Notes on an Execution, page 2
You hunch over, so the camera placed in the corner of your cell cannot catch the note. There, in Shawna’s trembly handwriting. Three words:
I did it.
Hope rushes in, a blinding white. It sears through every inch of you as the world cracks open, bleeds. You have eleven hours and sixteen minutes left, or maybe, with Shawna’s promise, you have a lifetime.
* * *
There must have been a time, a reporter said to you once. A time before you were like this.
If there ever was a time, you would like to remember it.
Lavender
1973
If there was a before, it began with Lavender.
She was seventeen years old. She knew what it meant, to bring life into the world. The gravity. She knew that love could swaddle you tight, and also bruise. But until the time came, Lavender did not understand what it meant to walk away from a thing she’d grown from her own insides.
* * *
“Tell me a story,” Lavender gasped, between contractions.
She was splayed out in the barn, on a blanket propped against a stack of hay. Johnny crouched over her with a lantern, his breath curling white in the frigid late-winter air.
“The baby,” Lavender said. “Tell me about the baby.”
It was becoming increasingly clear that the baby might actually kill her. Every contraction proved how horribly unprepared they were—despite all Johnny’s bravado and the passages he quoted from the medical textbooks his grandfather had left, neither of them knew much about childbirth. The books hadn’t mentioned this. The blood, apocalyptic. The pain, white-hot and sweat-soaked.
“He’ll grow up to be president,” Johnny said. “He’ll be a king.”
Lavender groaned. She could feel the baby’s head tearing at her skin, a grapefruit, half exited.
“You don’t know it’s a boy,” she panted. “Besides, there’s no such thing as kings anymore.”
She pushed until the walls of the barn went crimson. Her body felt full of glass shards—a jagged, inner twisting. When the next contraction came, Lavender sank into it, her throat breaking into a guttural scream.
“He’ll be good,” Johnny said. “He’ll be brave, and smart, and powerful. I can see his head, Lav, you have to keep pushing.”
Blackout. Her whole self converged into one shattering wound. The shriek came then, a mewling cry. Johnny was covered in gore up to his elbows, and Lavender watched as he picked up the gardening shears he’d sterilized with alcohol, then used them to cut the umbilical cord. Seconds later, Lavender was holding it. Her child. Slick with afterbirth, foamy around the head, the baby was a tangle of furious limbs. In the lantern’s glow, his eyes were nearly black. He did not look like a baby, Lavender thought. Little purple alien.
Johnny slumped beside her in the hay, panting.
“Look,” he rasped. “Look at what we made, my girl.”
The feeling hit Lavender just in time: a love so consuming, it felt more like panic. The sensation was followed immediately by a nauseous, tidal guilt. Because Lavender knew, from the second she saw the baby, that she did not want this kind of love. It was too much. Too hungry. But it had been growing inside her all these months, and now it had fingers, toes. It was gulping oxygen.
Johnny wiped the baby down with a towel and positioned him firmly against Lavender’s nipple. As she peered down at the scrunched and flaking bundle, Lavender was thankful for the dark of the barn, the sweaty damp of her face—Johnny hated when she cried. Lavender placed a palm on the ball of the baby’s head, those initial traitorous thoughts already laced with regret. She drowned the feeling with assurances, murmured against the baby’s slippery skin. I will love you like the ocean loves the sand.
They named the baby Ansel, after Johnny’s grandfather.
* * *
Here were the things Johnny had promised:
Quiet. Open skies. A whole house at their disposal, a garden of Lavender’s own. No school, no disappointed teachers. No rules at all. A life where no one was ever watching—they were alone in the farmhouse, completely alone, the nearest neighbor ten miles away. Sometimes, when Johnny went out hunting, Lavender stood on the back deck and screamed as loudly as she could, screamed until her voice went hoarse, to see if someone would come running. No one ever did.
Just a year earlier, Lavender had been a normal sixteen. It was 1972, and she’d spent her days sleeping through math class then history class then English class, cackling with her friend Julie as they smoked pilfered cigarettes by the gym door. She met Johnny Packer at the tavern, when they snuck in one Friday. He was older, handsome. Like a young John Wayne, Julie had giggled, the first time Johnny showed up after school in his pickup truck. Lavender loved Johnny’s scraggly hair, his rotation of flannel shirts, his heavy work boots. Johnny’s hands were always filthy from the farm, but Lavender loved how he smelled. Like grease and sunshine.
The last time Lavender saw her mother, she’d been slumped at the folding card table, a cigarette dangling from her mouth. Her mother had attempted a housewife’s beehive—it was flat, lopsided, like a drooping balloon.
You go right ahead, Lavender’s mother had said. Drop out of school, move to that ratty farm.
A sick, satisfied smile.
Just you wait, honey. Men are wolves, and some wolves are patient.
Lavender had swiped her mother’s antique locket from the dresser on her way out. The locket was a circle of rusty metal with an empty nameplate inside. It had adorned the center of her mother’s broken jewelry box for as long as she could remember—the only proof that Lavender’s mother was capable of treasuring something.
It was true that living on the farm had not been quite what Lavender had imagined. She’d moved in six months after meeting Johnny; before that, Johnny had lived alone with his grandfather. Johnny’s mother had passed away and his father had left, and he never spoke of either of them. Old Ansel had been a war veteran with a grizzled voice who made Johnny perform chores for every meal as a child. Old Ansel coughed, and he coughed, until he died, a few weeks after Lavender arrived. They buried him in the yard beneath the spruce; Lavender didn’t like to walk over the spot, still humped with dirt. She’d learned to milk the goat, to wring the chickens’ necks before she plucked and disemboweled them. She tended to the garden, which was ten times the size of the small patch she’d kept behind her mother’s trailer—it was always threatening to outgrow her. She had given up regular showers, too difficult with the outdoor spigot, and her hair had become permanently tangled.
Johnny did the hunting. He purified their water. Fixed up the house. Some nights, he’d call Lavender in from a long day in the yard—she would find him standing by the door with his pants unzipped, engorged and waiting with a sneer on his face. Those nights, he threw her against the wall. With her cheek slammed hard on the splintering oak, Johnny’s hunger growling into her neck, she would revel in the essence of it. His thrusting need. Those calloused hands, exalting her. My girl, my girl. Lavender did not know if she thrilled with Johnny’s hardness or the fact that she could gentle it.
* * *
They did not have diapers, so Lavender wrapped a clean rag around Ansel’s waist and knotted it at the legs. She swaddled him tight in one of the barn blankets, then stood to limp after Johnny.
She hiked barefoot back up to the house. Dizzy. She’d been in so much pain, she did not remember the trip to the barn, only that Johnny had carried her, and now she didn’t have shoes—the late-winter air was biting cold, and Lavender held Ansel to her chest as he spluttered. She guessed it was near midnight.
The farmhouse sat at the top of a hill. Even in the dark it looked lopsided, leaning precariously to the left. The house was a constant work in progress. Johnny’s grandfather had left them with the burst pipes, the leaking roof, the missing windowpanes. Usually, Lavender didn’t mind. It was worth it for the moments she stood alone on the deck, overlooking the wide expanse of field. The rolling grass shone silver in the mornings, orange in the evenings, and across the pasture, she could see the gnashing peaks of the Adirondack Mountains. The farmhouse sat just outside Essex, New York, an hour’s drive from Canada. On a clear day she liked to squint into the bright, imagining an invisible line where the distance turned into another country entirely. The thought was exotic, enchanting. Lavender had never left New York State.
“Will you make a fire?” she asked, when they were inside. The house was frigid, the previous night’s cold ash sitting gusty in the wood stove.
“It’s late,” Johnny said. “Aren’t you tired?”
It wasn’t worth the argument. Lavender struggled up the stairs, where she sponged the blood from her legs with a washcloth and changed her clothes. None of her old clothes fit anymore: the bell-bottom corduroys she’d thrifted with Julie sat in a box with her best collared blouses, too tight for her bulging stomach. By the time she climbed into bed, wearing one of Johnny’s old T-shirts, he was already asleep, and Ansel was fussing in a bundle on her pillow. Lavender’s neck crackled with dried sweat, and she dozed upright with the baby in her arms, anxious, half dreaming.
By morning, Ansel’s rag had soaked through and Lavender could feel the slick of diarrhea running down her deflating belly. When Johnny woke to the smell, he jolted—Ansel started to cry, a shrieking upset.
Johnny stood, fumbling for an old T-shirt, which he threw onto the bed just out of Lavender’s reach.
“If you can hold him for a second—” Lavender said.
The look Johnny gave her then. The frustration did not belong on his face—it was the kind of ugly that must have originated inside Lavender herself. I’m sorry, Lavender wanted to say, though she did not know what for. As she listened to Johnny’s footsteps creak down the stairs, Lavender pressed her lips to the screaming baby’s forehead. This was how it always went, wasn’t it? All those women who’d come before her, in caves and tents and covered wagons. It was a wonder how she’d never given much thought to the ancient, timeless fact. Motherhood was, by nature, a thing you did alone.
* * *
Here were the things Johnny had loved once: The mole on the back of Lavender’s neck, which he used to kiss before they fell asleep. The bones in her fingers, so small he swore he could feel each one. How Lavender’s teeth overlapped in the front—snaggle, he called her, teasing.
Now, Johnny did not see her teeth. Instead, the scratches on her face from Ansel’s tiny nails.
“For God’s sake,” he said, as Ansel screamed. “Can’t you make him stop?”
Johnny sat at the pockmarked table, using Ansel’s pudgy fingers to trace cartoon animals into the leftover fat on his dinner plate. Dog, Johnny explained, his voice croaking tender. Chicken. Ansel’s face was blobby, uncomprehending—when the baby inevitably started whining, Johnny passed him back to Lavender and stood for his evening cigar. Alone again, as Ansel’s fingers streaked grease across her shirt, Lavender tried to hold the scene at the front of her consciousness. How Johnny had gazed at his son for those brief, perfect minutes, like he wanted to impart himself on the child. Like DNA was not enough. With the baby in his lap, cooing and affectionate, Johnny looked like the man Lavender had met in the tavern so long ago. She could still hear Julie’s voice, misty and beer-soured.
I bet he’s soft on the inside, Julie had whispered. I bet you could take a bite right out of him.
* * *
By the time Ansel could sit up on his own, Lavender could not recall the contours of Julie’s face—only eyelashes, and a sly, sneaky grin. Fraying jeans and a choker necklace, nicotine and homemade lip balm. Julie’s voice, humming the Supremes. What about California? Julie had asked, betrayed, when Lavender announced she’d be moving to the farmhouse. What about the protests? It won’t be the same without you. Lavender remembered Julie’s silhouette through the window of the departing bus, a homemade sign tucked somewhere by her feet. End The War In Vietnam! Julie had waved as the Greyhound groaned away, and Lavender had not wondered—had not even questioned—whether a choice was a thing that could ravage.
* * *
Dear Julie.
Lavender composed the letters in her head, because she didn’t have an address or any way to get to the post office. She didn’t know how to drive, and Johnny only used the truck once a month, alone, to go to the store. The farm needed so much work, he said—why would she need to go into town? Johnny would sulk as he unloaded the cans of food, muttering in a voice that belonged to his grandfather. Expensive, keeping the two of you.
* * *
Dear Julie.
Tell me about California.
I think of you often—I imagine you are on a beach somewhere, browning in the sun. Things are fine here. Ansel is five months old now. He has the strangest gaze, like he’s looking right through you. Anyway, I hope the weather’s nice there. Someday, when Ansel is old enough, we’ll come find you. He’s a good baby, you’ll like him. We’ll all sit in the sand.
Dear Julie. Ansel is eight months today. He’s so chunky, the rolls in his legs look like baking dough. He has two teeth now, spaced out on the bottom, like separate little jutting bones.
I keep thinking about summer, when we hiked to the edge of the property, where the raspberries grow wild. Johnny fed the berries right into Ansel’s mouth, and Ansel’s hands stained red with the juice. They looked like a postcard of a happy family, and I felt so outside of myself, watching them play. Like a bird perched on a distant branch. Or one of Johnny’s rabbits, strung up by the legs.
Dear Julie. I know, I know. It’s been a while. Spring again now. Ansel is walking, getting into everything. He sliced his arm on some construction equipment in the yard, and of course it got infected. He had a fever, but Johnny said no hospital. You know I don’t believe in God or anything, but it’s the closest I’ve come to praying. Summer will be here soon—you know how it goes. I don’t even remember the last few weeks. It’s like I slept right through them.
Dear Julie. Did you ever learn to drive? I know we promised we’d do it together. We should have, when we had the chance. I haven’t left the property since Ansel was born—he’s almost two years old now, can you believe that?
Johnny took Ansel hunting in the forest yesterday. I told him Ansel was too young. When they came back, Ansel had these purple splotches up his arms.
You should have seen the shape of those bruises, Julie. Like fingers.
* * *
It started small like that. Trivial, easy to ignore. A grunt from Johnny’s throat, an angry slammed door—a grip of the wrist, a flick on the ear. A palm, playfully smacking her cheek.
* * *
By the time Lavender looked up, Ansel was three years old. They had lived their days and nights in a long, repetitive procession, time sucked into the lonely vacuum of the farmhouse.
It was dead summer, a sweaty afternoon, when Ansel walked into the forest. Lavender was on her knees in the garden. When she stood from the dying dahlias to find the yard empty, the sun was high in the sky. She had no idea how long Ansel had been gone.
Ansel was not a pretty child, or even a cute one. His forehead was massive, and his eyes bulged too big. Lately, he’d been playing tricks on Lavender. Hiding the spatula while she was cooking, filling her water glass up in the toilet. But this was different. He had never gone alone beyond the edge of the field.
The panic came in a flood. Lavender stood at the tree line, calling Ansel’s name until her voice rasped.
Upstairs, Johnny was napping. He grumbled when Lavender rolled him over.
“What?”
“It’s Ansel,” she said, panting. “He ran into the woods. You have to find him, Johnny.”
“Calm down,” Johnny said, his breath sour.
“He’s three years old.” Lavender hated the alarm in her own voice, how it shrilled her. “He’s all alone in the forest.”
“Why don’t you go?”
Johnny’s erection poked through the slit in his boxer shorts. A warning.
“You know the woods,” she said. “And you’re faster.”
“What’ll you give me for it?” he asked.
He was joking, she thought. Grinning now. His hand moved down, into the elastic seam of his shorts.
“That’s not funny, Johnny. It’s not funny.”
“Am I laughing?”
He touched himself, rhythmic, smiling. Lavender couldn’t help it—the tears were lodged in her throat, thick and painful. When she began to cry, Johnny’s hand stopped. His smile melted down into a grimace.
“Fine,” Lavender said. “But you promise, after, you’ll find him?”
She climbed on top. Tears fled salty into her mouth as she shimmied out of her linen pants. As she pressed Johnny inside, she pictured her baby, toppling scared into a stream. She pictured water, filling his tiny lungs. A vulture, hovering. A steep ravine. Lavender pumped up and down, numb—by the time Johnny wilted inside her, the sneer on his face had transformed him entirely.
I don’t think you can ever see the whole of another person, Julie used to say. As Johnny shoved her off, limp and heaving furious, Lavender studied the disdain. The moon of his face, revealing its cratered underside.
* * *
Afternoon bled into evening as Lavender paced the yard, hysteria blooming. Johnny had stormed out—to search, she hoped—and she hugged her knees to her chest on the bottom step of the porch, rocking anxious. By the time Lavender heard the rustling from the forest, night had fallen, and her worry had hardened, crystallizing into an urgent, profound dread.
“Mama?”
It was Ansel, crouched in the twilight at the edge of the forest. His feet were filthy, a ring of dirt caked around his mouth. Lavender rushed him, her eyes adjusting: he was covered in crimson, and he smelled like rust. Blood. She patted him frantically down, felt each of his child bones for a break.
