That meant Morales was, ironically, innocent. She looked up to say something to her father, but he had fallen asleep. He looked dead and she might’ve panicked if it hadn’t been for the incessant beeping of the heart monitor. He can’t go to jail. He’d die in prison. But to save Morales, I have to give up my father.
“Miss,” a voice said from the door. It was the doctor. “He really needs his sleep. Why don’t you go on home and get some rest yourself? He’ll be fine tonight and he’ll need you in the next few weeks as he recovers.”
She was about to resist and refuse, but, looking at her father, asleep and wheezing softly, she picked up her backpack. She leaned over and kissed him on his forehead. The drive back to his house was thankfully short. She cried the whole way and wondered if she could keep it together enough to get there without having a wreck.
Something about the thought of him waking up to see her in a hospital bed next to him made her smile. “Well, that’s one way to see me past visiting hours,” she thought he’d joke.
When she opened the door of the house, it seemed so very empty and dark. Her mind replayed the events of that day when Marcario had pushed his way in and tried to … to … rape her. She pushed the visions away, poured a full glass of red wine, and curled up in her bed. She only got up twice to make sure she had locked all the doors.
She turned off the lights and tried to sleep, but she could only see her father gunning down Eric Torres, being shackled in handcuffs, dragged to prison, and Morales laughing as he was freed from his cell. She picked up her phone. She had a missed call. Even in this, a dark night for sure, she smiled. Minter Tweed, the screen said. She pushed the button to call him back.
“Well, well,” he said, his Southern drawl even more pronounced tonight, “if it isn’t the prodigal daughter.”
“Hello, Mr. Tweed,” she said, sipping her wine. “What’s up?”
“I might be obliged to ask you the same question, madam. And please, let’s dispense with the Mr. Tweed business. You must call me Minter.” He said. “I myself am perched on the veranda in a rocking chair of the highest craftsmanship, imbibing a middling quality bourbon, watching the night people walk about the square.”
A long silence filled the line. Amber tried to find her voice, but was afraid of the tears that would surely come again.
“Do I sense that something dreadful has happened, Miss Cross?” He said, his tone softening.
She took a deep breath and began to explain the connection between the Morales case and her father. She left nothing out and traced her steps exactly as she had taken them from the prison cell, to her father’s house, and finally to the hospital. As she told the story, something nagged at her mind about the whole thing. Something was off, but she couldn’t place what it was. She shrugged it away and continued.
“I don’t know what to do, Minter. I can’t turn my father in for this. He would go to prison and die in his cell,” she said, feeling the stinging burn behind her eyes. “But … Morales … is innocent.”
She waited for him to respond. “What do you think I should do?”
Her only answer was a deep, sonorous snore. She hung up and rolled over. When dawn threatened to peek into the room, she decided trying to sleep was pointless. Something … she wasn’t sure what … made her decide to rummage around in the attic.
15
Eye Witness
Climbing the rickety ladder into the cool, dark attic, she realized what she was looking for was connection. A connection to her mother … and her father. A musty smell enveloped her as she patted the nearest beam, feeling around for the chain on the single naked bulb. She found it and clicked it on. Harsh, yellow light blazed into the tiny cavern of antiques and keepsakes. Cardboard boxes, plastic tubs, garbage bags, and a few random buckets were lined up along the side wall nearest the back of the house. Closer to the front, there were three low shelves containing the few trinkets and decorations for major holidays. Rabbits, and scarecrows, and turkeys sat alongside wreaths, and Santas, and long, tangled strings of lights.
She lifted the lids on a few of the boxes and found old high school yearbooks, written essays, and varsity letters from her single, unspectacular season on the track team. A couple of larger boxes held her mother’s clothes and a few of her purses and shoes. She could almost smell her mother in them. She closed them again and opened a small wooden chest. It had been Amber’s long ago, sitting at the foot of her bed as a repository for stuffed animals and blankets, but it seemed her father had repurposed it. Now it was a collection, a collection of remembrances.
Her father had carefully tucked some old letters they’d written to each other when he was away at seminary. She glanced at a few, but almost felt as if she was intruding on the young lovers’ secrets. She found some photographs of their intimate wedding ceremony at the old Windrush Farm. And beneath them, she found a copy of their marriage certificate. Tears filled her eyes as she put it aside. A leather photo album rested in the bottom of the chest. It was neither dusty, nor old. Her father must’ve bought it recently. She opened it and found that he’d carefully organized old pictures of them just before they got married, and then more from their lives before children. When she turned a few more pages, she found herself pictured there as a little girl at Disney World. They all looked
