It was, she admitted, an awful thing to even consider. She apologized profusely. But I didn’t accept the apology. Not at first anyway. I was hurt. Her actions played into all my stupid insecurities and so then I lashed out. She had broken my trust—and I compounded the issue by handling it badly.
Through the back window of my family home, I see movement. I move behind a shrub, and when I see my aunt Sophie enter and sit down alone at the kitchen table, my heart bursts. She wears a blue formless housedress. Her back is hunched. Her hair is in bobby pins but some wisps have escaped and dangle in her face. A potpourri of emotions course through me. Aunt Sophie. My wondrous, generous, kind, fierce aunt who raised me from the time my mom died of cancer. She looks weary, spent, old before her time. Life had sucked away that vitality. Or had it been my father’s illness?
Or me?
Aunt Sophie always believed in me. Others caved. But never, ever Sophie.
I am not sure how to handle this, but I find myself tentatively approaching the back window. She has the radio on. Sophie always loved playing music in the kitchen. Classic rock. Of course, it might not be a radio anymore. It might be an Alexa or some other kind of speaker device. I can hear Pat Benatar belt out that we are young, heartache to heartache. Sophie had loved Pat Benatar and Stevie Nicks and Chrissie Hynde and Joan Jett. I creep up the back porch steps and without thinking about it, I lightly rap my knuckles on the window.
Sophie looks up and sees me.
I expect her to be startled or confused or—at the very least—thrown off by my sudden appearance. I expect some kind of understandable hesitancy, even for a moment or two, but with Aunt Sophie, there is none of that. She has always meant unconditional and ferocious love, and that’s all I’m seeing here. She jumps up and beelines straight for the back door. Her face is already a sun shower—bright smile, wet tears on her cheeks. She flings open the door, looks left and right in a protective way that tweaks my heart, and says, “Get in here.”
I listen. Of course. I flash back to the days my dad would come home late from a night shift and wonder where I was, and Aunt Sophie would make up an excuse and sneak me in through this back door so he wouldn’t know. I step inside and close the door. She hugs me. She feels smaller now, frailer. I’m afraid at first to squeeze too tight, but she’ll have none of that.
I want to hold back, stay upright and focused, to not give in to the emotion of the moment, but I don’t stand a chance. Not with Aunt Sophie. Not with an Aunt Sophie hug. I feel my knees buckle and maybe I let out a small cry, but this frail woman of towering strength holds me up.
“It’s going to be okay,” she tells me.
And I believe her.
Chapter
25
Briggs Correctional Officer Ted Weston told Max and Sarah his story once, twice, thrice. Max and Sarah stayed quiet for most of it. Max nodded encouragingly. Sarah stood leaning against a corner of the prison office they were using as an interrogation room, arms folded. When Ted finished his tale for a third time, proudly winding down with how he spotted the warden and the prisoner getting into the warden’s car, Max kept nodding and then he turned to Sarah and said, “I like that last part best. Don’t you, Sarah?”
“The part about spotting the warden’s car, Max?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Max started plucking his lip with his index finger and thumb. He did this to stop himself from biting his nails. “Do you want to know why Sarah and I like that part best, Ted? I can call you Ted, right?”
Ted Weston’s smile was uneasy. “Sure.”
“Thanks, Ted. So do you want to know why?”
Weston gave a half-hearted shrug. “Sure, I guess.”
“Because it’s true. I mean it. That part of the story—the way you looked out the window and spotted the car and did kind of a ‘whoa hold up a moment’ thing—when you tell that story, your face beams with honesty.”
“It really does,” Sarah added.
“Like you’re using a high-end moisturizer. The rest of the time—like when you’re telling us about how you took poor sick David Burroughs to the infirmary late at night—”
“—in a way that defies all protocol,” Sarah added.
“—Or how he turned on you suddenly—”
“—with no motivation.”
“You’re right-handed, aren’t you, Ted?”
“What?”
“You are. I’ve been watching you. Not a big deal except whenever you’re telling us about getting Burroughs from his cell and taking him to the infirmary, your eyes look up and to the right.”
“That’s a sign you’re lying, Ted,” Sarah said.
“It’s not foolproof, but it’s accurate more often than not. If you are really trying to access a memory, a right-handed person—”
“—eighty-five percent of us anyway—”
“—looks upwards and to the left.”
“And the darting eyes, Max.”
“Right, thanks, Sarah. This is kind of fascinating, Ted. I think you’ll like this. Your eyes dart around a lot when you lie. Not just you. That’s most people. Do you want to know why?”
Ted said nothing. Max continued.
“It’s a throwback, Ted. It’s a throwback to an era when humans felt trapped, maybe by another human, maybe by an animal or something, and so their eyes would dart around looking for an escape route.”
“Do you really buy that origin story, Max?” Sarah asked.
“I don’t know. I mean, no doubt about it—darting eyes usually indicates a lie. But if that’s the origin, I don’t know, but it’s a compelling story.”
“It is,” Sarah agreed.
“Darting eyes,” Ted Weston repeated, trying to look confident. “I don’t need to take this.”
Max looked back at Sarah.
Sarah nodded “Very manly, Ted.”
Weston stood. “You don’t have any proof I’m lying.”
“Sure we do,” Max said. “Do you really think we’d just rely on that eye thing?”
“He doesn’t know us, Max.”
“He doesn’t indeed, Sarah. Show him.”
Sarah slid the bank statement across the table. Ted Weston was still standing. He looked down at it. His face lost color.
“Sarah was kind enough to highlight the important part for us, Ted. Do you see that?”
“You should have asked for cash, Ted,” Sarah said.
“Yeah, but then where would he have put it? It’s nice they kept the amounts under ten grand. Figured no one would notice.”
“We did.”
“No we, Sarah. You. You noticed. How was Ted here to know you’re the best?”
“I’m going to blush, Max.”
Sarah’s phone buzzed. She stepped aside. Ted Weston collapsed back into his seat.
“Do you want to tell me what really happened,” Max asked him in a stage whisper, “or do you want to get thrown into general population and see how the other half lives?”
Ted kept staring at the bank statement.
“Max?”
It was Sarah. “What’s up?”
“Facial recognition may have gotten a hit on our boy.”