She hadn’t been able to eat in weeks, living on tea and crackers and last night a few cherries Belle had brought from her garden, which had stained her fingers like blood.
A shadow fell across the bars and Rosemary looked up-the warden, three guards, and the prison chaplain.
“It’s time,” said the guard, the one with the sad, kind face, a heavyset woman whom Rosemary had come to know during the time she’d spent behind bars. Images fluttered through her mind like a series of snapshots: standing beside her father, his stern face turned away from hers as it always was; an awkward debutante at her coming-out party, tall and gangly; and in white lace on her wedding day, Christopher Thomas beside her.
Christopher, her beautiful shining knight.
Christopher, who had betrayed her.
“Are you ready?” the guard asked, unable to meet Rosemary’s eyes.
An absurd question, thought Rosemary. What if I say, No, I’m not ready? What then? She imagined herself tearing down the hall, the guards running after her, inmates cheering and jeering. But she said, “Yes, I’m ready.”
There were no handcuffs, no chains, just guards on either side of her, the prison chaplain carrying an open Bible, the warden leading the way.
How odd, thought Rosemary, that I feel… nothing.
The sad, kind guard held her arm, and the hallway stretched out in front of her. A fluorescent light flickered. The walk seemed to take forever.
They led her through an oval-shaped door into an octagonal room, and Rosemary saw the gurney that filled half the space and a table with tourniquets and needles laid out and windows all around, and she realized it was a show and that she was the main attraction.
She gasped, breath caught in her throat. She felt her legs go weak, sagged, and might have fallen if the guard did not have a firm grip on her arm.
“Are you okay?” the woman asked.
Rosemary said, “I’m… fine,” thinking, I will be dead soon.
They were led, like mourners, through a side door that opened into a circular passageway that surrounded the execution chamber.
Jon Nunn watched as the witnesses assumed positions, like sentries, at each of the five windows, curtains drawn. They stared at the glass, at faint, distorted reflections of themselves. He looked from one to another: the district attorney, for once quiet; the judge, a woman who’d played tough along with the DA, nervously wringing her hands; Rosemary’s brother, Peter, who had practically banged into him only moments earlier, booze on his breath; the reporter Hank Zacharius. There were other reporters too, guards and state officials, everyone somber and stony except for Belle McGuire, Rosemary’s friend, face flushed and crying, the only one seemingly overcome by emotion.
Nunn thought of Rosemary the first time he’d met her, how tough she’d pretended to be, and hoped she could muster some of that toughness today, though his own reserve was empty.
Earlier this evening, he and Sarah had argued, not for the first time, about the trial, the crime, Sarah saying that the case had become his obsession and he could no longer answer her accusations or deny them, and he had stormed out-as he had on so many other nights-leaving her behind, fuming. He’d hung out in a bar till it closed, then found another that stayed open all night. Peter Heusen was not the only one with booze on his breath.
The “tie-down team” had strapped her to the gurney, five big men to tie down one small woman-a man at her head, one on each arm, one for each leg. Now there were straps across her chest, wrists, abdomen, the sound of Velcro restraints opening and closing still playing in Rosemary’s ears.
“Rest your head on the pillow,” one said.
Rest my head? Are they kidding? But she did, even said, “Thank you”-always the well-brought-up girl. She thought of her mother and for once was glad her parents were dead.
She stared at the ceiling, the walls, counted gray tiles versus white ones, anything to keep her mind occupied, spotted the camera, and thought, They are recording my death, and prayed she would be dignified, that she would not scream and that her body would not betray her with spasms. She couldn’t bear the thought of that.
“Okay,” said the man at her head, and the one at her leg touched her ankle so gently, so tenderly, she fought to control her tears.
The tie-down crew was replaced by a medical team, technicians wrapping tubes around her arms, flicking at her flesh to find veins.
She caught sight of the catheters and shivered.
“Can you make a fist?” one asked, and she did, pretending they were just taking blood, and thought of the blood test she’d taken before she was married and how excited she’d been to become Mrs. Christopher Thomas: how much she’d hoped for and how little had come true. She thought of the nights she lay awake, humiliated, waiting for him, knowing he was in another woman’s bed, wishing him dead, wanting to kill him.
One of the technicians missed the vein and Rosemary flinched, tears automatically springing to her eyes.
No, don’t cry. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Again and again the technicians tried and failed, until one of them finally said, “There, that’s one,” while the other continued to stab her arm over and over. “The veins have gone totally flat,” he said.
Not her veins. The veins.
She wanted to scream, I’m still alive.
“Lemme help,” said the other one, the two of them poking at her arm, dark shadows looming over her, and an image came to her, in the vet’s office years ago, having her cocker spaniel put to sleep, the old dog riddled with cancer. How merciful it had seemed, the dog nestled peacefully in her arms while the vet got the IV going. “You’re just going to sleep,” she’d said, tears in her eyes, and had believed that until the creature let out a deep, guttural yelp, something she’d never heard before, and Rosemary had to steady his soft, old body, pet him, and whisper assurances, “There, there,” until the drug got into his bloodstream and he went limp. She came back to the moment, looked at the group of people in the chamber and wondered, Where are my assurances?
“Okay,” said the technician, taping the second IV to her arm, “we finally got it.”
Please, God, let it be over quickly, thought Rosemary.
The technicians left and the warden and the chaplain came in.
The warden raised his hand and the curtains opened and she saw them.
Her heart pounding, Rosemary thought, My audience. Some are witnesses to my death, some are participants.
Her brother, Peter Heusen. Drunk already, she could tell, from the bleary eyes. She’d refused to see Peter this morning. She knew he’d simply been trying to cleanse his conscience.
There were other faces too, people she didn’t know. And there was Belle, crying, watching Rosemary through the glass.
And Jon Nunn, who had tried to visit, but she’d refused him as she had every other time he’d requested. They locked eyes and he smoothed his shirt, then brushed absently at his stubble, as if suddenly upset at his rumpled appearance.
Rosemary scanned the crowd and her eyes stopped on Hank Zacharius, the journalist… her friend. He’d argued in article after article that they were executing an innocent woman, a woman who had been railroaded by an avid prosecutor and judge. She could still remember his attempts to question the evidence.
Hank Zacharius tried to convince himself that he’d come strictly as a witness and reporter-not as a friend-that he’d write one last piece detailing the horrors of capital punishment and that the writing would distance him from the event, but his heart was beating fast and his mouth had gone dry. He stared through the glass at Rosemary and took several deep breaths. He could not help but notice how thin she had grown, the once delicate bone structure of her face now skull-like, her bony arms bruised where the technicians had made their clumsy attempts to insert the fourteen-gauge catheters, the largest commercially available needles, that would deliver the mix of anesthetic and poison to stop Rosemary’s heart. He thought about how hard he’d tried to prevent this from happening. His mind kept going back to the articles he’d written about the case.