A Book of American Martyrs(80)

Luther is not guilty. Luther killed those two men but—we know—he is not guilty.

They had to be praying with some desperation, to save their son from a first-degree conviction, that might bring with it a death sentence.

While court was in session Luther Dunphy did not glance around at his family and relatives though he must have been aware of them behind him. Like a man in a trance he appeared to be listening to the procession of witnesses—repeatedly hearing his name uttered—but he did not react. Jenna didn’t want to think He is with God. He imagines that.

Jenna wondered if Dunphy did indeed think of himself as a soldier. One who takes orders, does another’s bidding. He kills, but he is not a murderer.

He didn’t really look like a murderer—he didn’t look like the enemy. His wife Edna Mae, his children, most of the Dunphy relatives she’d seen did not look like the enemy. Except for two or three of the glaring men they did not look vicious, or malevolent, or evil, or psychopathic; even the girl with the smirking mouth whose eyes fixed boldly and defiantly on Jenna’s face did not seem so very different from girls her age Jenna might see in Ann Arbor, high school girls, middle school girls, girls at the Ypsilanti mall, girls trailing after their families at Walmart, Target, Home Depot, girls embarrassed of their ill-kempt mothers.

A girl very different from her daughter Naomi. A girl who might (Jenna supposed) have intimidated Naomi, if they were at the same school.

Gus would recognize the Dunphys: lower-income working-class or welfare citizens of the sort who might well be his community health clients. Very easy to imagine Edna Mae Dunphy pleading with Jenna Matheson in the Ann Arbor Legal Aid office in which she’d once worked, in desperate need of legal advice.

Please help us! My husband—my children’s father—made a terrible mistake and got involved with the Army of God—they sent him out to kill, and he killed . . .

But Jenna did not want to think of the Dunphys like this. She shifted in her seat, and looked away from Edna Mae Dunphy’s wan impassive face. The Dunphys were the enemy, she could not bear to contemplate them otherwise.


LIKE DIRTY WATER it swept over her. A wave of visceral horror that left her dazed, exhausted and gagging.

As soon as she was alone. Where no one could observe the widow.

As soon as she could flee the Broome County Courthouse. Flee even the well-intentioned, the sympathetic who wanted only to grasp her hands and hold her trapped in the effusion of their attention—Please accept our condolences, Mrs. Voorhees! We were all so shocked, such a terrible thing, never before in Muskegee Falls which is a friendly place, the world will have such an erroneous impression of our community . . . Alone in the privacy of her hotel room in which she was staying for the duration of the trial.

In Muskegee Falls she’d insisted upon staying in a hotel, not in someone’s home. Many people had graciously invited her to stay with them but Jenna had declined all invitations. She had not the energy to talk with people, even to listen to people talk to her. She had not the capacity to be commiserated-with, continuously; and she could not bear being told for the ten-thousandth time that her husband had been a wonderful man, a generous man, a courageous man, a selfless man, a beloved friend, colleague who was terribly missed.

I know. I know. I miss him too. What more can I say to you.

Above all she did not want people to misinterpret her bouts of panic, despair, nausea. Her life had collapsed when Gus had died as abruptly as if she’d been stricken by a virulent illness. She could summon strength when required, but she could not sustain strength for very long. Like a blown-up balloon that gradually leaks air, and has to be replenished. And when she was totally deflated, defeated, lying near-comatose on a hotel bed, teeth chattering with cold, she did not want another person to observe her, and be concerned for her; she did not want a well-intentioned friend to insist upon taking her to a doctor, still less calling an ambulance. That was all she needed, to be forcibly hospitalized in Muskegee Falls, Ohio! Like all the doctors they knew Gus had horror stories of the quality of medical care in “outpost” hospitals. It was another fact of widowhood (which perhaps only a widow could know) that such attacks always subsided within an hour or so. If she didn’t develop tachycardia, or a migraine headache, or acute nausea, in which case she would do well to stay away from other people overnight.

You’re just upset, darling. You’ll be fine. Breathe deeply.

The only remedy was waiting, solitude. Feeling Gus’s presence, consoling her.

Almost, if she drifted into sleep, she could grasp his hand. Or, rather—Gus would grasp her hand.

You’ve gotten through this in the past. You will again now. Try to sleep for a while.

She’d had to hide such weakness from the children of course. If she could not be strong for the children she did not want them to see her at all.

In the past several months the grief-attacks had been coming with lessening frequency but now, in Muskegee Falls, where the total focus of her attention, her concentration, was on the trial, and she was forced to hear the most devastating accounts of her husband’s death, and to listen to the reports of law enforcement officers, emergency medical technicians, the county medical examiner, she was as vulnerable as she’d been a year ago.

The realization that Gus was dead, and had vanished from the earth while his murderer remained alive, untouched, in his stubborn, insular trance, that no one could enter—this swept over her at least once a day, when she returned to the hotel, and left her shattered.