on the foamy top, then sipped.
“Mom. There’s something I need to talk to you about.” He put his mug down. “It’s about Dad.” When my face fell, he quickly said, “Go ahead, make your cookies, it’s not important.” He added earnestly, “I really mean it, Mom. I don’t want to disturb you. Cook, if it’ll help you go back to sleep. I just have a couple of questions… .”
He had questions, I had questions, everybody had all kinds of questions. My headache returned with a vengeance. I beat the egg and milk into the batter, then added the melted chocolate and vanilla. Once the oven was preheated and the cookie sheets buttered, I measured out what I thought would be a judicious balance of dry ingredients and began to mix them into the batter. These cookies promised to be terrific. But apprehension had drained the joy from cooking experimentation.
Arch said, “So. When was the last time there was an execution in Colorado?”
“Arch!”
“No, really, just tell me. And… was it by lethal injection?”
I sighed and scooped the batter onto the cookie sheets. “No, the last execution used the electric chair. And it was over thirty years ago, I think. Law enforcement in Colorado has switched over to lethal injection. But they’ve never used it.”
“The death penalty” ? his voice cracked ? “is for first-degree murder, right?”
I slid the cookie sheets into the oven and turned. “Arch ? “
“Just tell me.”
“Yes, for first-degree murder. But ? “
“Are you going to help Dad?” he demanded. His question stung. I set the timer and tried to think of what to say. Finally I asked, “What would you like me to do?”
“Oh, you know,” he replied earnestly, “that stuff you do sometimes, go around asking questions, like that. Try to help with the investigation the way you do with Tom.”
“Tom’s off this case, and I’m a witness. Which is supposed to mean that I don’t go around talking to people connected with the case.”
“You did when you found that guy’s body out at Elk Park Prep and when that lady was killed in the parking garage.”
“Those were different. I didn’t see any suspects, and I certainly didn’t witness an arrest for homicide. And besides, those things happened when I was pretty ignorant about law enforcement.”
His thin body sagged. “So that means no.” His tone turned morose. “If Dad does get out of jail on Monday the way he thinks he will, I think I should go live with him. Until the trial. I mean, it might be the last time I would see him.”
I couldn’t believe we were having this conversation, in the middle of the night, in the warm security of our home, here in our warm kitchen. In the extremely unlikely event that John Richard got out of jail anytime before his preliminary hearing, I couldn’t imagine that he would want Arch to live with him. Whatever punishment I had envisioned for the Jerk during all these years, it hadn’t looked like this. It hadn’t looked like losing my son.
“Arch,” I said quietly, “are you threatening me with moving out? ‘Cause that’s what it sounds like.”
“Mom! Of course not! I’m just trying to do what’s right here. He is my father.”
I struggled for clear thoughts and the right words. “Okay, look. If I can talk to some people … and those conversations would help lead to justice … Justice, I’m talking, Arch, not ‘getting somebody off.’ There’s a difference.”
“Yeah, yeah, truth, justice, and the American way. Courtesy of SuperMom.”
?Arch!”
“Okay, okay.”
“If I could talk to some people but not jeopardize my position as a witness, would you stay here at home? Your dad’s really not… set up to take care of you. And I would worry about you.”
He nodded, whispered “Okay,” and drank his cocoa in silence. Then he sniffed, mumbled, “Be right back,” and left the room. Jake, ever faithful, scrambled after him. I took the cookies out of the oven and set them on racks to cool.
When Arch returned, he clutched a wadded-up tissue. I couldn’t tell if he’d been crying. “I was just thinking, Mom.” He’d changed his tone, a clear indication that he wanted to discuss a new topic. “You said you were having a cup of hot chocolate to drink right now, because you couldn’t sleep? But when you can’t sleep, you should go out for a drive. Don’t you remember? That’s what you used to do when I was little. When I couldn’t sleep, you took me out for a drive, and you said it made you sleepy, too.”
“Oh, hon ? “
“You probably don’t remember, but you used to say that driving me around was like having hot chocolate when you were little. The rhythm of the car put me to sleep the way the hot chocolate did you. Even if it was the middle of the night, if I was fussy, you would take me. I don’t remember the drives, I just remember you telling me we used to go.”
I nodded and checked the cookies; they were almost cool. i remembered the drives, all right. And I hadn’t taken them just because Arch was fussy. Time and again, I’d gripped that steering wheel the way fear had clutched me. Rocking over bumpy mountain roads, I’d been desperately trying to figure out a way to escape from my life, from John Richard Korman’s abuse, and a marriage I just couldn’t hold together anymore. I had been lost in the worst way, and it had taken years to get my life on the right road.
Now I packed up the cookies, stacked all the dirty dishes in the sink, and threw away the ingredient debris.
“A drive sounds like a great idea,” I told my son. “But what do you say we get some sleep first?”
Arch agreed. For once, he wasn’t in the mood to taste my new cookies, and neither was I.
14
I begged the Almighty to help me rest up before church began the next morning. Finally I fell into a restless slumber at dawn. Tom woke me, bearing a cup of steaming espresso.
“If you want to make it to the late service,” he advised gently, “we need to get a move on.” As I struggled upright and promptly winced, Tom added with concern, “Sure you don’t want to just stay in bed this morning?”
I assured him I was just stiff. Plus I’d been up during the night cooking. He shook his head and began to massage my aching shoulders. My lower back was still in spasm, and my right ankle throbbed. After drinking the espresso, I checked the ankle. It was ominously blue-black. I limped into the bathroom to take a hot shower, dabbed bits of makeup over the scratches on my face, and finally felt ready to get spiritual succor. While Arch rummaged through the clean laundry for a pair of pants, I tiptoed into Macguire’s room. His forehead felt hot, but he moaned a refusal when I suggested his seeing a doctor. I begged him to take a couple more ibuprofen, which he did. By the time I closed his door, he was asleep. Damn Gail Rodine for making Macguire fall into the lake over her damn silly dolls.
When Tom, Arch, and I arrived at the massive oak entryway to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, the two men in my life held the doors ajar chivalrously. I hobbled through. When the sea of faces turned to appraise my entrance, I immediately realized we’d have done better asking for communion to be brought to the house. For the infirm, having the sacrament delivered was a common enough practice. But it wasn’t a very common practice for a caterer who’d been trampled by an inebriated hockey player the same day her ex-husband was arrested for murder. So I hadn’t thought of it.
Still, I should have known what kind of spectacle, and fuel for gossip, my bruised self would present. The ripple of whispers rose to a wave. Marla, wearing a lilac-print designer sundress, bolero jacket, matching purple earrings and high heels, immediately bustled over.
“I don’t think they’re staring because they want to book a buffet brunch,” she confided.
“Gosh, Marla. Thanks for the news flash.” The choir shuffled into the vestibule. I took advantage of their arrival to whisper to Marla, “I told Arch I’d ask around about John Richard.”
Her taupe-and-lilac-shadowed eyes widened at my confession. “Bad move, Goldy Schulz.”
Tom guided us to a pew at the back and the four of us squeezed in. Marla hugged Arch and palmed him two Cad bury bars, which he stuffed into his pants pocket. MarIa’s cardiologist ever X-rayed her Louis Vuitton handbag and discovered the bulges were chocolate bars and cream-filled cupcakes, he’d probably have cardiac arrest himself. She leaned close to me.
