Notes on an Execution(46)
Now, as the van merged onto the highway, Lavender thought of Johnny. His ghost was a devil, whispering constantly on her shoulder, persistent even after all these years. Jesus, Lav. What a stupid idea.
The investigator included it at the very end of the report, an afterthought. Johnny was dead. He had never returned to the farmhouse, had dodged child protective services, started a new half-life in a redneck town just an hour’s drive south. Fifteen years ago, he had driven drunk down the interstate and collided with a semitruck, killing himself as the car exploded on impact.
When Lavender thought of Johnny now, she could only see the flames.
*
The city emerged, restless, before them. Harmony hummed along to the radio as skyscrapers rose from the fog—Lavender gripped Sunshine’s Buddha so tightly it indented a print in the center of her palm. She had been so many people in this short life. It seemed remarkable that the girl from the farmhouse had evolved into such a ripened self. Lavender had learned to meditate. She could do a headstand. She could bake enough apple pie to feed sixty people. She had cocooned herself so definitively in the warmth of other women, in the rhythms of Gentle Valley—the therapy sessions and dinnertime poetry and afternoons in the garden—she had almost forgotten the sharpness of the world outside. She’d stopped reading the newspaper last year: 9/11 was too raw, too tragic. As San Francisco uncurled itself in the distance, a glittering menace against the overcast sky, Lavender felt unmoored, like a weightless body hurtling through space. She tried to summon the girl she’d been at twenty-one, traveling alone for months, breasts heavy with milk—that now seemed like a disparate universe. Sometimes I feel like I’m shedding myself, she told Sunshine once, the only person who understood. Sometimes it’s like I’m stuck on the floor, searching for the cast of my own skin.
Sunshine had come to Gentle Valley pregnant, with hands covered in red blistering burns and a mouth that refused to speak. Not a single word. Lavender had been there nearly a year when she arrived, and she recognized something visceral in the way Sunshine jolted at every heavy footstep.
Sunshine’s baby was born a few months later. Lavender was wordlessly appointed godmother—Sunshine panted as the nurse held a cool washcloth to her forehead, unspeaking as always when it came time for a name. When Sunshine handed the baby over, Lavender felt a spasm of love, devastating and familiar, so extreme she nearly burst into a wail. Most of the women in Gentle Valley had taken on the names of flowers, trees, colors. But another person came to her, as she examined the infant’s red, flaky skin—the reason Lavender stood, alive, this tiny heart beating into her palm.
Minnie, she’d said, recalling the woman from the convenience store all those years ago. Sunshine had nodded her agreement. Let’s name her Minnie.
As godmother, Lavender made it her job to witness. Minnie grew, from a squealing toddler, to an eight-year-old with blackened knees, to a sullen teenager who refused to cut her hair. Finally, to a young woman, who packed a single bag one morning and walked out of the valley. When Minnie left, Lavender spent days tracing the forest paths with Sunshine, arms crossed against the chill, their boots crinkling dried leaves into the dirt.
So Sunshine understood how time could be a knife. Lodged already, just waiting to twist. As the van slowed onto a crowded city block, Lavender stroked the Buddha in her slick, nervous palm, imagining Sunshine in the back seat. Sunshine would shake her prickly head, a question without judgment, a genuine wondering: Why didn’t you ever go back for them?
*
“Are you ready?” Harmony asked.
They idled outside the coffee shop where she would be meeting Cheryl. The gallery was across the street—the opening did not begin for another hour, but the block seemed charged already, buzzing with anticipation.
“Not really,” Lavender said.
“It will be okay,” Harmony said, though her voice was shaky and uncertain. “I’ll be at Deena’s, a few blocks away. You’re strong, Lavender. So incredibly strong.”
Lavender had no patience for Harmony’s platitudes. She grabbed her backpack, checked her teeth in the rearview, and opened the door. Her hair felt greasy, even buzzed as it was, and a nervous sweat had soaked through her shirt, dried cold. The cardigan she’d brought was not heavy enough for the salty breeze that whistled between the low, bright buildings. Without another word, Lavender slid from the car, her body surging with a shot of adrenaline.
The city was a monster. She stepped into the mouth of it.
*
The coffee shop was young and trendy, with succulents lining every windowsill. When Lavender ordered a green tea, the barista took in her appearance: bald head, beaded earrings, dirt-caked clogs. She fumbled clumsily with the cash, overtipping as she took stock of the place—a few tables were occupied by fashionable young people reading books or chatting quietly. Lavender’s throat felt gravelly. Anxious, full of regret. There was only one other woman her age, perched at a table in the corner.
Cheryl Harrison.
When she stood to wave, Lavender saw that Cheryl was tall. Nearly six feet. She had a shock of chestnut hair, bundled elegantly beneath a knotted scarf, and wore delicate hoop earrings with a dress that billowed at the elbows. The dress was made of a flowing satin, silky and deliberate. Liquid brown eyes roved up and down as Lavender slid into the empty seat. Cheryl had ordered a black coffee, and a perfect kiss of lipstick circled the rim of the mug.