The Good Wife (11 page)
Authors: Stewart O'Nan
In the middle of a bad
Streets of San Francisco,
her mother stands up and says it’s getting late if she’s going to wake up at a reasonable hour. Everyone agrees. They see her off, and by then Casey’s head is heavy on her shoulder, a spot of drool on his cloth. Patty’s in their room, changing him into his jammies, when the phone rings, making her turn toward the door.
Streets of San Francisco,
her mother stands up and says it’s getting late if she’s going to wake up at a reasonable hour. Everyone agrees. They see her off, and by then Casey’s head is heavy on her shoulder, a spot of drool on his cloth. Patty’s in their room, changing him into his jammies, when the phone rings, making her turn toward the door.
“Do you want me to get it?” Eileen yells.
“Yes,” Patty calls, then stops trying to fit his bottoms on and heads for the living room.
“I do,” Eileen is saying stiffly, officially, then holds the phone out to her. “It’s Tommy.”
“Jesus, you scared us,” Patty tells him.
“I told you I was going to call.”
“I’m going a little nuts here, if you can imagine that.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” he says, so they don’t squabble, but as they fall into discussing what might be happening, she thinks she should get off in case the lawyer’s trying to call.
Eventually, their pauses grow longer, and it’s time to get off.
“Pats,” Tommy says. “Listen. Tomorrow …”
“Whatever happens, we’ll get through it. I promise you. Okay?”
It’s that promise she comes back to after they hang up and she lays Casey in his bassinet. She doesn’t know if she’s strong enough to keep it. She’ll have to be, because she knows—even if deep down she can’t quite admit it to herself right now—that, no matter what, he
is
going away. It’ll just be her and Casey for a while.
is
going away. It’ll just be her and Casey for a while.
The phone doesn’t ring, meaning nothing. She watches TV with Cy and Eileen until a special comes on about the fall of Saigon, then says her good nights. She knows she won’t sleep, but it’s easier to just lie in bed by herself and listen to Casey breathe.
Somehow she does, because hours later she wakes in the dark to Casey complaining. She feeds him and rocks him to sleep again, changes pads and crawls between the sheets, all of it dreamlike.
In the morning he’s her alarm clock, crabbing at her, the room stark. She paws through her wardrobe, the few choices. It’s going to be hot, Eileen warns.
They have to wait for their mother so they can all go in together.
Patty wants to call the lawyer but figures he won’t be at the courthouse yet. Driving, she tailgates, then catches herself and backs off.
Patty wants to call the lawyer but figures he won’t be at the courthouse yet. Driving, she tailgates, then catches herself and backs off.
The lawyer’s waiting for them with coffee and doughnuts. No news yet, but it could be any minute. County juries are pretty quick.
The phone rings, and they all look at it.
It’s just another client.
The phone rings, the phone rings. The lawyer’s busier than she would have thought—more people who can’t afford a real one. They’ve grown so used to false alarms that when it rings around ten-fifteen, they’re more annoyed than anything.
The lawyer covers the mouthpiece with a hand and turns to her. “It’s in,” he says.
Shouldn’t a hung jury take longer?
“Not necessarily,” he says, gathering up his papers. They’re supposed to reconvene immediately.
They take the elevator down and make it a couple of steps into the hall before the photographers spot them. Cy shoulders in front of her, brandishing the carrier, clearing the way.
The crowd is back as if they never recessed, the benches filled. The only empty seats are theirs in the front row. Elsie Wagner and her husband watch them process up the aisle like a bridal party, and, too late, Patty understands: they can’t do this without her. She should have just stayed away.
The ritual begins, the ceremonial entrances, the actors taking their places. She tries to read the jury. They’re tight-lipped, grim. None of them will look at Tommy. They all rise for the judge, then settle again.
“Mr. Foreman,” the judge asks, “have you reached a verdict?”
“We have, your honor.”
Patty wants to run, except she’s boxed in, Eileen and her mother
holding on to her as she cradles Casey, as if they all might be swept away. She braces for pain like at the dentist, knowing it’s coming, hoping it won’t.
holding on to her as she cradles Casey, as if they all might be swept away. She braces for pain like at the dentist, knowing it’s coming, hoping it won’t.
“On the charge of murder in the second degree,” the foreman reads, “we find the defendant guilty.”
Behind her, the room erupts so she can’t hear what comes next. The foreman’s still standing, the lawyer leaning into Tommy like he’s giving him advice. The judge calls for order. She listens, squinting to filter the noise, because that can’t be it. There has to be something else—a correction, an explanation.
There isn’t, only further convictions on the burglary and arson charges.
It will be weeks before she believes it, and even then not completely. Because she can’t accept their verdict. She won’t. She’s not exaggerating when she swears she’ll fight this decision the rest of her life, no matter how many appeals it takes. Like Mrs. Wagner’s death, it’s just a terrible, terrible mistake.
THE LAWYER’S ONLY HALF RIGHT ABOUT THE SENTENCES. THE JUDGE gives Tommy the maximum, just like he said. Gary gets off with five years’ probation and time served.
When Patty hears this, she calls Donna.
“We’re sorry,” a recorded voice answers. “The number you have reached is not in service at this time. Please check that you have dialed the number correctly.”
“Fuck you!” Patty says, like it might get through anyway.
She’s twenty-seven, meaning she’ll be fifty-two by the time he gets out—
if
he makes parole on the first try. There’s no time off for good behavior like in other states. Her mother’s only fifty-one, and look at her. Patty can’t imagine him wanting that.
if
he makes parole on the first try. There’s no time off for good behavior like in other states. Her mother’s only fifty-one, and look at her. Patty can’t imagine him wanting that.
When she goes to see the lawyer about their appeal, he shows her a Department of Corrections map of the state with all the different locations. She’s surprised at how many there are, and the different kinds. Because it’s murder, Tommy will be assigned to a maximum security facility. The lawyer points them out, marked with black triangles like state parks. She remembers seeing cops in riot gear storming Attica on TV, firing their rifles into clouds of tear gas, and later the bodies laid out on the ground. There’s one right in Elmira that would make visiting easy, and another in Auburn about an hour away. The rest are down near New York City, and one place upstate, way the hell up by Canada.
“How do they choose who goes where?” Patty asks.
“It’s whoever has room.”
The way the system works, they won’t know where he’s going until he’s already there. The state keeps it a secret so their people don’t get ambushed when they’re delivering prisoners. Patty hadn’t thought of that, and sees it as a missed chance, standing in the middle of the road with a shotgun and flagging down a van, like something from a bad movie.
He gives her a pamphlet from a place called Prison Ministries with a cross on the front and an Elmira address rubber-stamped on the back. “It helps to be in touch with folks who know the ropes.”
She accepts it to be polite, and to get back to the real reason she’s here.
The appeal’s pretty much automatic in a case like this, he says. He can file a notice this week and write up a formal brief as soon as he has time. It would go to the Appellate Division in Albany, but the earliest they’d hear the actual argument is around eighteen months from now. He says all this offhand, as if he doesn’t think it will work.
“And you’d be doing it,” she asks.
“Unless you have someone else in mind.”
“Like who?”
“You can ask the appellate court to appoint you a lawyer if you want to claim insufficient counsel, that’s your choice.” The way he says it, it’s more than a question.
All she wanted was the information; she didn’t think he’d be part of the appeal. There’s no way she’ll ever trust him again, not after how badly he fucked up the case, but she doesn’t want to say that, just sits there taking notes like she’s catching up. She wonders if he knows that’s what she’s going to do, because he basically tells her how, and as Patty jots it all down she realizes the bastard’s quitting on them.
“Good luck, Mrs. Dickerson,” he says when she leaves, and from reflex, she thanks him.
TOMMY ALREADY FEELS FAR AWAY IN THE COUNTY JAIL. ONCE HE’S IN the system, she’s afraid he’ll disappear completely.
At home, she takes care of Casey, waking early with him, then waiting for visiting hours to roll around. Her mother’s retreated, leaving her alone most of the day, and when she does come, she says things like, “You really need to think about what you’re going to do.” She makes it clear that Patty’s throwing her life away if she sticks with him.
Patty can’t make plans. The truck’s still in custody, and she hasn’t been able to pay the hospital bill. She notices she’s smoking a lot; she has to burn from Cy when she runs out, and his Camels are harsh. When Casey goes down for his nap, she gets stoned and sits on the back stairs, watching the ants zigzag at her feet, letting the sun warm her bare arms. Birds flit from tree to tree. She doesn’t know what she’s going to do—go back to work, ask her mother if she can watch Casey during the day. It won’t solve anything, but she needs the money. It’s what they want for her, a regular life.
“Too late,” she says to the sky.
Father’s Day, she makes a card for Tommy, wraps Casey’s
hand around a magic marker and shakily signs his name. They spend their hour together playing with a rainbowed, oversized ring of plastic keys and dreaming aloud about the appeal, the promise of a better lawyer. Leaving, she hangs on to him too long, and the guard tells her to step back. In the parking lot she’s teary, blowing her nose in the hot car. From his carrier, Casey watches her, and she stops. “It’s okay,” she says. “Mama’s just sad.”
hand around a magic marker and shakily signs his name. They spend their hour together playing with a rainbowed, oversized ring of plastic keys and dreaming aloud about the appeal, the promise of a better lawyer. Leaving, she hangs on to him too long, and the guard tells her to step back. In the parking lot she’s teary, blowing her nose in the hot car. From his carrier, Casey watches her, and she stops. “It’s okay,” she says. “Mama’s just sad.”
At home, the monthly bill from the self-storage is waiting for her, the only one she absolutely has to pay. Her checkbook says she can just cover it. She tries to think of something she can sell, but the cops took everything worth pawning. She wedges the bill into her checkbook and sticks it back in her purse where she won’t have to look at it.
She doesn’t mention money when she visits. They only have so much time together, and there’s nothing he can do about it. It’s like everything else: she just has to deal.
Her biggest fear is that they’ll send him upstate, the place way up near the Canadian border. The last week of June, he hears rumors. The guards are talking about the first of the month as a transfer date. When it comes, nothing happens. The Fourth of July annoys her, all the patriotic crap, like it’s the bicentennial already. And then the next Saturday when she goes to see him, he’s gone.
ALL THEY CAN TELL HER IS THAT HE’S IN PROCESSING. SHE IMAGINES what they’re doing to him. All she can think of is army recruits going through boot camp, getting their heads buzzed, putting on starchy uniforms.
Now there’s really nowhere to go. After two days of wandering around the house, she invites herself to her mother’s for lunch.
“It’s like when your father was in the war,” her mother says. “I’d get a letter, but he wasn’t allowed to say where he was. I swear, sometimes it looked like swiss cheese.”
Patty’s mystified by her sympathy, even if it’s unintended, comparing Tommy with her father.
They talk about summer coming on, and the groundhog that’s living under the shed in the far corner of the garden. It feels normal, the two of them taking turns cradling Casey—as if she’s free for the afternoon while Tommy’s off at work.
“Oh honey,” her mother says, reaching over to comfort her, because suddenly Patty’s crying.
“It’s all right,” her mother says, hugging her sideways. “Things will get better. They have to.”
Her mother’s right, or partly, because a few days later a letter comes from the sheriff’s department saying they’re finished with the truck. They’ll release it to her even though her name’s not on the title, but they want three hundred dollars for impound fees.
Even after she borrows the money from her mother, before Patty can sell it she needs Tommy to sign it over to her.
Even after she borrows the money from her mother, before Patty can sell it she needs Tommy to sign it over to her.
At least she has the truck. She sits in it, breathing in his smell, remembering nights at the drive-in, or the time it rained when they were camping up on Seneca Lake and they stayed warm in the cab, playing cards all weekend. His cigarette butts are still in the ashtray, his work gloves and a Nerf football in the toolbox. There’s an extra pair of cruddy boots shoved under the driver’s seat for rainy days. Sunglasses, change, a bottle opener, a fluorescent orange bobber, a dozen Juicy Fruit wrappers—even the dust and pebbles in the floor mats are his. She’ll have to vacuum it before she parks it out by the road with a sign in the window, but not yet. She can’t do anything until she hears from him anyway.
Cy says she should drive it. Sitting idle for so many months isn’t good for the engine; the seals dry out. Patty waits till Eileen gets home to run it around the backroads. It hasn’t been a week yet, but she doesn’t like to leave the phone unattended, in case.
She turns the radio up and the green hollows fly by, the dips and creeks and eroding stone bridges, the clumps of skunk cabbage and elephant-ears. The gearshift is familiar under her hand, and the bright asterisk of the crack in the windshield. She rumbles over railroad tracks, downshifts to climb the winding hills. Compared to the Dart, it’s got power, and she likes riding high and being able to see. It’s newer than her car—plus it’s his. It would be wrong to get rid of it, though she knows Tommy would tell her not to be stupid. She can hear her mother: she needs to think about Casey, not just herself.
But she can’t sell it until she hears from Tommy.
Little things are starting to get to her, things people say. Cy gives her shit about smoking O.Ps and Patty whips the unlit butt back at him. Eileen opens the fridge at breakfast and asks where the milk went, when all Patty had was the last little dribble in her coffee.
“Look,” Patty says, “I’ll buy you a whole gallon, all right?”
“That doesn’t do me any good now,” Eileen says.
When they’ve left and she’s alone with Casey, she coos to him, walking her fingers up his breastbone, tapping his nose: “Aunt Leenie is being an asshole, yes … she … is!”
And then she scrapes together some change and belts his carrier into the truck and races cross-country to Iron Kettle Farm—leaving the phone—to buy the goddamned milk, which Eileen doesn’t even say anything about until right before bed, a grudging thank-you that Patty knows Cy is behind.
Sometimes it’s not a fight with anyone, it’s just Patty being mad at herself. There doesn’t have to be a reason. With no warning, a needling feeling of frustration rises and takes control of her. She can be doing anything—washing dishes, changing Casey—and her hands clench. She wants to scream or hit something or both.
Some of it’s sex. It’s been seven months. She’s given in to her hands, pretending they’re his, but they only make her miss him more. She swears off touching herself, then surrenders and feels slutty, a vicious circle. It doesn’t help that she feels fat as well as unloved.
The weather helps, the heat and humidity building into thunderstorms that darken the house and shake the valley—wild and then spent, like her—rinsing everything clean. The road dries in patches, steam lifting off the asphalt. She takes Casey outside to feel the fresh air. She hopes Tommy has a window.
When she pictures him, he’s always alone, a silhouette in his cell, though she knows the real danger is when he’s with the others. Everywhere he goes, he’s surrounded by them—the guards
and
the prisoners.
and
the prisoners.
She doesn’t even know if he has his own cell, or if he has to share a toilet with someone. She doesn’t think she could do that—
only if she absolutely had to, and then she’d spread a newspaper or something in front of her. But he’s not shy like she is; he was always the first to skinny-dip. She used to jag him about just wanting to show off.
only if she absolutely had to, and then she’d spread a newspaper or something in front of her. But he’s not shy like she is; he was always the first to skinny-dip. She used to jag him about just wanting to show off.
She worries about what he’s eating, and what his bed’s like. She used to bring him his cigarettes; now where’s he getting them from?
She could go crazy imagining things. It’s better to focus on what she
can
do, and so, Friday, a week after bringing the truck home, she cuts a panel from a cardboard box and neatly magic-markers a FOR SALE sign with Eileen’s number and sticks it on the dash of the Dart, wedging it against the rearview mirror. She pulls the car to the edge of the road, angled toward town so people will see it on their way home, then walks back inside and peers through the living room window at it, sure she’s just fucked up royally.
can
do, and so, Friday, a week after bringing the truck home, she cuts a panel from a cardboard box and neatly magic-markers a FOR SALE sign with Eileen’s number and sticks it on the dash of the Dart, wedging it against the rearview mirror. She pulls the car to the edge of the road, angled toward town so people will see it on their way home, then walks back inside and peers through the living room window at it, sure she’s just fucked up royally.
Eileen posts a flyer with a fringe of numbers at the laundromat. Now when the phone rings, it could be anyone. Patty’s asking fifteen hundred, but she’d take a thousand. She could pay her mother back, pay off the rest of the loan and still have a chunk left over. She’s going to start working again, she’s got to if she wants to have any kind of life.
Saturday, Eileen and Cy ask if she wants to come to the speedway with them, but she has to be home in case someone calls. When the phone finally rings, it’s her mother, confirming that they’re still coming for Sunday dinner. Patty doesn’t tell her she’s selling the Dart—she’ll find out tomorrow anyway.
“I don’t understand,” her mother says when Cy lets it slip over dessert. “I thought you were selling the truck.”
“It’s paid off,” Patty says. “This way we get rid of a bill.”
“But it’s so big,” her mother says. “I can’t imagine it gets any kind of gas mileage.”
“Twenty-five highway.” Patty lies. It’s what the Dart gets, or
was supposed to when it was new. She’s memorized the owner’s manual, expecting the buyers will have questions.
was supposed to when it was new. She’s memorized the owner’s manual, expecting the buyers will have questions.
“That can’t be,” her mother says, but doesn’t call her on it, just as she doesn’t ask how Tommy could afford to pay cash for the truck to begin with.
She’s only mentioned him once, as she was greeting them at the door. “Have you heard from Tommy yet?” she asked Patty, as if she’d been thinking about him all day—instead of the question being a preemptive strike, getting the bad news out of the way so it wouldn’t ruin dinner. It’s silly; he’s the whole reason they’re there—okay,
and
Casey. She can’t remember the last non-holiday her mother invited Eileen and Cy to the house.
and
Casey. She can’t remember the last non-holiday her mother invited Eileen and Cy to the house.
But Patty has her own motives too. Cleaning up, while Eileen is down in the basement fetching some Tupperware, she tells her mother she’s thinking of going back to work.
“This would be to your old job?”
“I’d have to get someone to watch Casey during the day,” Patty says.
“Are you asking me?” her mother says.
“I want to hear what you think.”
“I think you’ve got to do something.”
Patty agrees.
“If you wanted to do something like that, I think it would be easier on both of us if you moved back here.”
Patty acts surprised, though she’s already thought of it. After fighting so long to be independent, it’s hard to surrender again.
“I’ve got nothing but room,” her mother says.
“That’s generous,” Patty says, and hears Eileen coming up the stairs. “I’ll think about it.”
“Do,” her mother says, and takes the gravy boat into the dining room, breaking off the conversation, keeping it their secret.
Back at Eileen’s, Patty spaces out while they watch TV—
Rhoda
and then
Phyllis,
plucky single women trying to pay the bills. She barely listens, dogged by her mother’s offer. She’s tired and stoned and wondering if it’s too early to go to sleep when the phone rings.
Rhoda
and then
Phyllis,
plucky single women trying to pay the bills. She barely listens, dogged by her mother’s offer. She’s tired and stoned and wondering if it’s too early to go to sleep when the phone rings.
Her first thought is that it’s too late for Tommy, but maybe the state’s rules are different.
Eileen’s closest. She picks up and listens a second. “She’s right here.”
“I’m calling about the car for sale?” a man says—older, a withered voice.
It’s a solid car, she assures him, never been in an accident. The only thing wrong with it is the defroster, and a few small scratches. Patty wants to be honest but feels weird cataloguing its faults, as if she’s talking behind its back.
“Why are you selling?” the man asks.
“We bought a new truck, so now it’s extra.”
She makes sure Cy will be home before scheduling a time for the guy to come over. She hasn’t forgotten the voice in the middle of the night telling her how easy it would be.
But, Monday, when he pulls up in his battleship of a station wagon—ladders lashed to the roof, a primered door tied shut with clothesline—she sees he’s harmless, a backwoods handyman, someone’s grampa. He’s come from work and his face is misted with silver paint. He sticks his head under the front end, pops the hood and runs his hands across the engine like a doctor. “Okay if I take her for a spin?” he asks, and they both go with him, Cy leaning between the seats to hear what they’re saying. The guy guns it, then lays on the brakes, taking his hands off the wheel to check the alignment. “Drives straight,” he says, then, back at the house, has Patty go through the lights and signals while he stands there conducting her.
“You were asking fifteen hundred?” he says, and takes out his checkbook.
“Yes,” Patty says, watching him write.
The man rips the check from the book and holds it up like money. “I’ll give you a thousand right now.”
She was wrong to try to do this without Tommy—or maybe she’s greedy. Just yesterday she would have been willing to take a thousand.
“Twelve-fifty,” she counters.
The man laughs like this is an insult, and lowers the check. He rubs the side of his jaw, watching her like a gunfighter. “’Leven hundred, take it or leave it.”
“It’s a deal.”
“Man,” he says to Cy, as if he’s behind all this, “the lady drives a hard bargain.”
But later, his check safe in her purse, she thinks he somehow tricked her. She came down four hundred while he only came up one hundred. Tommy would have told him to go blow.
The next day two people call, and two more on Wednesday. “If you don’t mind my asking,” one man says, “how much did it go for?” Patty decides to lie and then feels even more foolish.
Eileen’s taken the flyer down, but the calls don’t stop, the stragglers reaching into the weekend, each a reminder that Patty should have held out longer. Whenever she checks the balance of her bank account, she automatically adds the lost four hundred, then subtracts it again.
And still, each time the phone rings, it’s him. She dashes in from the other room or from outside, prepared to hear his voice. It’s not him. Cy’s friend Jeff sounds enough like Tommy that for a minute she thinks it’s him, then has to retreat to her room, wounded.
As the days go by, her imagination spins terrible, logical scenarios.
The reason he hasn’t called is that he’s been killed. He’s in a coma in the prison infirmary after his cellmate attacked him. He’s in solitary for defending himself.
The reason he hasn’t called is that he’s been killed. He’s in a coma in the prison infirmary after his cellmate attacked him. He’s in solitary for defending himself.
He’ll call. It’s just a matter of time. She has to stop staring at the phone because, after five straight days in the house with Casey, she’s literally going crazy. The TV is full of idiots. She wants to go out and do something normal like see a movie, but she can’t. She needs to be here when he calls.
And then, when it actually happens, she’s not the one who answers. When Tommy calls, she’s in her room, feeding Casey, her shirt hiked up. The phone rings in the living room, where Eileen is drinking beer and painting her toenails. Patty turns her head, waiting for someone to pick up, hoping, this once, that it isn’t him.
The ring that should be there isn’t, and now she listens, hearing the murmur of Eileen’s voice, and then Eileen’s moving, getting up, coming toward the door. “Patty, it’s Tommy!”
Patty doesn’t take her breast away from Casey, doesn’t bother running the cord under the door.
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