True Colors

But sometimes, if you loved someone, you had to be strong, had to say the thing that needed to be said. Clearly, Vivi Ann was falling apart. Losing it. Winona might not know much about the criminal justice system, but believing in miracles within it couldn’t be good.

She moved toward her sister. Vivi Ann looked like one of those skittish abused horses of hers, terrified and ready to bolt. “This is killing you, Vivi,” Winona said as gently as she could. “Believing in something that will never happen—”

“He will be released.”

“I did sit in that courtroom and I saw the truth you’re trying to ignore. He—”

“Don’t say it, Win.”

“You know it, Vivi. You must. He’s guilty. You need to—”

Vivi Ann slapped her across the face so hard she stumbled back. “Get out of my house. We’re done talking. Forever.”

Chapter Seventeen

The years ground slowly forward.

1997.

1998.

1999.

Aurora tried to make peace within their family numerous times, but Vivi Ann had no room in her shrunken heart for forgiveness, and in truth, she didn’t try to make space. Her father and Winona had wounded her too deeply. Every Saturday, Vivi Ann dropped Noah off with Aurora and drove two and a half hours to the prison, so that she could sit behind a dirty Plexiglas window and talk to Dallas through a heavy black receiver. Roy filed one motion after another, each one a beacon of hope that crashed on the rocks. She felt as if she were tied to a wicked seesaw where every high and low took a little more of her soul away. And when Roy finally called to say that the last state appeal had been denied, he’d added quickly, “But don’t worry, I’ll go federal.” So she’d tried again to keep believing, and the months kept passing.

The only way she’d found to survive was to numb herself to everything else. She popped Xanax like jelly beans during the daytime, and they allowed her to move forward, to smile and talk and pretend to be in an ordinary world. Aurora was her anchor in that attempt, her steadying hand. Still, when Vivi Ann was alone at night, she drank too much and either held her son too tightly or not at all. Sometimes she just sat there, swaying to the music in her head, hearing Noah crying or calling out for her, and trying to remember how it had felt to touch Dallas, to hold him. The memories were leaking away, and without them, she had nothing to ward off the numbness, and so she gave in, falling into a deep and troubled sleep on the sofa.

On several of her Saturday visits she’d missed things—Noah’s first tricycle ride, his preschool’s winter party, even his fourth birthday. She’d told herself at the time that he was young, that if she told him his birthday was Sunday he’d believe her—and he had—but she’d seen the way Aurora looked at her, so full of pity, and Vivi Ann had had to turn away. That night, after all the party decorations were in the trash, she’d taken so many shots of tequila that she’d missed her lessons in the morning.

Now it was October 1999; a Saturday. Almost four years after Dallas’s arrest.

She sat in the prison parking lot, staring through the windshield at the gray walls. Rain assaulted the windshield, falling so hard and fast the glass seemed alive, almost flexible. Through this distortion, she could see the imposing concrete mass of the maximum-security prison. She’d seen the collection of buildings in all kinds of weather, and even in full sunlight, with the green landscape and blue sky surrounding, it looked grim and menacing. The rain made the prison look dismal and forlorn, huddled against the hillside instead of standing defiantly in front of it.

She went through the routine of checking in on autopilot, barely noticing anymore how frightening it was to be in here. All she really noticed these days was the noise—the clanging of doors, the clicking of locks, the distant hum of raised voices.

She took her usual place on the left-side cubicle, waiting.

“Hey, Vivi,” he said when he sat down across from her.

At last she smiled. For all the apathy in her everyday life, she couldn’t escape the fact that here, with him, she felt alive. As crazy as it was, she was glad to see him, to be near him, even if they couldn’t touch. She said his name and it was like a prayer, had almost become one. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the newest photograph of Noah. In it, he was a bright, shiny six-year-old, wearing a baseball cap and holding a bat, grinning.

Dallas stared down at it, touched the glass as if for once it wouldn’t stop his hand.

Vivi Ann knew what he saw: a boy. The years of Dallas’s incarceration could be seen on the changing face of his son. Noah was taller, thinner; he’d left babyhood behind this year. And he’d stopped asking about the daddy he didn’t remember.

“He misses you,” Vivi Ann said.

“Don’t do that,” he said. “We don’t have much left. Let’s at least be honest.”

She should have known better than to lie to him. They were separated now, kept apart by razor wire and Plexiglas and concrete, but the connection between them was as strong as ever. “If you’d let me bring him to see you—”

“We’ve had this discussion. He doesn’t need to see me like this. It’s better if he forgets me.”

“Don’t say that.”

They fell silent after that, staring at each other through the dirty plastic, holding on to big black phone receivers, with nothing to say. She wasn’t sure how long it went on, their quiet, but when the end-of-visiting-hours alarm buzzed, she flinched.

“You look tired,” Dallas said finally.