We need to help those less fortunate, his mother responded lamely.
Why is Marcus less fortunate? Garrett said. He has a father.
You know why, his mother said.
Because Marcus was the son of a murderer. Even as the Range Rover jostled up Main Street, Marcus’s mother, Constance Bennett Tyler, was locked up in Bedford Hills Correctional Facility because she had killed two people. Arch had been Constance’s defense attorney, and he’d gotten to know Marcus and like him. That was why Garrett shared the backseat with this huge black kid, this refugee from one of the most talked-about court cases in New York City in years. And because Marcus was the same age as Winnie and Garrett they had to be friends. Because of the tragedies in life that had converged on the four people sitting in this car, they had to join together. Empathize. It was the most twisted, unfair situation Garrett could imagine, and yet it was happening to him this summer.
Garrett glanced sideways at Marcus. Marcus was wearing an expensive-looking white dress shirt with his initials-“MGT”- embroidered on the pocket. It was the kind of shirt one wore to brunch or a college interview, though it was inappropriate for seven hours of car travel. Marcus had been sweating the whole ride and now the shirt looked like it’d been plucked from the bottom of a laundry hamper. Marcus had shown up at their apartment that morning wearing a squeaky new pair of dock shoes, which looked so unlikely on Marcus’s feet that Garrett wondered if he’d worn the shoes to mock them somehow, to mock this trip to Nantucket. He’d taken the shoes off before they even hit Connecticut and his enormous bare feet gave off an odor that nearly caused Garrett to gag. Before Garrett could dwell on the other aspects of Marcus’s appearance that bothered him-his closely-shaved head, his heavy-lidded eyes that made it seem like he was always half asleep-Garrett realized that Marcus had his elbow on the urn. He was using the urn as an armrest. Garrett held no fantasies about the contents of the urn-it was only ashes, another form of matter. There had been a few weak attempts at levity since the urn arrived from the crematorium- one night, Garrett set the urn at their father’s place at the dining room table-but Garrett didn’t believe the urn in any way contained his father. Only the remains of the body that once belonged to his father. Still, using the urn as an armrest was not okay. Garrett glared at Marcus, but refrained from saying anything. They’d made it all the way from New York City without incident and Garrett didn’t want to start trouble now, when they were almost at the house. An instant later, as if reading Garrett’s mind, Marcus lifted his oxford-clad elbow and Garrett moved the urn into his lap, where it would be safe from further indignities.
Marcus was the only one who thought to offer Beth a tissue. She seemed genuinely grateful, turning her head so that he could see her try to smile. “Thanks, Marcus,” she said. She stopped crying long enough to blot her eyes and wipe the runny stuff from her nose. “Here it is your first time on Nantucket and I’m blubbering so hard I can’t point things out. I’m sorry.”
“S’okay,” he said. He’d gotten the gist of the place already: the gray shingled houses, the cobblestone streets, the shops with expensive clothes and brass lanterns and antique rocking horses in the windows. White people everywhere all excited about summer.
Beth stopped crying and put on her sunglasses. Marcus wasn’t sure what to make of the woman. He couldn’t tell if she was being nice to him because she wanted to, or because she felt she had to-if pressed, he would lean toward the latter. She spoke to him like he was in nursery school. (At McDonald’s that morning for breakfast, with a pinched smile, “And, Marcus, what would you like? How about some pancakes?” As if he was too simple to navigate his way around the menu.)
Marcus had met the twins twice before. The first time was when Arch brought them along to visit Marcus and his family in Queens. The twins had stood in the apartment looking around like they were on a field trip about poverty; he could almost hear them thinking, “So this is where it happened.” The second time Marcus met them was at Trinity Episcopal Church on East Eighty-eighth Street, at the memorial service for Arch. The twins’ father, Arch Newton, had been the gold standard of human beings (Marcus intended to use this phrase in the book he was writing), the only white person in all of America who was willing to help save his mother’s life. And for free-an expensive Manhattan lawyer who offered to defend Constance Bennett Tyler against the death penalty, even though everyone knew she was guilty as sin.
I’m going to help your mom, Arch told Marcus. I’m going to see that she gets the best possible defense.
Arch was there through the worst of it: the hot hours in the courtroom, the cold visits to Rikers, the reporters, the TV cameras, the disturbing photographs in the New York Times, especially the one of Candy’s body being carried from the building, all of her covered by a sheet except for her patent leather shoes, the shoes that, ironically, Constance had bought for her. They reprinted this photo a lot; it became the icon for the case. Every time Arch saw the photo, he tore it in half. They love it because it screams, “Baby killer!” he said. If it weren’t for Arch’s powerful, steadying presence-his defense less a legal term and more like a physical shield that he held over Marcus and his family-Marcus never would have made it. But then, on the evening of March fifteenth, flying back from Albany, where Arch had traveled to meet with an attorney he knew who was close to the governor and might be able to speak out on Constance’s behalf, Arch’s plane crashed into Long Island Sound. Ice on the wings. It was a week before the trial was to start, and bizarrely, Arch’s death added an element of humanity that had been missing from the defense’s case; the media softened, hailing Arch as a hero for the common man, specifically, for a woman facing death row with no resources to fight it. Another attorney from Arch’s firm took the case to trial, which lasted only three days. The jury convicted Constance of one count of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder, but the judge spared her the death penalty and nobody protested. It was as if Arch had taken the punishment for her.
Offering Beth a tissue was the least Marcus could do. Because what all four people in the car knew but nobody acknowledged out loud was that if Arch hadn’t been defending Constance, he wouldn’t have died. And so, Marcus would be a slave to these people if that was what they wanted. He’d haul out the garbage cans, he’d sweep sand off the porch, he’d rub oil onto their backs so they didn’t burn in the sun. Yes, he would. Before Marcus left New York, his father, Bo, said, These people didn’t have to invite you, son. So be a big help, and make me proud.
As they drove out of town, the houses grew farther apart. Then Beth signaled left and they turned onto a dirt road. Bumpy. Dirt and sand filled the air, gravel crunched under the tires.
Marcus would offer to wash the car.
He saw the ocean-it was in front of them suddenly, glinting in the sun like a big silver platter. Beth shut off the air-conditioning and put down all four windows.
“We’re here,” she said. She pulled into a white shell driveway that led to a house-a big, old, gray-shingled house-which sat on a ledge overlooking the water.
“Whoa,” Marcus said.
Beth shut off the engine and climbed out of the car, raising her hands to the sky. “It takes my breath away every time. I feel better. Kids, I feel better already.”