A Book of American Martyrs(146)

Had she been beaten? Robbed? Sexually assaulted?

Had she been drinking? Fell, and fractured her skull?

Despite the ringing in her head and her bruised mouth trying to explain: she was not a homeless person but a student at the university. She was not ill and not drunk but yes, she must have fallen on the icy steps the night before and struck her head.

Had she been with someone, who had harmed her? And left her lying in the street?

No! No one. She’d been alone.

Wearing no jacket or coat, in such cold weather? No gloves, nothing on her head?

Had she been fleeing someone? Trying to escape someone?

Had she ingested any drugs? Prescription medicine, controlled substance? Recreational drugs?

Her blood tested negative for alcohol or drugs, which was not a surprise to her. But the bloodwork showed a mild anemia.

The emergency brain scan detected no fracture or concussion. No evident abnormalities.

She smiled to think—There is no sign, then. Not a trace!

An IV line was dripping liquid into a vein at the crook of her left arm. She had no memory of a needle being stuck into her. She’d been seriously dehydrated, she was told.

In the ER she lay exhausted in a cubicle, covered in layers of thin white woolen blankets. Her outer clothes had been removed. On her feet were cotton slippers. Curtains had been drawn around the bed, to assure privacy.

How safe it was here. In the University Hospital ER, each patient in a cubicle shrouded by white curtains, anonymous, muted. And no shoes: white cotton slippers.

If Jenna knew. If Jenna saw.

You see what has happened to your daughter. There are consequences.

In fact the consequences were muted: by midday she was speaking coherently. The ringing in her ears had abated. She was able to establish her identity as a bright and (to a degree) socially sophisticated undergraduate enrolled in the College of Arts and Sciences at U-M. Carefully she spelled her last name—V-o-o-r-h-e-e-s. The young Asian woman intern who was taking down this information did not seem to think that Voorhees was anything out of the ordinary.

She insisted, she was ready to leave the ER. Whatever had happened to her would not happen again, she was sure.

“There has been a death in the family. I was upset but I am feeling much better now.”


I DIED, but I was revived.

So longing to stay in that place, where we’d been happy.





AFTERSHOCK


A day, a night. More than twenty-four hours since the execution.

In Ann Arbor no one whom she encountered seemed to know about it. No one to whom she spoke. No one who spoke to her. The name Luther Dunphy was not once uttered.

Wasn’t news of the execution in the newspaper? On TV, online?

Didn’t everyone know?

She could not sleep. She did not attend classes. She avoided her friends. She avoided strangers. She could not have explained. No one knew, she’d confided in no one. It was the aftershock of the execution.

She vowed that she would not call her brother again. But then, she called Darren’s number in Washington State.

Darren did not answer.

She had many times vowed that she would not call her mother. But then, she called her mother’s number in Bennington, Vermont.

Jenna did not answer.

She was feeling just slightly disappointed. There was joy and relief and gratitude to celebrate—Luther Dunphy was dead at last.

The curvy cut on her forehead resembled an exposed vein, that quivered with life. The cut on the left side of her mouth had turned purple.

When she was asked what had happened to her she said she’d had a small accident, slipping on icy steps.

She went away exulting in secret. The long wait was over!

“My life can now begin.”


“SOMETHING FANTASTIC HAPPENED in my life the other day.”

So she announced. But when the query came to her rapid as the return of a Ping-Pong serve Really? What?—she could not speak.

That reckless feeling. Giddy-happy.

Drunk, stoned. “High.”

But, well—just slightly down.

Had not the new life begun? She was sure the new life had begun.

But where?

Fuck she could not sleep. Missing fucking classes. No wonder Jenna was fed up with her as Gus would be fed up with her (if Gus could but know) beginning a semester with such hope, such energy, such promise, such enthusiasm, high grades—then the inevitable downslide, wreck. It did not give her much solace to note that among her peers at the university this pattern emerged in numerous others—the bright, fresh start of the term, the slow car wreck that followed. Except a daughter of Gus Voorhees understood that she was special, she was specially fated, doomed. She found herself online typing the name Luther Dunphy and the word execution.

ANTI-ABORTION SHOOTER DUNPHY EXECUTED IN CHILLICOTHE, OHIO

LETHAL INJECTION FOLLOWS YEARS OF POSTPONEMENTS

RIGHT-TO-LIFE MOVEMENT ISSUES STATEMENT “LUTHER DUNPHY DID NOT DIE IN VAIN”

It had happened, then! The death of Luther Dunphy.

Quickly skimming the screen. Forgetting what she read in the very instant of reading it.

Unavoidably linked with Luther Dunphy—Augustus Voorhees. A headline of November 1999 she’d was sure she’d never seen before.

OHIO ABORTION DOCTOR VOORHEES, EX-MARINE KILLED IN SHOTGUN ASSAULT

SELF-PROFESSED “SOLDIER OF GOD” DUNPHY SURRENDERS TO POLICE