POLUNSKY UNIT (DEATH ROW)
LIVINGSTON, TEXAS 77351
USA
February 13
Hey there, Stu,
The spider’s not been around for a few weeks, but there are a couple of new webs by the door so I reckon she’s lurking in the shadows, watching me scribble and copying my words, spelling out my secrets on the ceiling in silver silk. Or maybe that’s the paranoia kicking in, which FYI is hardly surprising given what happened today after school.
I stayed behind to talk to my old Religious Education teacher, and you’ll be pleased to know why because I was asking about the nun.
“Why do you want to write to her?” Mr. Andrews said, scribbling something about Jesus on the whiteboard in purple marker, ready for his class the following morning.
“Because,” I began, trying to pluck up the courage to tell the lie I’d planned.
“Because,” Mr. Andrews mocked, drawing a stickman on a crucifix.
“I found God.”
“Where?” He drew a speech bubble from Jesus’s mouth and scrawled AAARRRGH in block capitals. AAARRRGH indeed. I hadn’t expected that question.
“In my… pencil case, sir.”
“Borrowing an eraser, was he?”
“No. When I opened my pencil case in math, light reflected off the lid and made a cross on the table.”
“Moving,” Mr. Andrews said. “Truly.” He threw the board marker onto his desk. “She’s from a convent in Edinburgh. St. Catherine’s. And her name is Janet.”
Janet will be receiving a letter soon, Stu. Don’t you worry about that. As I walked out of school enjoying the sun on my face, I felt positive for the first time in months. I rushed all the way home to start my campaign, planning to print off your poems to send to the nun and to write all your good qualities in a bullet-point list to make it clear you’re:
And that’s when I saw it.
DOR1S.
A pair of brown eyes followed my progress along the pavement.
“Hi,” I called from the other side of the road.
“Where’ve you been? I’ve been waiting for you.”
“My Religious Education teacher. I stayed behind to talk to him. Why are you driving… I mean, why are you in his car?”
“Mine’s having a service,” Sandra explained. “This one’s been sitting in the garage for months.”
I couldn’t take my eyes off it. The old blue doors. The dented roof.
“Is everything okay?” I asked as Sandra beckoned me over. I caught sight of my reflection in the car window. Pale cheeks. Wary eyes. Thinner than I’d realized.
Sandra smiled suddenly, but it looked odd. Too intense. “I’ve got some good news.” She undid her seat belt, and I recoiled slightly as she stepped out of the car. “There’s going to be a memorial service.”
“A what?”
“I only thought of it this afternoon, and I came straight here to tell you. I want to mark the first anniversary. Do something special for him.” She put her bony hand on my shoulder, completely misreading my horrified expression. “Don’t worry. You’ll be involved, too. A reading or some-thing.”
“No!” I said, and Sandra blinked, though her smile didn’t fade. “I don’t know if I can do that. Not in front of everyone.”
She increased the pressure on my shoulder. “I know it’s hard, but we need to do something to keep his memory alive,” and Stu I almost laughed out loud. As if it would ever fade. As if it was that easy. She leaned back into the car and pulled a notepad out of her handbag. “I’ve got some ideas,” she said, flicking through pages and pages of her messy handwriting. “Have you got time to hear one or two?”
“Flute lesson,” I blurted out, making it up on the spot.
“Oh. Okay. Never mind, then.” She closed the notepad. “Maybe some other time.”
“Sure,” I said, walking away as fast as I could. “See you later.”
Before I reached my drive, she called, “When, exactly?”
I stalled. “Whenever you like,” I said, without turning around.
“Shall I ring you? You can come over. Maybe this weekend. We can plan it together.”
I closed my eyes, trying to hide my growing anger. “I’m busy this weekend.”
“All weekend?”
“Well, no, but—”
“I’ll call you, then,” she said, and I turned around to see her climb back into the car, hitting Miss Scarlet with her shoulder. The red figure swung from side to side, and I missed Aaron with a pain that gnawed on every bone in my body, like toothache all over. A year ago I felt exactly the same, pining for him after the argument, when he didn’t call and he didn’t call and he didn’t call.
With Aaron out of the equation, there was no real need to stop things with his brother. Besides, things had improved since the night of the jigsaw so we became a fixed pair that kind of went together even though it was a bit odd, like peanut butter and jelly, which I’m guessing might be one of your favorites. Of course I stayed clear of his house, but whenever I could think of an excuse to tell Mum, we hung out in town, nearly always by the river because it was quiet and there was a bench with trees hanging over it to protect us if it rained.
Grandpa was moved from the hospital to a care home, and Dad was helping him get settled in, visiting as much as possible. On Valentine’s Day, he came downstairs with a card, dropping it on top of the pile of ironing Mum was doing in the kitchen as I ate my breakfast before school. Mum didn’t acknowledge it, just watched Dad chuck a bag onto the floor and some bread into the toaster, the iron steaming on Dot’s trousers.
“You off there again?”
“Taking him some more photos,” Dad replied. “It’s working. Honestly. His speech is getting better, too. Last time he said the Lord’s Prayer with hardly any mistakes. The nurses have been brilliant. Really impressive. We’re working together to try to get him—”
“Shame they’re not paying you.”
“I’m looking for a job, too,” Dad replied, peering into the toaster.
“Well, you won’t find one in there.” She folded the jeans then took the Valentine’s card off the pile of clothes and tore it open. For a second, her face softened. “Thank you, Simon.” Dad looked pleased with himself as he buttered his toast.
Now Stu I’m sure you must celebrate Valentine’s Day in America, probably much bigger than we do over here, because I’ve seen on TV how your country goes mad for holidays. I reckon you used to do loads for Alice before she told you about the affair with your brother, e.g., candles and petals leading to a candlelit meal on your balcony, or maybe you left a trail of ketchup packets instead so your wife could follow them to the cheeseburger and curly fries and milk shake with two straws.
I didn’t love Max, but what choice did I have but to send him a card, so I bought him one with a polar bear in a bikini and gave it to him at lunchtime. The words inside said You make me hot, and I added… Like global warming. Max stared at it blankly, but I knew Aaron would have laughed. My stomach twisted as I sat down with my tray. I told myself off with this harsh voice in my head, chewing my chicken nuggets with more determination than usual, eager to giggle at Max’s jokes, but he didn’t tell a single one, just picked miserably at a few chips.
After school we had an hour together because Mum was taking Dot to speech therapy so we made our way down to the river. Chaffinches flew from branch to branch as we found our usual bench. Max picked up a stone and started to scratch something on the wood as a heron swooped out of the sky to land near my feet.
“Look!” I exclaimed, pointing at the huge bird dipping its yellow beak into the water. Max barely glanced at it. “Are you okay?” I asked, fed up with his mood. “You’ve been grumpy all day.”
“You don’t look it.”
The stone stopped moving. “It’s Tuesday.”
“So?”
“I see my dad on Tuesdays. Normally, anyway. But whatever.” Max started on the bench again. “He’s taking his girlfriend out for a meal. I don’t care, though,” he said quickly. “Doesn’t bother me.”
“Of course it does,” I replied gently. “And that’s okay.” He nodded so imperceptibly I might have imagined it, then stood up quickly. The heron took off from the water with a huge flap of wings. Dropping the stone, Max pointed at the bench.
MM + ZJ
Feb 14
“Happy Valentine’s Day, girlfriend,” he muttered. “You know. If you want to be.”
He looked so awkward and nervous that I reached out for his hand and just said, “Yes.”
Even as the word left my lips, I knew it felt wrong, and Soph detected it, too, lying on her bed with her head dangling off the edge, looking at me upside down, her cheeks turning purple as they filled with blood.
“So you’re not an Or What anymore?” she said when I got home.
“No.”
“You don’t sound very pleased about it.”
“I am,” I lied. “’Course I am. It’s Max, isn’t it? Everyone wants to be with him.”
“You gonna tell Mum?”
I lay down next to her and tipped back my own head, my hair touching the carpet. “I don’t have a death wish.”
“She probably wouldn’t care anyway,” Soph said. “Too busy worrying about Dot.”
“More like Dad,” I said, because he still wasn’t back from visiting Grandpa and Mum was seething. A temp agency had left a message on his cell saying there were a couple of weeks’ work, but Dad had missed it because he’d forgotten to take his phone. Downstairs I could hear Mum pacing pacing pacing, stopping every now and again, no doubt to open the curtains and check the drive. “I wish he’d get a job. Or that Grandpa would get better.”
“Or die.”
“Soph!”
“I’m only joking!” she said, sliding off the bed and onto the rug, holding her head and blinking ten times as the blood went back to normal. “But it would be nice to get some money in his will.”
“What would you do with it? Say, if you got thousands of pounds?”
She lolled onto her back, spread-eagled on the floor. “Move somewhere sunny with a pool and a new house and a big hutch for hundreds of rabbits and a new school just around the corner.”
“How is it?” I asked, feeling guilty. I’d been so wrapped up with Aaron and Max, I hadn’t checked for a while. “Any better?” Soph hesitated, fiddling with the mood ring on her finger. “Are they still doing it?”
“Sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
“It was okay for a while, but now the names are really bad.”
I struggled to twist around on the bed. “Like what?”
“Don’t want to say.” She picked fluff off the carpet, not meeting my eyes. “But last week Portia hit me.”
“She hit you? Where?”
“Not hard,” Soph said quickly. “Not enough to make a bruise or anything, but it still hurt.”
“We have to tell Mum. We really do, Soph.”
Slowly, she nodded. I stayed with her for ages, turning on her TV when she climbed into bed so she wouldn’t hear the inevitable argument when Dad got home, not that my plan worked, because there was such an almighty row that Stu you probably heard it in Texas.
“I forgot, all right? It was a mistake!” Dad roared.
“You probably left your phone here on purpose so you wouldn’t have to—”
“I want a job! Why do you think I’ve been filling out hundreds of applications?”
“Don’t exaggerate!” Mum bickered as I listened on the stairs. “Hundreds? Please!”
“Well, I’ve done a hundred percent more than you.”
“I keep this place running!” Mum argued. “If it wasn’t for me—”
“If it wasn’t for you, we’d all breathe a little easier! You’re too controlling, Jane. And I tell you something, I’m putting my foot down. I’ve had enough.”
I imagined Mum and Dad eyeballing each other from opposite sides of the room.
“Is this about your father?”
“Partly,” Dad admitted, and there was no apology in his voice. “You can’t stop my children from seeing my dad, Jane. It isn’t fair.”
“It isn’t suitable for them to see him!” Mum groaned. “This is precisely why I don’t trust your judgment, Simon. Expecting me to let our kids go into a care home to talk to a mental—”
“Don’t speak about my dad like that,” Dad warned, and in my head, I watched him hold out a shaking finger. “Don’t you dare.”
“I do dare!” Mum yelled. “I can have an opinion. It’s our money you’re spending, driving miles every day to see that man when you should be doing something more useful.”
“Money I’ve earned!”
“Money you’re no longer earning,” Mum corrected him. “Money we can’t afford to spend, because you can’t get a damn job!”
“I won’t take employment advice from someone who refuses to work.”
“My job’s here,” Mum started. “With the girls. Someone has to look out for them and stop you from doing something dangerous.”
“Taking my children to visit their grandpa is not dangerous!”
“It’s ridiculous!”
“You’re ridiculous! It wouldn’t do them any harm at all. You’re not letting them grow up. Or be independent. Or exposed to the world.”
“I’m the one who wants Dot to have the implant so she can hear the bloody world!”
“She’s happy!” Dad argued. “Really happy!”
“She’s struggling, Simon. That’s what the speech therapist told me today. She’s not picking up the lip-reading as quickly as she might and—”
“She can sign, and she’s doing well at school with the help of her assistants. There’s no need to send her to the hospital again, to disrupt her like that.”
“She’ll be able to hear, though,” Mum said in a wobbly voice. “Music. The TV. Me.”
“She’ll be able to hear a whole load of electronic buzzing and squeaking that’s nothing like the real world. And it might not even work. You saw what happened last time! No,” Dad said firmly. “It’s not worth the risk. You’re being selfish!”
“Selfish? I’m doing this for our daughter!”
“You’re doing it for yourself,” Dad spat, “and we both know it!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know what I’m talking about! You want Dot to be able to hear because it’s your fault that she’s—”
“GET OUT!” Mum bellowed suddenly, and the words echoed through the whole house. “GO!”
I didn’t for a second think that he’d leave, but the living room door slammed. The front one, too. I clung on to the banister, breathing shakily. I stared at my toes, not sure what to do, and then hinges creaked as Soph’s eyes appeared in the gap of her door, huge and terrified. I told her to go back to sleep, but Mum started crying in the living room so we both ran downstairs.
“Mum?” My voice sounded quiet after the argument. “Mum, are you okay?”
She was hunched on the leather sofa, her back quivering. “I’m… I’m fine.”
Soph charged over and forced herself onto Mum’s lap, putting her arms around her neck.
“You don’t look fine. What was all that about?” I asked, sounding frustrated and not bothering to cover it up. Grandpa and Mum and her job and Dot—none of it made sense. “What was your fault? What did Dad mean?”
“Nothing.” Mum wiped her eyes, her voice quivering.
“It’s not nothing!” I exploded. I stood in front of Mum with my expression probably furious. “Dad just walked out!”
“He’ll be back in five minutes when he’s calmed down,” Mum replied, heaving Soph off her lap. “You’re a bit heavy, my love.” She stood up and took a deep breath then wiped her nose on her sleeve. “He can be so bloody stubborn. Not wanting Dot to have something that could help her. Pressuring me to take you to see Grandpa when he knows full well what happened.”
“What did happen?”
“Well, I won’t be bullied,” Mum said, tucking her hair behind her ears, not listening to a word I was saying. “Absolutely not.”
“Soph’s being bullied,” I said in this pointed sort of way. “Actually bullied. By girls in her class.” Mum spun around to look at her, and Soph fiddled with the sleeve of her pajama top. “It’s been going on awhile, and it’s getting worse. You need to do something because it’s getting really bad. Not just names and stuff. This girl called Portia hit her.”
“What?”
“It’s true,” I said, seeing the shocked expression on Mum’s face and hoping that she was coming to her senses. “I just thought you should know there are things going on apart from you and Dad.”
That’s when he walked back into the house with a newspaper tucked underneath his arm, his light eye gray and stormy. Neither of them apologized. Mum watched Dad sit on the armchair, and Dad watched Mum straighten the clothes on the radiator. I have no idea what they were thinking, but Stu I’m pretty certain it was nothing about gold silk or rock pools or starlight.
Love,
Zoe xx
1 Fiction Road
Bath, UK