“I
am
living mine, but damn it, Rush, I won’t turn my back on him. Not even for you.”
A quiet creaking sound told Denny she and Rush weren’t alone.
“Hey Rush.” Pure poked her head into the room. Pure had been able to see Rush since she was ten.
“Looks like everyone is up,” Rush said.
“Come on in.” Denny sat up. “Rush was just trying to talk me out of going to see Quick tomorrow.”
“Were you successful?” Pure sat next to Rush on the end of the bed.
Rush laughed. “As successful as Ricky is at keeping Lucy from showbiz.”
Denny shot a look at Pure. “I told you to turn the TV off when you go out.”
“I do.”
Denny stared at her, waiting for Pure to cave like she always did.
“She’s stuck in this house all day long. It gives her something to do.”
“Oh my god, you let Rush get to you. And you––” Denny turned to Rush. “You
know
how gullible she is.” Denny shook her head. “Talking to the two of you is like trying to herd cats.”
“She gets bored.”
Rush floated up and hovered a moment. “What are you guys? Five? Blaming the ghost? Puh-leese. You meatheads, you.”
Both Pure and Denny groaned at yet another seventies TV show reference.
“Fine. I can take a hint. Screw you guys, I’m going home.” With that Rush disappeared.
“Where was that last line from?”
“South Park, I think.”
“Jesus, Pure.”
“Never mind that. Sister is gonna thwack you with a ruler if she knows you’re going to see him.”
Sister.
Pure had been calling Sterling that since before she took her vows, because she couldn’t pronounce Sterling.
“Yeah, well, what she doesn’t know can’t hurt her.”
Pure jumped on the bed. “Only prob with that theory, Einstein, is that Sister has spies everywhere. She knows everything.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? I think we oughta check for webcams or something, ’cause she knows shit that happens before it even happens.”
“Well, FYI little sister, Sterling doesn’t run my life, and I’m going. Is there anything you want me to tell him?”
Pure sighed and stared out the window. The moon cast an eerie hue over the grass. “I miss him, Denny. I miss him so much.”
“I know you do. So do I. I think it’s time we deal with the truth of his incarceration. I refuse to pretend he doesn’t exist.”
“Tell him I love him, will you?”
“I’ll let him know.”
Pure hopped onto the floor. “Thanks. And...I’ll try to remember to turn the television off.”
Denny shook her head. “Don’t bother. Who am I to keep a ghost from her favorite seventies television shows?”
Pure smiled. “Well, that ghost thinks the world of you. She really loves ya, you know?”
Denny watched in silence as Pure left the room. “Yeah...I know. And I love her...more than I should.”
***
D
enny skipped her classes at the college instead of missing a visit with her mother.
She hated the assisted living facility with a passion. As expensive as it was, there were still days when the stench of urine and Clorox combined to create an odor that burned her lungs and hurt her heart.
People who looked like shriveled mummies drooled and leaned over in wheelchairs as they waited for death to take them to a more peaceful and odor-free existence. Dementia patients walked around mumbling the same mantra to themselves day in and day out.
The staff waved, with forced smiles, as Denny walked in. She was certain she’d rather dig ditches than work there for a living. These people were the true saints among us.
Entering the great room where the television tended to blast, Denny inhaled deeply and pushed herself forward.
“Hi Mom.” Denny bent down to kiss her mother’s forehead. “How you doing today?”
The question was to Gwen but Denny’s eyes were asking her nurse, a petite Filipino woman named Princess, who had been her mother’s caregiver for the last two years.
“She eat good,” Princess said, pushing her thick glasses back up the bridge of her nose. She was a tiny woman with large brown eyes, crooked teeth, and a heart of gold. “She eat better today.”
That was about as good as it was going to get for Gwen.
The car accident that took her father also took her mother, but in a far crueler way. Gwen hadn’t spoken a word since the accident, nor walked a step, though doctors could find no reason why she couldn’t walk. She would be confined to whatever hell existed in her mind and to the metal wheelchair for the remainder of her wasted life.
It was a fate as frightening to Denny as anything she could conceive, and she and Quick had made a pact to never allow the other to live under those conditions.
Taking Gwen’s hands in hers, Denny marveled at how thin and frail they were. For a forty-six-year-old woman, she had the hands of a seventy-year-old. They were cold and bony, and had age spots the size of dimes. It was as if her mother had been caught up in some sort of time warp that quickly aged her.
“You look beautiful today, Mom. Did you get your hair cut?”
Princess smiled and nodded. “She no need color this time.”
Holding one of her mother’s thin hands between hers, Denny closed her eyes and said, “I’m going to see Quick, Mom, so I came by early to see you. I...I just wanted you to know. He sends his love, as always.”
Denny spent the next fifteen minutes telling Gwen about Sterling’s new project at the church and Pure’s new love interest, but she avoided sharing anything about her own life. She just couldn’t envision saying, “I’m dating a ghost,” though there had been several times over the years when she’d wanted to. It just didn’t seem fair to drop something like that on someone who could not respond.
If Gwen had ever seen Rush in the house, she’d never said anything to Denny. Every time Denny asked Rush if Gwen had ever seen her, Rush only shrugged.
“Mom, I can’t let him rot in jail and pretend he doesn’t exist. I know what Sterling wants. I just don’t think it’s what
you’d
want. So I am going. I hope I do so with your blessing.”
Denny didn’t wait for an answer that would never come.
***
A
little over two hours later, Denny sat across from her brother in the cold visitors’ room. Everything in the room was gray—walls, chairs, tables, even the pallor of the guards appeared gray and wan.
The young man who entered the room was pewter, and thinner than Denny had ever seen him.
When Denny looked at Quick, her heart picked up a beat. He was the mirror image of their father, with his brown curly hair, puppy dog eyes––perfect smile. Quick had once had so much potential.
Had.
“You’re thin,” Denny said. Quick’s once tan face now held the same gray pallor of the room and the guards. The family used to joke that he could get a tan at midnight. Not so much now.
“And you sound just like Mom. If you had to eat this shit, you’d lose weight, too.” Quick leaned forward, elbows on the table. “How
are
you, Goldy? Long time no see.”
Denny wanted to move his bangs off his forehead. “I’m good. My grades are good.” Denny shrugged. “I can’t complain.”
Quick leaned forward. “Got a girlfriend?”
Denny shrugged. “Sort of. It’s...complicated. Too complicated to go into right now.”
He grinned the same Pied Piper smile that got other kids into trouble. “It always was with you. How’s I.C?” I.C. stood for Immaculate Conception, Quick’s nickname for his diametrically opposed sister...or "icy", for her cold demeanor.
“Busy saving souls, I suppose, and no, she doesn’t know I came. She would have handcuffed me to a cross or made me bathe in holy water.”
Quick nodded. “No shit. What about Pure? She keeping good grades?”
“She is, but she thinks she might want to go to college out of state. She’s in love with California.”
Quick shook his head. “Don’t let her. You need to keep the family together. It’s very important that you keep the family together.”
The irony of that statement hit Denny in the face.
Together
was a relative term when one of the family was behind bars. “I don’t really have that option, Q. Pure is as stubborn as they come and will do whatever she damn well pleases.”
He nodded, sighing loudly. “We are a stubborn lot, aren’t we?”
Denny leaned forward. “Why am I here, Q? What’s got you so fired up to see me when you basically told me to forget you ever lived?”
Quick stared down at his folded hands for a full minute before leaning forward and whispering, “I know this may come as a shock, Goldy, but...I’m innocent. You know in your heart I could never kill anyone.”
Denny frowned. “It’s a little late for that, Q. You walked to the gallows like a man who didn’t care.”
“Maybe because I
didn’t
care. Jesus Christ, Goldy, who could hate me so much they’d kill Lisa’s family and pin it on me?”
Denny raised an eyebrow. “Umm...any number of people could have wanted them dead. It’s not like her father was town mayor, and it’s not like you didn’t steal quite a few girls away from other guys. I can imagine any number of people you’ve pissed off over the years.”
“Enough to send me here?”
Denny shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I didn’t do it. For a while there, I thought maybe I did. You know, I thought that I’d partied too hard and lost control, but that didn’t happen. I know it didn’t go down that way.” He paused before waving the words away. “Anyway, that’s not even why I called you here.”
“So,
why
am I here?”
“First, just tell me you believe me.”
Denny inhaled deeply and nodded. “I’ve always thought you were innocent, Q, but that evidence...” she shook her head, “and your unwillingness to fight it...I don’t know. You looked so guilty. The evidence was...damning.”
Quick nodded slowly. “I understand.”
“Do you? We all got dragged through your muck for over a year and now you tell me you
didn’t
do it. Why
now
, Quick? Why not when you were sitting in the defendant’s chair?”
Quick stood up and blinked back tears. “When you have nothing but time to think, you see things more clearly, and now that I’m not wrapped up in courtroom proceedings, I know exactly why I’m in here and what it means to our family. I didn’t know before, but I do now, and it’s vital you know as well.”
“You mean aside from the pain of losing you and suffering through the embarrassment and humiliation?” Denny’s anger surprised even her. “Not to mention what that poor family went through? We all lost something, Q. Every single one of us.”
“Yeah, I get that, Goldy. Besides all that, there’s so much more to the picture you need to see.” Quick wiped his eyes and nodded to the beefy guard that he was done. “Listen to me carefully, Goldy. I think you guys might be in danger from whoever did this to Lisa’s family, and though I can’t prove it from in here, I’m pretty sure whoever ran Mom and Dad off the road is the same person. I’m worried for Pure. For you. I needed you to know.”
Denny opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out.
Quick nodded. “I know this is a lot to take in right now. Talk to Mom, Goldy. She’s in there. She knows the truth. You’d never believe me anyway, but talk to Mom. There’s always a way to get to her.”
“Talk...but that’s impossible.”
Shaking his head, he stopped when he was almost to the door. “That’s where you’re wrong, Goldy.
Nothing
is impossible. And pretty soon, you’re going to see just how true that is.”
With that, Quick walked back through the large metal door, leaving Denny in stunned silence.
***
S
isters of Mercy Convent looked like any other convent in the city. It had brown and gray stone walls, a church, and dormitories for the nuns. Denny’s sister taught ninth grade at St. Vincent’s Academy for Girls––
a very swanky Catholic school for Southern divas
according to Quick. He’d never been in favor of her taking the veil.
School let out as Denny pulled up in her Prius. It had been Lauren’s parents’ car, but they’d sold it to Denny for a thousand bucks. They didn’t need the money, and she needed a reliable car.
“Golden. What a pleasant surprise.” Sister Sterling had resorted to calling everyone by their given names when she turned eighteen, as if that somehow made her more mature. It was one of the more annoying habits of her habit-wearing.
Denny hugged Sterling briefly. Their physical intimacy had always been slightly awkward—even more so since that day Denny told Sterling she was gay.
It had been their biggest fight ever. Sterling was convinced that Denny was confused and it was
a phase
. After Denny told her she’d banged a girl under the bleachers after a basketball game, they never talked about her “phase” again.
“Do you have a sec?” Denny asked.
Sister Sterling looked at her watch. “I have a faculty meeting in fifteen minutes.”
“I only need ten.” Denny sat down in one of the antiquated desks that groaned and squeaked. “I saw Quick today.”
The color left Sterling’s cheeks. “Why on earth did you do that?”
“Because he’s my
brother
.
Our
brother. Jesus, Sterling, have a little compassion. He’s not some stray cur we sent to the pound.”
Sterling frowned. “Lower your voice, Golden, and please refrain from––”
“
Taking the Lord’s name in vain
. Roger that. Look, Quick asked me to come up. He’s never asked anything of me since he was arrested except to forget about him. I’m not going to do that, so I went because that’s what families
do
for each other. He said some things that really got me to thinking and I want to run some of it by you.”
Sterling rose and closed the classroom door. “Such as?”
“Well...he said he’s been set up by the guy responsible for running Mom and Dad off the road. They weren’t, right? I mean, they were in
an accident
, right?”
Sterling folded her hands in front of her, seeming to weigh her answer carefully. “Yes, Golden, they were. It was a tragic accident. That’s all. What else did he say?”