“Actually about someone.”
Her eyes were clear, interested in what I was saying. “Okay.” “Tell me about Russell Simington.”
Her fingers flinched on the big tumbler and anxiety filled the edges around her light blue eyes. She held the tumbler up to her mouth and took a long drink. She brought it down and set it on the table. She readjusted herself on the sofa cushion, her back ramrod straight.
“I haven’t heard that name in quite some time,” she said.
“I’d never heard it until a couple of days ago.”
She folded her hands together, then unfolded them, like she didn’t know what to do with them. I couldn’t blame her. I had just showed up and thrown his name out there. She had probably been wondering what she was going to have to drink with dinner.
“Is this about my never telling you about him?” she asked. “Because you never asked.”
“No, it’s not about that,” I said. “You’re right. I never asked because I didn’t care. I’m not sure that I do now. But a lawyer came to see me.”
Alarm flashed through her eyes. “A lawyer? Why? What does he want from you? He never wanted anything to do with us before.” “He’s in prison,” I said. “On death row.”
She processed that, her mouth a tight line. “Unfortunately, I can’t say I’m surprised. Russell always seemed headed for something like that.”
I moved back into the sofa, ready to let her talk. She cleared her throat and stared at the tumbler, but didn’t reach for it.
“We met in a bar,” she said, a sad smile forming on her face. “I’m sure that’s no great revelation for you. It was out in El Cajon somewhere. I was with friends, and he was shooting pool. We struck up a conversation. He was polite, funny, charming.”
I’d been in a few bars in El Cajon. I’d never seen anyone with those three qualities patronizing them. More like rough, violent, drunk. But I let her go on.
“We dated for a few months,” she said. “He was into some bad things. He didn’t work, but he always had money. There were always hideous-looking people coming to his apartment at all hours of the night.”
“Did you know what those bad things were?” I asked.
“No,” she said, glancing at me. “I didn’t ask. He had a temper, and it always felt like one of those questions that wasn’t possible. And I probably didn’t want to know. I was starting to fall in love with him.”
The image of Carolina and Russell together didn’t fit in my head. But maybe that was because I couldn’t picture him in any way other than behind that glass, in that jumpsuit.
“I got pregnant,” she said, running a hand over her hair. “At first, he seemed to care. He was attentive, we talked a little about the future. I was excited. I wanted a baby. Maybe needed one, to give me direction. I don’t know. Then he came over to my apartment one night. With a gun.” She paused, clearly remembering the moment. “I asked him what it was for and he told me that he needed it, that he couldn’t take any chances. Very vague, but adamant. I told him that if we were going to have a child, he couldn’t keep going like that, doing whatever he was doing. I didn’t want that around my child. We fought, and he left.” She chewed her bottom lip, hesitating. “I wasn’t always a mess, Noah. I’m not sure how or why it turned, but back then? I thought I could be a good parent.”
She reached for the tumbler, stared into it for a moment, then took a drink, closing her eyes.
She placed it on the table again and swung her eyes to me, as sad as I had ever seen them in my lifetime.
“I never saw him again,” she said.
TWENTY-SIX
We sat there in silence for a few minutes, and I felt like a teenager again. The prolonged periods of quiet in that house were some of my loudest memories. Sunday afternoons especially. Carolina emerging from a long, absorbed night of drinking, where all she could do was sit and hope for the hangover to dissolve, while I sat on the sofa watching football on mute, wanting desperately for her to be different.
But it was always quiet.
“What did he do?” Carolina asked.
“Killed two men.”
If that surprised her, she didn’t show it. “Are you trying to get him out of prison?”
“I’m not clear on what I’m trying to do yet,” I said. “His lawyer came to me, told me about him, wanted my help. But Simington didn’t tell me much.”
Carolina sat up straight again, as if she’d been poked with a live wire. “You’ve seen him?”
“Yeah.”
She started to say something, then stopped. She glanced at the drink on the table. I wanted to kick it, send it flying. But she didn’t reach for it.
“That had to have been difficult,” she finally said. “Wasn’t the most enjoyable thing I’ve ever done.” “Then you know how much you …” she said, her voice trailing off.
“Look like him?” I said, agitated at hearing the comparison again. “Yeah. I get it.”
She picked up the tumbler and held it in her lap like a child would hold her favorite stuffed animal or blanket. For comfort.
“I am sorry that he is your father,” she said.
