As Mason came into the room, Caleb felt the sense of relief he always had at first sight of his brother. Dread that he had been hurt or was ill or worse was dispelled, and he could see relief on Mason’s face as well. They gave each other the quick embrace allowed as a greeting.
“You’re looking tired,” Mason said, studying him.
“Just finished a presentation for a class last week.” He studied Mason in return. His brother had changed dramatically over the past five years. He was leaner, more muscular. What had once seemed like toughness to Caleb had been hardened, brought to an edge.
For a time, early on, Mason had been depressed. He had come out of that, but the emptiness Caleb had noted in him then had been replaced by constant wariness. On any visit, Mason knew where every other person was in the room, and tracked any changes-when people left, new ones entered, others moved.
In contrast, he told Caleb that he should never make eye contact with, or even look toward, other prisoners during visits, an edict Caleb followed when he learned that Mason could receive a beating if someone else thought Caleb had dissed them with a look.
Caleb was allowed to get up from the table and use the vending machines, but Mason had to stay at the table at all times.
“How was your week?” Caleb asked.
A shrug. “Same as last week.” Later, Caleb would coax a little more out of him, although he knew Mason would never discuss much that happened here. He might say more in a letter. Injuries-cuts, bruises, or worse- were never explained.
They had passed through times of awkwardness, the hard adjustments Mason had to make, while Caleb tried to understand what no one on the outside could, even through a period when Mason had refused the visits. Caleb kept asking to see him anyway, but it was when he wrote a letter to say that with Dad gone, he needed a man to talk to about his problems, that Mason quickly relented. Mason now viewed him as an adult, but even prison could not keep Mason from being protective of his younger brother.
“Seen Mom?” Mason asked. He always asked, even though the answer had been the same for the last three years, from the moment she had become engaged to her second husband.
“No.”
“She was up here yesterday. With Uncle Nelson.” He paused. “She’s looking a little tired of him, you ask me.”
“That didn’t take long.”
“She asks about you.”
Caleb didn’t reply.
“You enjoy hurting her?”
“No. She made her choices.”
“This is some mistaken kind of loyalty to me, I suppose. Or is it to Dad?”
“I don’t think loyalty to either of you is a mistake,” Caleb answered in a low voice, looking down at his hands on the table, forcing himself not to curl his fingers into fists.
“Who’s she supposed to turn to if she needs help? Me?”
Caleb looked up. “Is she in trouble?”
Mason lifted a shoulder. “Hard to say. But I think she’s having regrets.”
Caleb brooded on this for a moment, then decided he didn’t want to pursue it. “Anything more from the attorney?”
Mason smiled a little. “God bless Grandmother Delacroix,” he said, glancing heavenward.
Caleb agreed with him. One of the things Grandmother had done for Mason before she died last year was to hire a new attorney, one who had been actively involved in seeking an appeal. Caleb now administered the trust that paid the attorney’s fees, and made sure Mason’s inmate trust account allowed him to purchase small items from the prison canteen and art tools and supplies. His grandmother had also ensured that Mason would have the funds he needed to get a fresh start in life, if they were able to win his release. When, not if, Caleb told himself.
“The lawyer’s cautiously optimistic,” Mason said. “He’s coming up here next week. I’ll let you know what he says.” He nodded toward the photos. “What did you bring?”
“You wanted to see the new apartment?”
The next hours passed with Caleb telling tales of moving, describing the new place and his adventures in graduate school. Mason talked about a painting he was working on and some of his fellow inmates-people Caleb had come to know through Mason’s stories about them. They played a game of gin. Mason won.
“You’re being careful?” Mason asked, but not about his card play. He always asked this question at some point in a visit, especially if Caleb was pursuing some lead that might help them figure out who set Mason up. None of the leads ever panned out.
“Yes, but I’m not in any danger. I can’t understand that, either.”
“What do you mean?”
“They killed Dad. They took Jenny. They sent you to prison. Why did I escape any punishment or harm?”
Mason raised a brow. “I don’t think you did.”
Caleb fell silent. “No, I guess I didn’t, but still…”
“You didn’t. I know you think you’re failing me, failing Jenny. But you aren’t, you’re fighting for us. And lately- you must feel as if you’re fighting alone. And there’s nothing I can do about that, much as I wish I could.”
“When we talk-when I see you-it helps.”
Mason seemed surprised.
“It does,” Caleb reassured him.
“Well-that’s good.” He dealt another game of gin. Caleb won.
At 2:15 P.M., it was time to clear out, to start the checkout process. All visitors were told it was time to leave. The brothers stood and exchanged another brief embrace-the earlier greeting and this quick hug good-bye were all the physical contact allowed between them.
“Thanks for coming all the way up here,” Mason said.
“See you next week.”
“You don’t have to-”
“I know. But I’ll see you next week.”
That exchange was always the same, every week, as were their next words.
“Keep looking for her, Caleb.”
“I will.”
It was their good-bye, and one of the few mentions either made of Jenny, having long ago found it too hard to say much more.
CALEB began the drive home, wondering how she might have changed in five years. Hoping she had lived to change.
CHAPTER 10
Monday, April 24
2:05 P.M.
NEWSROOM OF THE
LAS PIERNAS NEWS EXPRESS
THE phone had been ringing all day. I’d inadvertently created a hotline for despair.
On that rainy Monday morning, I got more calls than Circulation-and they had to talk to everyone whose copy of the Las Piernas News Express had landed in a puddle.
As the day wore on, the rain let up, but the calls didn’t. One of the busiest news days we’d had in weeks, and I was answering the phone.
