Absolute Brightness (33 page)

Once again, Travis didn't respond. He just sat there staring off into space. Deirdre waited for him to at least look over at her. He didn't.

“Travis? I said, you want to know what made me change my mind?”

More waiting as we all sat there watching Travis, knowing that he knew we were watching him. It was so painful, I thought the clock on the wall was going to explode into a million pieces. You could hear the pencils against papers as the courtroom sketchers made a mess of Deirdre's beautiful face. The court stenographer stopped working her tiny machine. We all waited. But Deirdre wasn't about to say another word until Travis made a move; and it was clear that he'd made up his mind to not make a move.

Judge Gamble opened her mouth to say something, perhaps to demand a response from him; but before a bubble of sound could form in her throat, Travis turned toward Deirdre and was saying in his most defiant voice ever, “What?”

Hearing Travis speak was a shock. And I think not just for me, but also for everyone. For the first time since this whole thing began, he was a participant in his own trial. That one word was enough to satisfy Deirdre and allow her to go on.

“My sister. Phoebe. It turns out she was kind of in love with you.”

Here she turned and looked over at me. Just her expression was enough of an apology for dragging me into it all over again. I could tell she was genuinely sorry to say my name aloud in court. But there it was. Meanwhile, I wished I could be anywhere else in the world but where I was. My mouth was as dry and dusty as a bag of Cheetos puffs, my shoulders had hunched and tightened, and even my hair was feeling the pressure of being stared at by strangers. To make matters worse, big gobs of shafty sunlight were streaming in the window like God had nothing better to do than make special effects.

“Sorry, Pheebs. But…”

Despite the fact that my face had probably turned a shade of beet and my body temperature was about ten thousand degrees above normal, I was cool with everything she'd said so far, and I'd live with anything she was about to say. For the first time in years, I actually felt like Deirdre and I were sisters again. But more than just blood bonded us together; it was the fact that now both she and I had been through something—again—that had left us irrevocably changed. I nodded so she could see in my eyes that she was my hero, she'd always been, would always be. She nodded back and then turned her attention to Travis.

“And I figured if someone as good and kind and smart as my kid sister could find something to love in a loser like you, then maybe there's something in you worth saving. Okay, so maybe most people can't see it, or don't
want
to see it, but that doesn't mean it isn't there. Some spark, some, I dunno, some goodness or whatever that's buried deep. At first, I couldn't figure out why Phoebe could see it when no one else could. I mean, she fought tooth and nail for your life. You should know that. But then after this morning here in court, I dunno, everything suddenly added up, because I saw it was love. What else could explain it? And maybe that's why she's able to see the good in other people, too, why she was the first to make friends with Leonard when he came to live with us. Sure, she may've wanted to kill Leonard. We all did every once in a while. He could get on your nerves. But make no mistake—Phoebe loved Leonard. She loved him, and because of that, she was able to see what everyone else couldn't. Same with you, Travis. You might not've deserved her love, but you got it anyway. That's just the way it works.”

She came to a full stop here and appeared to be chewing the inside of her cheek. This was one of the oldest tricks in her book. I knew it from our childhood. Chewing her cheek was what she'd always done to keep herself from crying. I figured she was probably thinking about Dad. No matter what had happened between them, he was her father, always had been, always would be. And even though he didn't deserve her love, she loved him anyway. That's just the way it worked.

Finally she cleared her throat and started up again. But as she did, it was obvious that she wasn't just talking to Travis anymore; she'd turned her attention toward the whole room.

“Over the past few weeks, our house's seen some pretty lively debate about all this. But it was basically the same fight over and over. There was a lot of talk about justice and an eye for an eye and all that shit—sorry, Your Honor—and there was plenty of hate in the room. My sister, she kept arguing for more love, really. More mercy. And finally, I think for me it all came down to which side of the argument I was on—the hate side or the love side. I didn't mean to make a big soapbox speech here today, I just wanted to say that in the argument, y'know, between hate and love, it's really up to each one of us. In our hearts or wherever. Each of us has to take a stand every single day and say which side we're on. And I dunno for sure, but maybe the whole purpose of evil in this world is to get people who aren't really good and who aren't really bad to stand up and, y'know, be better. Maybe without evil, the just people of the world who happen to be just going along, living their lives, and minding their own business—like the Hertle family, for example—maybe without evil, they'd never find the courage to come forward and do the right thing.”

She paused here and looked down at her running shoes, but I knew her so well. Her attention was so clearly on the room. She seemed to be aware of the effect she was having on the crowd, on the jury, on me and, yes, even on Travis. Who could blame her if she wanted to savor it for a moment before moving on to the next thing? But she'd said enough, and like any great performer who knows how to accurately take the pulse of the audience, she knew it was time to wrap it up.

“I guess that's all.” Then a thought occurred to her. “Oh. Except, one more thing. I'm really sorry Leonard isn't here with us. He would've loved all the theatrics. He would've had plenty to say about it all. He was like that. Mouthy. But since he couldn't be here, I figured it was up to me to speak up.”

She then turned to face the ladies and gentlemen of the jury.

“Look. All I'm saying is this: When you're back there deciding whether Travis Lembeck should live or die, all you have to do is think about it in your hearts—and choose between hate and love.”

*   *   *

When we finally left the courthouse that day and walked out into the late-afternoon sunlight, I noticed that everyone was leaning in, trying to get a good look at us. The usual gaggle of reporters and photographers was there, all of them tripping over themselves and tipping their mikes and cameras toward me or Deirdre or Mom while at the same time nagging us for a comment or attention. But there were also ordinary folks who had attended the trial and were now waiting for a glimpse of us. A woman with everyday hair was wearing a raincoat over her sweats and running shoes and yelling, “
There she is! The girlfriend.
” A guy in a leather bomber jacket, cheap jeans, and a gold chain around his neck was calling out Deirdre's name like she was supposed to know him. A tangle of high school girls who looked like me two years ago, which is to say innocent and with coordinated outfits, kept jumping up to see me over the heads of other people. “
I saw her!
” one of the girls said to the others. “
I saw her!
” But I couldn't tell whether they were referring to me, Deirdre, or Carol Silva-Hernandez, the newswoman from NEWS 5.

Of course, several of Mom's customers were there as well; they stood in a row with their arms interlocked and their faces set. I'd never seen them look so determined, so serious. It took me a minute to realize that they had positioned themselves between the heaving crowd and us. They were standing nearby, moving along with us, and quietly protecting us from the crush of thrill seekers and rubberneckers until we were down the stairs and in the clear.

“You'll be okay from here,” Mrs. Liggeria said to my mother. “You get into any trouble, you got my cell, right?”

Mom nodded and thanked them all, said she'd see them all back at the salon. I tried to thank them as well, but Deirdre took hold of my arm and pulled me along. I looked back, and I could see the women standing there—Mrs. Liggeria, Mrs. Kavanaugh, Mrs. Mixner, Mrs. Trabucco, Mrs. Landis, Mrs. Grig—all of them staring after us as we moved along. When I lifted my arm to wave them good-bye, I felt like a stranger, not only to them, but also to myself.

 

twenty-three

ON A BRIGHT
afternoon in the spring of my senior year, I came home from school to find an actual letter waiting for me in our mailbox. We rarely ever got snail mail, so a letter with a handwritten name and address was something I would notice. We got birthday cards, of course; the occasional postcards from one of Mom's regulars announcing the weather conditions in Tampa or the fact that her eczema had unexpectedly cleared up; and sometimes a customer who remembered me for giving her a good set and perm sent me a Christmas greeting with a five-dollar bill enclosed. But mostly my family's daily post (as Jane Austen might have said) was made up of bills and advertisements. As soon as Electra hooked me up to my computer and connected me to the Internet, I was busy night and day receiving e-mails, checking my Facebook account, and messaging people I'd met online. The only reason I bothered to flip through the mail each day was because I hadn't yet heard that I was accepted at any of the three colleges to which I had applied.

The letter was addressed to me in shaky handwriting that I didn't immediately recognize. But even before I opened it, I knew it was from Travis. Who else would be writing me from a state prison? I stood there in the hallway, weighing the envelope, examining the postage, and wondering where I should go to open it.

There was a time not that long ago when I would've clutched the letter to my heart, taken the stairs two at a time, thrown myself down on Deirdre's bedspread, and forced her to open and read it because I was too excited. Together we would have examined the boy's penmanship, speculated what his dotted
i
's revealed, discussed what was written between the lines, and devised a suitable response. Travis would've become one of our projects, like butterfly collecting or candle making, projects that we took up with relish only to realize a month later that we had abandoned it for the next thing.

Deirdre and I used to tell each other everything. We were, after all, sisters; we had lived together under the same roof with the same set of parents, shared the same hairbrush, and showered with the same bar of soap. But so much had happened to us over the past few years, and so much of what had happened had happened to us separately, that we had quietly mislaid our common language. Following the trial and her amazing eleventh-hour performance, she and I had begun to once again live in the same universe; but it was a universe that was still new to both of us, and we were taking it slowly. Also, Deirdre graduated Roberson's Beauty School and then started a new job answering the phones and booking appointments at a salon over in Asbury Park called P.S. Love Your Hair. She was working full-time, and the job had become her life. She was never home. After all that had happened, she was eager to get on with things and appear as normal as possible. And who could blame her for wanting that?

Sharing the contents of the letter with my mother would have been just as complicated, but for different reasons. She was at least on the premises, but she did not approve of any discussion involving Travis Lembeck. After the trial was over, Travis's had become just one of the names we didn't mention in her house, along with Dad's. Once, when Father Jimbo suggested that we all pay a visit to Travis in jail, Mom responded by sighing, grabbing hold of the countertop, and saying, “No way are we going anywhere near that boy. We've had enough in that department.” She then walked Father Jimbo to the front door, and that was the last I ever heard about the possibility. Just as well. As recent as a few months ago, I wasn't yet ready for face time with the person everyone in Neptune had characterized as pure evil, even if that face happened to be on the other side of bulletproof glass.

I thought about going downstairs to open Travis's letter in private, but six months earlier, a flood had ruined everything down there and we'd had to trash most of the stuff. Waterlogged books and clothes got crammed into big black bags and then dragged out to the curb on trash night. The last of Nana Hertle's belongings, the Sierra Club posters, and the locomotive garbage can, all became things of the past, literally overnight. The boxes were gone and every trace of Leonard was removed. We were moving on, and my mother sent everything into an unsuspecting world by way of various charities that specialized in junk with no questions asked. She wanted a new look downstairs, one that involved a freshly painted concrete floor and plenty of wide-open space. After it was all gone, we listened as she verbally decorated the place over and over. A game room would be nice, or maybe a family entertainment center, or how about an exercise area. We offered no suggestions. For me, whatever it ended up looking like, the place would always belong to Nana and Leonard. But without their actual stuff, the basement no longer seemed like a viable location to me; it became just one of the many spaces on this earth that I would pass through on my way to somewhere else.

Alone, I sat on the front stoop of our house and opened Travis's letter. Like the handwriting itself, the message was simple and straightforward.

Dear Phoebe,

How are you doing? I hope you're enjoying school and everybody in your family is doing good. I'm adjusting to life in prison here as best I can. I wake up way too early, the food is crap, and the noise drives me fucking nuts, but other than that prison life is not so bad as I thought it would be. Don't get me wrong. It totally sucks. But I can't complain. I mean, considering. I know I got no right to ask, but I'm wondering if maybe you'd think about coming to visit me sometime. No big deal, if you're not into it. I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to stay as far away from this place as they can get. Even the lighting in here is a buzz kill. But if you'd come, I could see you and that would be nice. Whatever happens, take care of yourself.