The Great Alone

Leni reached for the pen and pulled the paper toward her. At first she just stared down at the blank page. “Maybe I should ask for a lawyer? My grandfather would recommend that. He’s a lawyer.”

“You can do that,” he said. “It’s what guilty people do.” He reached for the phone. “Shall I call for one?”

“You believe me, right? I didn’t kill him and Mama didn’t want to. The law knows about battered women now.”

“Of course. And besides, you’ve already told me the truth.”

“So I just have to write it down and I’ll be done? I can go to Kaneq?”

He nodded.

What difference did it make to write the words? She began slowly, word by word, rebuilding the scene of that terrible night. The fists, the belt, the blood, the gore. The frozen trek to the lake. The last image of her father’s face, ivory in the moonlight, sinking into water. The sound of ice slushing over the rim of the hole.

The only omission was about Large Marge’s help. She mentioned nothing about her at all. She didn’t mention her grandparents, either, or where she and Mama had gone when they left Alaska.

She ended with: We flew from Homer to Anchorage and then left Alaska.

She pushed the paper across the desk.

Chief Ward looked down at her confession.

“I’m done reading, Mommy,” MJ said. She waved him over.

He slapped the book shut and half charged across the room. He climbed up onto her lap like a monkey. Even though he was too big, she held him, let him stay, his skinny legs hanging as he kicked the metal desk with his sneaker toe. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Chief Ward looked at her. “You’re under arrest,” he said.

Leni felt the world literally drop out from under her. “But … you said we’d be done if I wrote it down.”

“You and I are done. Now it’s up to someone else.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “I wish you hadn’t come in here.”

All the warnings over the years. How had she forgotten? She’d let her need for forgiveness and redemption trump common sense. “What do you mean?”

“This is out of my hands, Leni. It’s up to the court now. I am going to have to lock you up, at least until your arraignment. If you can’t afford an attorney—”

“Mommy?” MJ said, frowning.

The chief read Leni her Miranda rights from a sheet of paper, then finished up with: “Unless you know someone who can take your son, he’s going to have to go to Social Services. They’ll take good care of him. I promise.”

Leni couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid and naïve. How could she not have seen this coming? She’d been warned. And still she’d believed the police. She knew how unforgiving the law could be to women.

She wanted to rail and scream and cry and throw furniture, but it was too late for that. She’d made a terrible mistake. There couldn’t be another. “Tom Walker,” she said.

“Tom?” Chief Ward frowned. “Why would I call him?”

“Just call him. Tell him I need help. He’ll come for me.”

“What you need is a lawyer.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Tell him that, too.”

THIRTY

Processed.

Before today, Leni associated that word with food that had been stretched out of recognition and changed into something bad for you. Like spray cheese.

Now it had a whole new meaning.