POLUNSKY UNIT (DEATH ROW)
LIVINGSTON, TEXAS 77351
USA
March 3
Hey there, Stu,
Less than two months to go. I wonder if you’ve marked your calendar with a cross on May 1, or maybe you’ve just written 6 PM lethal injection, and all I can say is I hope you’re not afraid of needles like Lauren, who fainted twice at school vaccinations and almost swallowed her tongue. It must be so strange to know when you’re going to die. All that buildup of tension. Sort of like Christmas, but without the turkey, unless you’ve ordered that for your final meal. Anyway, it might not come to that so let’s not start fantasizing about all the trimmings, because who knows, you might have another few years if the nun’s got anything to do with it. No one knows what’s going to happen a month from now or two months from now, and that’s what I keep telling myself when I get nervous about the memorial.
It’s taking place at school because Sandra got the go-ahead from the staff to hire the hall for a two-course dinner on May 1, prepared by the lunch ladies.
“It’s going to be nice,” she said in the sunroom last weekend as Mum smiled and I thought about honoring someone with spotted dick and custard. “And it’ll raise money for the school as well. Fifteen pounds per ticket. You’ll get yours free, of course,” she added, patting my leg. I moved it out of the way, pretending to have an itch on my knee. “Have you thought any more about what you might like to read?”
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. The sun burst through the clouds, fastening me to the sofa like a hot gold thumbtack.
“You’ve been quite busy at school, haven’t you?” Mum said as sweat crept out of my pores.
“Well, I think it would be nice to have something personal. Something she’s written herself,” Sandra went on as if I wasn’t there. “Something from her heart.”
“You’ll be good at that, Zo,” Mum replied, taking my hand and rubbing my palm with her thumb. “You’re a lovely writer.” It was the first time she’d ever said anything like that. “I know you’ll come up with something perfect.”
It was a nice thing to say, but Stu when I tried to do it earlier, all I managed was his name underlined five times. Scrunching up the paper, I threw it in the trash with a roar of frustration and stamped on it hard, which hurt my foot, but I deserved it so I did it again and again, hating myself for the pain that I’ve caused and the things that I’ve done. It would be bliss to forget, to be like Grandpa after the stroke, confused and dazed, tossing memories to the side and asking for a bowl of strawberry jelly.
If I can’t forget, then I need to get it out, now more than ever, because Stu we don’t have long. No matter how hard it is, I have to keep going because you’re the only one who understands. If everything goes wrong on May 1, my chance will be gone. You’ll die not knowing the worst of me when I know the worst of you, and that’s not fair. We’re in this together, so don’t worry, I’ll keep talking till the very end to keep you distracted and stop you from feeling alone in your cell, which I’m guessing seems smaller than ever, the outside world even farther away.
We’ll start with Dot’s sixth birthday on February 18 so imagine her waking me up by leaping onto my bed, actually my head, if I remember rightly, banging it with her knee.
“It’s my special day!” She signed the words in front of my face so I could see her hands. Her little finger skimmed my nose.
“I know it is.”
“So where’s my present?”
I pretended to gasp. “I forgot!”
Dot screwed up her eyes. “You’re lying.”
“No. Really. I forgot.” Dot grabbed my ears and examined my expression closely, her nose touching mine.
“Liar!” She danced around, signing wildly. “Liar liar liar!”
Laughing, I climbed out of bed and opened my cupboard, reaching for the present hidden underneath my shoes. Dot tore off the wrapping paper to find a gold plastic crown with the words QUEEN OF THE WORLD on the front. She gazed at it in wonder.
“Do you like it?”
“I love it!”
We sat on my bedroom carpet and sipped imaginary tea in Buckingham Palace.
“Can I tell you a secret?” she signed. I ate a pretend biscuit and waited. “You’re the best one in the family. The real best.”
I touched her cheek with my imaginary teacup. “Thanks.”
“This is the best present I ever got. Better than what Mum bought me.” Dot wrinkled her nose. “Books. And coloring. She didn’t get me what I asked for.”
“What was that?”
Dot stared back at me, her face sad. “New ears.”
“Is that why you asked for an iPod from Santa?” I asked, pulling her onto my lap. “Did you ask him, too? For new ears?”
She nodded. “But only in the PS at the bottom of my letter, so maybe he didn’t see it.”
“Maybe,” I managed, aching for her, rocking her from side to side.
She gazed up at me, her eyes really green. “Why was I born like this?”
“I don’t know. You can’t choose these things.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s fair.”
“No,” I replied. “Me, neither.”
I couldn’t stop thinking about her all morning. In the shower. Having breakfast. On the way to the library. Honest truth, I barely listened to Mrs. Simpson bang on about the decorating she was doing at home as I fixed some old books at the main desk.
“… so in the end I just went for an olive-green carpet.”
“Great.” I picked at a roll of tape with my thumb, wondering if this was how worried Mum felt about Dot every single day.
“I mean, I briefly considered the sage green, but I thought it was a little intense.”
“Really.”
“Honestly, Zoe, I’ve never seen sage that color in my life, and I should know because I do a lot of cooking, which is precisely what I said to the salesman. No, I think I’ve made the correct choice. Olive green is better. Calmer.”
“Yeah, definitely.”
“And cheaper, incidentally, so I could—isn’t that your friend?” Mrs. Simpson asked.
“Absolutely,” I said, not listening.
“Over there? By the spiral staircase?”
She pointed a book at a figure and I gasped. Aaron was moving along the Literature shelves, searching for a book, paying no attention to me whatsoever. He scratched his head, looking baffled, no doubt on purpose, wanting me to go up and offer to help. I screwed up a label. Stood up. Lost my nerve. Sat back down again. My leg jiggled under the desk, and then I jumped to my feet. Tipping the Returns box upside down, I prayed there was something from the Literature section.
Two books on knitting patterns.
One on bridges.
An encyclopedia about religion that I tossed aside and swore.
I stuck my hand into the box and there, in the corner, was something else. I pulled it out quickly. A novel by George Eliot! Hugging the book to my chest, I moved toward the stairs. Aaron had grabbed a book, too, and was reading the blurb, walking away from the shelf, and Stu if he had any idea that I was hurrying toward him, it didn’t show in his face. I started going up the stairs as he started coming down, twisting and turning, our feet making the metal sing. We met in the exact middle of the spiral, and it was like standing in a great swirl of Aaron’s DNA, and I was surrounded by him and wrapped up in him as the rest of the world faded to nothing.
“Fancy seeing you here,” I said. I even smiled, utterly convinced he’d come to make amends.
“It’s a library, isn’t it? I needed a book.” His tone surprised me. Winded me, actually. Aaron held up something by Dickens. “For my essay, due on Monday. I left my copy at college. That’s the only reason I’m here.”
I held up my own book and pointed at the first floor. “Yeah, well. This is the only reason I’m here. I have to return this book to the shelf.”
We glowered at each other, but there was something bigger than anger in our eyes. Neither of us moved. Neither of us wanted to move. I was blocking his way and he was blocking mine, and we just kept standing there and standing there, people moving above our heads and below our feet as we hung suspended between two floors.
The air was alive. Full. Buzzing and humming and crackling like that static before a storm.
“You shouldn’t have called me a bitch,” I said at last.
“You shouldn’t have acted like one,” he replied, but still we stared into each other’s eyes, remembering that night and all the others before. The owl. The bonfire. The wall near my house. The window with our trembling hands. A thousand missed opportunities.
“Can you move, please?” Aaron forced out. A thousand and one.
Too disappointed to refuse, I stepped to the side to let him through. Our bodies brushed past each other, and he felt it, too, I was sure of it, a searing burn on the skin as the staircase rattled in a way that shook our bones.
As I made my way up to the first floor, a fat man approached, asking about the Crime section.
“Are there any books by American writers? Other than Grisham, I mean.” Down below, Aaron was handing over his card at the librarian’s desk. There was a flash of brown—his eyes flicking in my direction—and a flush of pink when he realized that I’d noticed. “I’ve read every book he’s written. Except The Pelican Brief, but I saw the film so I know the plot.” My lips ached with all the things I wanted to say. Needed to say. “Of course, it’s not quite the same as reading it, but—”
“I’m sorry,” I interrupted as Mrs. Simpson scanned Aaron’s book and stamped the date and he set off toward the exit. “Sorry. I just have to…” The sentence trailed off as I charged down the stairs. “Wait,” I urged under my breath, racing past the desk as Mrs. Simpson hissed my name. My hands slammed against the cold glass door, and I left it spinning as I darted across the foyer and out into the rain—proper English rain, falling in lines, not dots, splattering my skin and soaking my hair and drenching my clothes. Frantic, I looked around, straining my eyes and my neck as I searched the busy pavement for Aaron, but it was hopeless. He had gone.
Back in the foyer, I sank to the floor by the radiator, sitting on my heels, my head in my hands. That was it. My one chance, over—but then I heard a toilet flush, and sure enough, Aaron appeared from the bathroom, wiping his hands on his jeans. Scrambling to my feet, I dashed over, my shoes squelching and my bangs smeared against my forehead. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but Aaron’s lips seemed to twitch as I dripped all over the floor, and Stu I didn’t mean that to be a metaphor, but perhaps it was, because everything inside me melted at the hint of his grin.
“Look, Aaron, I didn’t know, okay?” I blurted out. “I didn’t know you were brothers. Not at first.” If there had been a smile, it vanished instantly. “I kissed Max the first time because you disappeared. That’s the only reason! You have to believe me.”
“I didn’t disappear for long,” Aaron muttered, crossing his arms. “I only went down the road to answer my phone because my mum called and she didn’t know we were having a party.”
“I searched for you,” I said, my hands held out. “I searched everywhere! And at the bonfire I only kissed Max because I was upset you had a girlfriend.”
“But I don’t have a g—”
“I know that now!” I said, wiping rain off my face in frustration. “But I really thought you were together. I swear to God.”
Aaron rolled his eyes. “So, what, you just jumped to conclusions and went off with my brother?”
“I didn’t know you were brothers when all this started,” I cried, desperate for him to believe me. “How could I have known? I would never have—”
“But you found out!” Aaron replied. “You found out we were brothers, and you carried on.”
“Only because you told me to!”
“So you’re just using him?” Aaron asked.
“No, I mean… Look, it’s not as if I don’t like Max, because I do. I really like him, but—” With a snarl of rage, Aaron put up his hood and stormed out of the door. I charged after him, seizing his arm and spinning him around before he had chance to disappear down the road. “We’re not leaving it like this!” I yelled as rain splashed against my skin.
“Like what?” Aaron shouted, yanking his arm away. His chest was rising and falling and our pulses were racing and I had to make him understand.
“With you thinking that I chose Max!”
“You did choose him!”
“Because I didn’t know that you were an option!”
And without thinking about it, without worrying about the consequences, I grabbed Aaron’s face and pulled it toward mine, our mouths meeting with such force that it hurt in the sweetest way.
We broke apart, shock on our faces. For a few seconds, nothing happened. Nothing happened and everything happened, because in that instant we didn’t express a single word of regret and we both smiled with a happiness that was bigger than any guilt. Looking all around to make sure no one could see, Aaron clutched my hand and we started to run, adrenaline humming in our veins as we charged, desperate to find somewhere to be alone. The rain doubled in force like nature was on our side, trapping people indoors. The buildings and the cobbles and the steps and the alleyways and the churches and the parks—everything, the entire city, belonged to us for one precious moment that was long and wide, and Stu we filled every last bit of it.
This was living.
Really living.
Colors were brighter. Smells stronger. Sounds louder. I heard every glug of water bursting out of a drain, saw every bare branch as we sprinted past trees, smelled every bit of rain and mud and fumes as we took shelter in a tower that led up to the city wall. Aaron kissed me in the musty darkness, his lips soft but his fingers urgent. I could smell him, Stu—toothpaste and soap and deodorant, nothing special—but I closed my eyes and breathed him in as our mouths moved and our bodies pressed and our feet got wet in a puddle we barely noticed.
Love,
Zoe xx
1 Fiction Road
Bath, UK