True Colors

“This meeting won’t take that long.”

At last he came to a door and opened it.

Winona walked slowly into the room, feeling acutely conspicuous in her expensive wool pantsuit. Taking an empty seat, she stared through the fingerprint-smudged Plexiglas, afraid to touch anything. She could hear snippets of conversation going on around her, but nothing was really distinct. All up and down the row, people were pressing hands to the fake glass, trying impossibly to connect, to touch.

Finally the door opened and Dallas was there, in his baggy orange jumpsuit and his worn flip-flops. His hair was longer now, well past his shoulders, and his face had hollowed out. The darkness of his skin had paled somewhat; still, there was a frightening intensity about him, a barely checked energy that made her think he could come through this flimsy Plexiglas barrier and grab her by the throat.

He picked up the phone, said, “Is Vivi Ann okay?”

“She’s fine.”

“Noah?”

She heard the emotion in his voice; saw a vulnerability in his gray eyes. “Noah’s fine. In fact, he’s the reason I’m here. Sit down.”

“Say something worth sitting down for.”

“I’m here on behalf of your son. He wants to petition the court—”

Dallas threw down the receiver so hard it cracked against the Plexiglas. Then he turned and walked away. The guard opened the door for him, and without looking back, he disappeared into the buzzing, thudding growl of prison life.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Winona muttered. She sat there a long time, staring at the smudged glass, waiting for him to return.

Finally, a woman came up to her, touched her shoulder, and asked if she was waiting to see a prisoner.

“I guess not,” she said, scooting her chair back.

When Aunt Winona got home from the prison, I was waiting for her on her front step. It was raining hard and I was totally soaked, but I didn’t care. I saw her drive up and get out of her car and walk up the path.

She was by the dorky mermaid fountain when she saw me standing there in the rain.

I’m sorry she said.

I asked what he said, what excuses he gave, and Aunt Winona said he wouldn’t even talk to her about it. She said, I told him what you wanted and he just got up and walked out.

It made me want to scream or cry or punch someone, but I knew what a waste all of that was. So I thanked her for trying and walked home.

By the time I got to our house, the rain was falling so hard I sucked in water when I breathed. I opened the front door and saw my mom. She was sitting on the coffee table, trying to look cool, but I could tell that she was worried. She got up and came toward me, saying something about my wet clothes.

All I got out was the word Dad and like a total zero, I started to cry.

She hugged me and said It’s okay a bunch of times like she used to, but I know It’s a lie. I miss my dad, I said, even tho I don’t know who in the hell he is. Even tho he’s a murderer.

He’s more than that, Mom said. She told me to remember that she’d loved him and he’d loved me.

I told her I would but it was bullshit. I’m not gonna remember that he used to love me. That’s exactly what I’m gonna try to forget.

October was a month of gray days, cool nights, and thready, inconstant rain. The shorter days were busy for Winona as she prepared for the coming election.

From the outside looking in, anyone who was casually watching Winona would surely have seen nothing out of the ordinary. She was at her desk answering phone calls and seeing clients by eight o’clock in the morning. At lunch, more often than not, she could be found at the diner or at the Waves, treating some influential town citizen to a working lunch. After work, as the darkness fell, she tended to sit in her bed, watching her reality TV shows and mailing out promotional items. Her crisp linen envelopes read: Go with a Winner! Vote Winona Grey this November.

All of that, combined with church, the monthly family supper, and her dates with Mark, filled her time. She couldn’t remember when she’d been so busy or so happy. Individually and collectively she loved all of the things that commanded her time and attention. She and Mark had finally gone public with their romance in late September, and since then everyone seemed certain that it was only a matter of time before a wedding took place. Even Winona was beginning to hope. They weren’t head over heels in love, it was true, but she was old enough to recognize the reality of life. Besides, she’d truly loved a man already in her life, and look at the mistakes she’d made in the name of that unreliable emotion. It was better to play it safe. Thinking this, she often found herself at the magazine aisle in King’s Market, flipping through the latest Brides magazine.

The only fly in this beautiful, intricate web was Dallas.

It stuck in her craw that he wouldn’t see her, wouldn’t even listen to her. Both Vivi Ann and Noah had dropped the whole thing when Winona told them of Dallas’s reaction. Vivi Ann had sighed and said sadly, “That’s that, then.” Even Noah had accepted it, muttering thanks as he walked away.

But Winona couldn’t let it go. She went to the prison once a week—always on Saturday. Hour after empty hour, she sat in that molded plastic chair in front of the dirty Plexiglas. Week after week, Dallas didn’t show.