“I understand,” I say. “It’s possible there won’t be answers in my case. For years. Why exactly did you ask me to the park? Just to update me?” It comes out rudely, which I didn’t intend. I’m just so tired.
“No. I wanted to say… to make sure that you know that you can always come to me. I don’t want you to ever feel alone.”
She’s really saying, Don’t dig without me. Not at this park. Not anywhere.
“Tessa, have you ever thought that maybe I need you, too? That I’m not as tough as you think I am?”
The first whisper of the cold front is stirring the trees.
“Lori, Doris, Michele,” she says softly. “The names of the dead Girl Scouts. My Susans.”
Tessie, 1995
“I’m thinking of not testifying.”
It sounded way more defiant when I practiced in front of the mirror this morning with the toothbrush in my hand and aqua bubbles drizzling out of the corner of my mouth.
I’m NOT testifying, Mr. Vega.
There. That’s better.
I open my mouth again to say it more emphatically but the district attorney is on his tiger prowl around the office, not the slightest bit interested in what I think. The doc is bent over his desk with a pile of folders, certainly listening to every word. He’s the master of staying still.
“Did you hear me? I don’t think I have anything of value to add. I don’t have anything to add.” I’m stammering.
Benita offers a sympathetic smile that pretty much says I’m doomed. Both she and Mr. Vega are here to review my testimony. This is the first time they want to rehearse the gory details. They’ve waited this long because Mr. Vega wants me to sound as spontaneous as possible. The trial is less than two weeks away, so that’s pretty spontaneous.
“Tessie, I know this is hard,” Mr. Vega says. “What we need to do is put the jury in that grave with you. Even if you don’t remember details about the killer, you add context. You make it real. For instance, what did it smell like when you were lying there?”
My gag reflex is so strong that even he, the calloused prosecutor, reacts. I’m sure he did this on purpose, calibrating how this melodrama would play to the jury. I still think he’s the good guy. I’ve just changed my mind. I don’t want to testify for him. Cannot, will not, sit across from my monster.
“OK, we’ll come back to that. Close your eyes. You’re in the grave. Turn your head to the left. What do you see?”
I reluctantly turn my head, and there she is. “Merry.”
“Is she dead?”
I open my eyes and cast them to the doctor for help, but he’s busily tapping away on his computer at his desk. Do I lie? Or tell the prosecutor that dead Merry talked to me? Surely, that would hurt the case.
If I testify. Which I won’t.
“I don’t know whether she’s dead.” The truth. “Her lips are bluish gray… but some girls wear blue lipstick. It’s Goth.” I don’t know why I said that. Nothing about clarinet-playing, churchgoing Merry was Goth, except when she was lying next to me in a grave like a prop for a horror movie.
“What else?”
“Her eyes are open.” Things were eating her, except when they weren’t.
“What do you smell?”
I swallow hard. “Something spoiled.”
“Is it hard to breathe?”
“It’s like… breathing in a port-a-potty.”
“Are you cold? Hot? As best you can, narrative answers.”
“Sweating. My ankle hurts. I wonder if he chopped off my foot. I want to look but every time I lift my head up, things kind of explode in my head, you know? I’m scared I will faint.”
“Do you call out?”
“I can’t. There’s dirt in my throat.”
“Keep your eyes closed. Turn your head to the right. What do you see?”
It hurts to turn my head. But it’s easier to breathe. “I see… bones. My Pink Lemonade Lip Smacker. The lid is off. I don’t know where it is. A Snickers bar. A quarter. From 1978. Three pennies.”
The photograph in my head suddenly animates. Ants crawl in a delirious, sugar-fired frenzy on my lip gloss. A hand stretches out for the Snickers bar. I know it’s my hand because it’s sprinkled with pink freckles and the nails are short, trimmed, painted neatly blue with Hard Candy Sky polish. The color almost matches Merry’s lips. I taste blood and dirt, peanut butter and bile, when I rip open the wrapper with my teeth. The bones of the other Susans chatter encouragement. Keep up your strength. Stay strong.
“I remember eating the Snickers bar,” I say. “I didn’t want to.” But the Susans insisted.
“I don’t remember you mentioning some of this before. Are you recalling other details? Anything about him? His face? Hair color? Anything?” I can’t tell by Mr. Vega’s voice if he thinks this would be good or bad.
Why is this stuff coming back now? No one tells me to, but I shut my eyes again. Turn my face up to the night sky, except there are no stars. The sun is shining. I’m out of the grave. I’m somewhere else, in a light-filled space with Merry and the Susans. Merry sleeps, while the others are whispering, chattering excitedly, making a plan. One of them is bending over me. A ring dangles off her skeleton finger, but the stone is missing. She takes the gold prongs and carves a half-moon on my cheek, and it doesn’t hurt at all. There is no blood.
Get him, she says. Never forget us.
I know this isn’t real, although the lab found my blood type, not Merry’s, on the prongs of the ring locked on a Susan’s finger bone. They figure, with utmost logic, that I fell on it when I was dumped into the hole.
I have to stop this before I tumble into that hole again and can’t ever climb out.
“I’m not testifying. Not for you. Or them.”
Mr. Vega tilts his head, ready to fire his next question.
“You heard Tessie.” The doctor has raised his head from the desk. “This session is over.”
Tessa, present day
I watched until Jo vanished on the path and I was sure she was not coming back. I jogged past the sleeping homeless man curled with his back to the refrigerating wind. Fumbled my way into the Jeep. Locked it. Folded myself forward against the steering wheel and stunned myself by bursting into tears. Here’s what kindness and sympathy and an offer of partnership do to me.
I have driven to this office on autopilot, the last place I would have pictured myself this morning. The room is small, white-walled, and slightly chilly. A nervous woman in her thirties sits across from me, eager to start a conversation as soon as I stop pretending to read this magazine and finally make eye contact.
“It’s hard, isn’t it? When your kid is hurting? My kid is in there right now.” The woman needs something from me. I reluctantly lift my gaze and watch her take it all in. My eyes, red and swollen. The scar. I nod with agreement and empathy, hope that will be it, and return to the headline: Is it wrong to pay kids to eat their veggies?
“Dr. Giles is terrific… if you’re here for a first consult for your kid.” She’s not going to give up. “Lily’s been going to her for six months. I highly recommend her.”