“Not yet,” I say evenly, and tell her I’m going out to Chet’s.
From her tone it is clear that Rainey is hurting for me. Missing from her voice is the accusatory, sanctimonious tone from last night’s conversation.
“She’ll call you today,” she assures me, though she doesn’t sound as confident as I would like.
Still wary of her, I resist the temptation to tell her that Leigh was over here and spilled her guts. Nothing I can say right now would convince Rainey that Shane is involved in his son-in-law’s murder.
“You seem more understanding today,” I say hopefully.
“I want Sarah to come home for you,” she says, “but please realize that if you try to make the jury think Shane killed his son-in-law when you really don’t have any proof he did, I’ll never feel the same about you again.”
So much for biting my tongue.
“I have a job to do!”
I screech into the phone.
“You know that! And since when have you been worried about your feelings for me? Ever since you started going to Christian Life, you haven’t spent five minutes thinking about me, and you know it.”
“That’s not true,” Rainey responds, her voice no longer under control as it was.
“It’s been hard for me.
I’ve loved you, and I know my involvement with Christian Life has hurt our relationship. I know what things cost. There have been times when I wish I could just back things up to a certain point and start over again.
But finding that tumor in my breast changed my life.
Either the world is a random series of events held together and perpetuated by blind instinct, or it is a meaningful place created by a loving God who cares in finitely for us and who commands us to love each other.
My response is the latter, and because it is, I can’t pre tend I’m not affected by your decisions about people important to me, no matter how you choose to justify them.”
Rainey is a bit breathless by the time she has finished She isn’t much for speeches. I am moved by what I have heard. I’ve simplified her just as I have simplified Sarah. But my choices aren’t so easy.
“What if Leigh is innocent and she goes to prison the rest of her life, and I could have done something to prevent it?
How do I live with that?”
“How do you know she is innocent?” Rainey asks, her voice betraying her frustration for the first time.
“How do you know there is a loving God?” I shout into the phone, and hang up, angry and frustrated. Lawyers and preachers aren’t that much different. We are both advocates for our clients. We marshal all the evidence, facts, theories, and arguments, and do our best to convince juries and congregations. After we sit down, you either believe or you don’t. But if I had told Rainey that, she would have said it was blasphemy.
As I pull into Chet’s yard, Wynona and Trey are coming out the door.
“How are you, Mr. Page?” Trey calls from the porch. It is easy to forget this individual’s favorite snack is probably Animal Crackers. Dressed in jeans, a lightweight nylon jacket, and high-top tennis shoes, he looks like an advertisement for the AllAmerican kid. Not for the first time I wonder what it would have been like to have had a son. Now that I’m making a botch of Sarah, I doubt it would have been any different.
“Fine,” I tell him, inspecting his mother, who smiles cheerfully in the chilly spring air. It must be at least ten degrees cooler once you get away from concrete and office buildings. I want to tell him that I haven’t been saved yet, surprising myself by the amount of irritation I am feeling. It might be lack of sleep, but it could be a lot of things this morning.
Wynona, in the bib overalls that must be her uniform, tells me, “I’ll be back to cook up some breakfast for you and Chet after I take him to the bus stop. He got up too late to walk.”
Trey grins, pleased at his mischief. It’s not much, but it’s probably all he can get away with, having Wynona as his mother.
“You don’t have to go to any trouble,” I say politely, but the truth is that I am starving. I’ve burned up some calories worrying, not a diet I’d recommend.
Trey marches up to me and sticks out his hand. This kid, I decide, through no fault of his own, could get on my nerves. Like the first time I was out here, his grip is firm, and he looks me in the eyes as if he is deciding whether to offer me a partnership in his law firm. When I was his age I was so shy I wouldn’t answer to my own name.
“Hold your head up, son,” my father used to command me, but with little success. Even when I was little I must have sensed he wasn’t quite right in the head, although he was still making a go of his drug store.
“Dad’s out on the back porch. He likes being out side in the morning.”
It is so peaceful, I wonder if Chet will be buried on his property. Is that against the law? Surely not. We are in the country, but modern life has so many laws and regulations I wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t a statute on this, too.
“I can see why,” I say, more to Wynona than Trey.
“It’s just great out here.”
“Just go on through the house,” Wynona says as she opens the door to the Mercedes.
“Thanks.” I smile, feeling like the amiable flunky. I am trusted with the silver, but I am increasingly weary of my second-banana status. I know more than Chet does about this case. Who am I kidding? I probably know exactly what he wants me to know, no more, no less. In the kitchen Trey’s cereal bowl has already been rinsed. Wynona probably made him do it himself. I wonder if she and Chet still make love. If he’s in pain, he may not even think about it. Rosa and I stopped making love a month before she died.
I pass through the kitchen door and find Chet sitting on the steps that lead off the deck. With his back to me, he looks like a teenager, but as he turns around, he seemed to have aged since I saw him yesterday. The energy to stay alive seems to be cutting new ruts in his face on a weekly basis. His eyes have the dim look of someone who has insisted on living over a century. He is wearing one of those sleeveless jackets over a blue flannel shirt, jeans, and brown work boots, so I assume he won’t be going into the office today.
“Wynona told me to come on through,” I say, feeling a need to explain my presence in his house. I am less comfortable with this man each time I see him.
He pats a place on the wooden floor by him as if he doesn’t trust his voice to carry.
“Have a seat.”
Though the chairs we sat in last time are in easy reach, I sit down on the step by him and see that he is carving the figure of a woman who bears a remarkable resemblance to Leigh. He holds it up to me, asking nonchalantly “You know who this is?”
“Our client,” I say.
“I wish she were this malleable all the time. That’s an incredible likeness.” The figure reminds me of a stylized totem, yet somehow Chet has captured Leigh the day he first introduced me to her.
All made up, with her hair piled high on her head and jewelry flashing, she looked like a member of the Spanish aristocracy. A far cry from what she was wearing this morning.
Chet grunts and puts the four-inch figure aside. Solemnly he says, “I got Daffy to double-check Shane’s alibi between eleven and eleven-thirty. According to a former secretary who worked in the church office, Shane said he had something to do over at his house and left about quarter to eleven and came back in just before Leigh called, which was about an hour later.