A Book of American Martyrs(125)

“Our children are doing well. Luke is working for the county, and Dawn is working at Home Depot. Anita and Noah are still in school—their grades are good . . .”

“Isn’t Dawn in school?”

Here was a blunder. Edna Mae hadn’t told Luther about Dawn being asked to leave school and she did not feel that she could lie to him now. For a long moment she could not speak at all, feeling her husband stare at her through the scuffed Plexiglas barrier.

She was perspiring now, recalling. Before Luther could repeat his question a bell sounded, loudly signaling that only five minutes remained of the visitation hour.

During a visit Edna Mae rarely spoke to Luther about his “case”—about which she knew relatively little for it seemed always to be changing, very slowly and then with startling abruptness. There was an appeal that was still pending. And there was the possibility of clemency, and of commutation . . .

Elsewhere in the country states were outlawing capital punishment. Illinois had recently outlawed the death penalty. It was possible that Ohio would be among these states sometime soon and Luther Dunphy’s sentence would be automatically converted to life in prison like James Kopp’s.

It was hurtful to Edna Mae, as to others in the family, that so many of their fellow Christians in Ohio opposed any “weakening” of the criminal code. The very state senators who evinced sympathy for the right-to-life cause were rigorously opposed to changing the death penalty statute though such a change would have saved Luther Dunphy’s life.

Edna Mae never spoke of such issues with Luther. It was her wifely duty to be upbeat, “optimistic.”

Their visits invariably ended with prayer. What relief Edna Mae felt, when it was time for prayer!

Our Father who art in Heaven. Hallowed be Thy name.

They kingdom come, thy will be done . . .

Edna Mae had peeked through her fingers to see Luther stiffly upright, shoulders back, hiding his face in his big hands. She had grown accustomed to seeing her husband in the shapeless prison uniform—a “jumpsuit” in Chillicothe prison colors, navy blue and white. On Death Row he’d concentrated on two things, he’d said: reading the Bible and making of himself a physically strong person. Luther had always been muscular but somewhat heavy, and now in middle age in prison he’d become lean, hard, like something chiseled from stone. His eyebrows had grown craggy, there were grayish hairs in his nostrils and in his ears. He was taking on some of the facial features of his elderly father, who did not approve (Edna Mae knew) of Luther’s wife—a stern impassive look, with a tendency to frown rather than smile. His skin had bleached out, and was very pale. He was allowed only one hour outside a day—but some days, for some reason, not at all. His eyes had become ashen eyes, that looked burnt-out as if from staring too long into the sun.


WINDEX! Edna Mae had always loved the strong astringent smell of the cleaning liquid.

She was wielding a half-filled bottle of Windex she’d found beneath the kitchen sink. Paper towels and rags. A fit of housecleaning was upon her in the wake of the fly crisis which seemed now to have abated. She had not sprayed Windex so lavishly, wiped and polished so energetically, scrubbed, swept, dusted with such zeal since she’d been a frantic young mother in their house in Muskegee Falls. Soon she’d used up the paper towels. She then used toilet paper to wipe up dirt on the floor. She took the filthy mop out of the closet, ran hot water into a red plastic bucket, poured in soap, and began to mop the kitchen floor. Softly she sang:

This little light of mine

I’m going to let it shine!

This little light of mine

I’m going to let it shine!

Let it shine, shine, shine.

Let it shine.

She cleaned the kitchen windows, the windowsills. She wiped the walls where the flies had died. Little piles of fly corpses collected in the dustpan. With steel wool she cleaned the sink that was dull with grease, that had not been seriously cleaned in years. She cleaned the kitchen counters. She cleaned the kitchen table. She cleaned the vinyl chairs that were sticky with the droppings of months and years. A strong bracing smell of disinfectant filled the kitchen. With some effort she pushed open windows. She was tired but she was feeling exhilarated. She had not felt like this in a very long time.

The rotted mouse corpse in the closet corner she swept into the dustpan and with eyes averted she carried it outside and dropped it into the trash barrel on the porch. Once a week Dawn or Noah hauled the barrel out to the curb for pickup.

Next, she would clean the downstairs hallway. She would take on the bathroom.

When her aunt Mary Kay returned in the late afternoon she was astonished by the smell of soap and disinfectant and the gleaming surfaces of her kitchen. “Edna Mae, what on earth has happened? What did you do?”

With a little smile of satisfaction Edna Mae said: “Only just what I should have done long ago. Clean house.”





HOLY INNOCENTS


Momma please don’t make me.

Momma this is crazy.

And I will lose my damn job! We need my job.


EDNA MAE WAS STUNG. Edna Mae did not appreciate her daughter speaking so insolently—such profane words as damn.

Edna Mae did not appreciate Dawn defying her even if—shortly—within an hour or two—Dawn gave in with an angry sob—OK, Momma. All right.


IT WAS UNFAIR! She’d been “promoted” at Home Depot—(this was the term used)—though her hourly salary had not (yet) been increased her weekly hours had been increased and this though she was still considered one of the new employees. She would have two consecutive days off each month and so resented it, that her September days must be used up in the prayer vigil in Cleveland.