” I said quietly. “Could you get the
children and my stuff and bring the car, please? I’ll wait here. I
just can’t go back over there. Tell Mother I’m sick or something.
If Jessie wants to stay with Mother or Jane I guess that’s okay. I
know-you could give everyone the news.”

“No thanks,” he said. He tightened his
ponytail and left without a fight. I suppose he didn’t have the
heart to argue with me.

I didn’t want to watch the ten o’clock news,
but I had to.

“New information reveals an FBI coverup of
an informant’s involvement in the Tallagumsa 1963 civil rights
murders,” the anchorman reported. “Three local men have been
identified as suspects in the two unsolved murders. The
Washington Star
has reported that Dean Reese, a former
Tallagumsa resident and an FBI informant, was involved in the
murders of Jimmy Turnbow and Leon Johnson when the young men were
on their way to integrate the university in August 1963. Before
Reese’s suicide, he informed the FBI that Newell Hagerdom, then the
sheriff of Tallagumsa, and Floyd Waddy were in the car with him
when the shots were fired.” The anchorman recapped the FBI
documents I’d read that day at the Steak House and explained that
the FBI had purposely failed to share that information, as well as
other evidence, with state authorities. In closing, he detailed my
father’s political history and mentioned that a reporter from
Washington who was living in Tallagumsa had reopened the case.

The phone rang. I didn’t answer. When the
ringing stopped, I took the headset and stuffed it in my pajama
drawer. I took one of the Valium tablets Dr. Stuart had given me a
week earlier to help me sleep. Around three in the morning I got
up, drank some soda water, and checked on the children. They were
sleeping soundly, exhausted from the day at the Bullock farm. I
took another Valium and fell asleep again.

I awoke neither upset nor calm. I felt as
though someone was pushing a pause button between each thought and
action, leaving me curiously unconnected-not only to my
surroundings but also to myself It wasn’t great, but it was a lot
better than the alternative.

I got Jessie to school without falling
apart. In the car I told her that some of the people who didn’t
want her grandfather to be elected governor were saying some bad
things about him and that it was normal in an election and not to
worry about it.

“Like what?” she asked.

“Like he’s a bad guy, stuff like that,” I
said.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Can Julie come over
today?”

I didn’t take my usual parking space in front
of the Steak House. A news truck from Channel Six in Birmingham was
parked there, and inside the restaurant foyer I could see six men
waiting. At least one of them held a video camera. Another had a
still camera slung around his neck. What to do? Go home, wait in
the car until they left, go to the beauty parlor and get a wig?
There were no easy outs. This was what I had to look forward to for
the indefinite future. I drove around the block again and decided I
had no choice. I had to face them. I parked half a block away. At
the sight of me walking up the sidewalk, the crowd of newsmen
dashed out of the foyer and surged around me.

“Good morning,” I said when they blocked my
path. Three microphones were thrust in my face.

“Mrs. Garrett, any comment on your father’s
role in the deaths of Leon Johnson and Jimmy Turnbow?” one asked.
At the same time another asked, “Is your father resigning from his
office as mayor?”

The video camera was on me; a still camera
clicked various views of me. My heart beat faster and faster.
Thankfully, I had on sunglasses. Hopefully, it would be difficult
to tell how upset I was.

“All I can tell you now is that my father
was not in any way involved in their deaths,” I said. “He is
innocent. He will not resign. You should direct any further
questions to his office. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go to
work.”

Two of the reporters tried to ask another
question at the same time. “Will he drop out of the gubernatorial
race?” one asked. “How does it feel to have this happen after you
raised the money for the Turnbow-Johnson memorial?” another
yelled.

I pretended I didn’t hear the questions,
pulled open one of the double-glass doors to the Steak House, and
went inside.

Estelle was at the cash register, checking
out a short line of breakfast customers. In the front dining room,
there were two tables of strangers whom I assumed were reporters.
Everyone in the room stared at me. I walked through the dining room
toward the kitchen, nodding at people, saying hello, acting as if
this were any old morning. I heard Estelle ask Doris to take over
the register. She followed me back.

“Poor baby,” she said, hugging me after we’d
both passed through the kitchen doors.

Roland was cooking at the grill. He blew me
a kiss. “Feel better?” he asked.

“Better than I thought I would, I guess. I
got Jessie to school. I’m here. I’m alive. I’m not hysterical. Are
those reporters out there, Estelle?”

She nodded.

“If they eat or order coffee or something,
they can stay. If they come in and bother people, or just sit and
sit, you can ask them to leave. Be polite. I don’t want or need to
read about anyone here getting in a fight with any reporters. Call
the sheriff’s office if you have any problems. Everybody back to
work.”

I went up to my little office and sat at my
desk. It was past time to type the list of today’s specials, but
the surge of adrenaline I’d received when confronted by the
reporters outside had ebbed, and I was suddenly both emotionally
and physically drained. I rested my head on my typewriter and then,
remembering all the nosy reporters who could see me through my
glass-walled office, sat up.

While typing the first few lines of the
specials of the day, something caught my eye, and I looked up.
Eddie was walking up the hallway toward me. He hadn’t set foot in
the restaurant since he left home. I pretended I didn’t see him,
walked quickly and quietly down the steps from my office, and tried
to hide by scrunching down in a booth in the back dining room. He
wasn’t far behind me. A moment later he stood looking down at
me.

“Here to gloat?” I asked, sitting up.

“No, LuAnn, I’m not,” he said. “I’m here to
see if you’re all right, if there’s anything I can do. I tried to
call after I saw the news.”

“It’s a little late for your concern,” I
said. “You left me. You’re living with another woman. You probably
think it’s funny that Daddy’s being crucified by Ben.” I glared at
him, stood up, and walked away toward the rear kitchen doors.