Freedom’s Child

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Anyway. The suicidal thoughts come and go as they please. I have no control over them I’ll have you know, it’s a full-time job. Mental illness, if that’s what you want to call it. I’m telling ya, Doc, I’m merely eccentric. It’s like constantly hosting a huge party for all these guests you really don’t care for. Truly. Those unwanted guests who want to eat all your food and don’t grasp the first million hints to get the hell out of your home. I think that’s the best way to describe it. I have reached my destination.

The spray of the ocean is at its warmest this time of year, but the air is colder as I climb onto the craggy rocks in the pitch black underneath a moonless night. All that’s to be heard are the sounds of oxygenated bubbles rising to the bottom of the bottle and the crashes of salt below. The scotch burns, and so I cough it out into the gusts that knot up my red hair.

* * *

I think back to the day I knew I’d never see my kids again. That was twenty years ago. The word dismissed ricocheted around in my skull for two weeks after I was released from prison. Dismiss: verb. To order or allow to leave; to send away. Vanessa Delaney, the charge of second-degree murder against you is to be dismissed with prejudice.

I sat in an office behind chambers in family court, not far from where I was charged with killing my husband two years prior. I waited for Sharon Goodwyn, a plump and pale woman with no nose, only holes in her face that made her look like a black-haired swine. She was the caseworker in charge of overseeing my children’s adoption after I was charged. And I hadn’t seen her since. But I remember her well, and I remember wishing that some homeless diseased freak would jump her in an alleyway for taking pride in a case that took away my children even though I was wrongfully accused.

Back when I was brought before the judge, I said not one word, not even when he asked me to speak. It was pointless. Even if I thought it would have made one lick of difference, which, trust me, it wouldn’t have, I still kept my mouth shut as a big fat fuck-you to the system, leaving everyone in the court asking, “What goes on in that crazy woman’s head?”

I had nothing nice to say. Not at all. My silence was perceived as an act of apathy, but it was more of a reaction to the constant voice in my head that said, Don’t do anything, because it will be stupid. That voice was right. I was ready to snap my good-for-nothing attorney’s neck and lick the blood off my fingers like I had just eaten the best southern fried chicken of my life. But no. Instead I stayed quiet. Quiet on the outside. People expected me to speak. My silence was a protest against them too, now that I think about it. Boy, do I remember the faces of my ex-in-laws, the Delaneys.

“Hello, Ms Delaney,” said Ms Goodwyn when she entered, her briefcase bouncing off her gut. She didn’t make eye contact with me. I wouldn’t have either. Having to face the mother of the children you took knowing she’s innocent? I had to give it to her, she had a set of brass balls, though she probably ate them too.

“I want my fucking children back,” I demanded. She looked at me like she was seven shades of offended.

“Don’t use that tone with me,” she said as she opened her briefcase. I exhaled as deeply as I could and made sure she heard it. I wanted her to know my patience was as thin as paper. She started to jot notes in one of the hundred files.

“Would you be so kind”—I crossed my hands and brought them to my chin with puppy-dog eyes—“as to give me my goddamn children back, Your Fucking Highness.”

“Nessa, it’s not that simple.”

“Why the hell not?”

Sharon Goodwyn got short with me. “Because you gave up your parental rights.” She pointed her pen in my face and it took all that I had not to take it and ram it through that pig nose of hers.

“They were taken from me because of the murder charge.”

“There were other options …” She trailed off into her papers.

“Like what?”

“Like what?” She closed the file. “Let’s say the Delaneys, for starters.”

“Those crackheads?” I laughed as I lit a cigarette. “I guess you’re not familiar with that family. Not a fucking chance in hell.”

“You can’t smoke in here.”

“So arrest me.”

“I’m going to be frank with you, Nessa.” She sighed. “A lot of this is out of my hands.” She slid a piece of paper over to me, one with my signature on the bottom. “The second you signed this, you made it damn near impossible to ever get those kids back, even if I had nothing to do with it.” But I remembered the choice being taken out of my hands when I was facing a life term, the way they said that it was what was best for them since I’d be rotting the rest of my life away in prison. And if that were the case, they’d be right. But I wasn’t rotting in prison, not anymore. “Nessa, this can take years. And even then, the chances are slim.”

I put out my smoke because she was trying her best to be civil with me. I’m not saying I liked her any better, I’m only saying I put out a fucking cigarette. I hated the fact that she had to see it, but I couldn’t control the tears that came. “Can I not even see them?” I cried.

“I can put in a request to the family they’re with, but, ultimately, it will be up to them.”

“They’re together?”

“Yes. We do try our best to keep siblings together.” I used my shirt to dry my face. She looked at me with pity, and there’s nothing I hated more. “I’ve met them. I did the home study on them. I’m telling you, they’re with a great family. Very loving.”

I had a lot to consider, more than most people in their lifetimes ever have to consider. Maybe the swine was right. I mean, I knew the U.S. Marshals were waiting outside, since Witness Protection had already been offered to me. And what kind of life is that for children? And if I didn’t go into Witness Protection, God knows what would happen if the Delaneys ever got to us now that Matthew Delaney was up on charges for Mark’s murder.

Suddenly, I craved my son’s skin. His laugh. I wanted to hear the breaths of my daughter, whom I hadn’t seen since I gave birth to her in a prison hospital. I craved their small hands, their tiny fingers wrapped around mine. I craved the beating of their hearts against mine when they’d fall asleep on me. And more than ever, I craved their happiness.

“I assure you,” Sharon Goodwyn continued. “They’re happy there. And they will have a wonderful life with this family. I promise. It truly is the best thing you can do for them. It’s the best thing that any loving mother can do.”

But I had a plan.

I jumped up and flipped the table between us into the air and screamed something awful, something unintelligible. I kicked the walls, forcing the caseworker to her fat little feet and to hobble to the door. Two U.S. Marshals whom I’d never met tried to squeeze past Sharon in the doorway to get to me. But before they could, I’d already put my fist through the window. Glass severing my vein wasn’t part of the plan, however. Blood squirted and poured; horror washed the color out of their faces.

“HIV-positive,” I yelled to the men. It was the only thing that came to mind to keep them back. “I’m HIV-positive and if you come near me, I’ll aim for your eyes and mouth, I swear on everything that is holy!” They didn’t come any closer as I crouched down and shuffled through the files that Sharon had left on the floor. And the plan worked.

I memorized the details: Virgil and Carol Paul, Goshen, Kentucky.

And then I fainted from the blood loss.

* * *

“Mattley.” The voice sounds far away, through what sounds like TV static and distant foghorns. “Help me out here. This woman is hurt.”

“Whootha …” I try to ask, pretty pissed that this guy has a bright-ass flashlight in my face.

“She’s not hurt, she’s just drunk,” says the all-too-familiar voice. Fucking great.

“Awwficer Matt … Lee … is that you?” I try to formulate sentences, words, anything. I struggle to sit up on the rocks.

“That’s just Freedom. C’mon. Help me get her up,” Officer Mattley sighs as he helps me up.

“Don’t, you fuckin’ raper … rapist … rape.”

“She always says this,” Mattley tells his new partner. “Always afraid cops have nothing better to do than comb the rocks for drunk women and rape them.” They help me to my feet, but I can stand for only a few seconds at a time; my bones become rubber bands. They are relentless sexual predators. I can swear this when I’m drunk. Sober? I really respect Officer Mattley. In fact, I’m head-over-heels in love with the guy. But if you try to tell me while I’m drunk that you’re not there to rape me? I’ll just scream it louder. And Mattley knows how I am when I get drunk. He’s one in a very few who knows how to deal with me in this state. “Yes, Freedom, I want to … you know.” I see him cringe at the thought. “But only if you get in the car.”

The rape that occurred twenty years ago never really left me. I don’t talk about it, don’t really think about it. But when alcohol livens up the darkest corners of my brain, those alleys where many of my skeletons dance, they just spew the most cringe-worthy parts of my mind, of that rape, right out of my mouth. The liquor dissolves any filters that I might have been born with. I don’t mean for it. When I black out, those demons like to come out.

“OK,” I say as I walk with them to the car. For the record, he’d never in a million years do such a thing. But for whatever reason, this works when I’m drunk.

“Matt … Lee,” I dribble in the backseat of the cop car. “This new cop is newbie, new. Is he gonna rape me too?”

“What?” asks the new partner with shock. This amuses me. I see Mattley in the driver’s seat nudge the new guy.

Mattley answers from behind the steering wheel. “He says he will, but only if you promise to go to sleep as soon as we get you home, OK?”

“Fan-fucking-tastic.” Everything around me is distorted. “Tell him I like it rough,” I slur.

“I will, Freedom.” Mattley starts the car. “Just try and get to sleep fast, then, OK?”

“Sir, yes, sir.” I begin to sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

“Quick, turn around and grab her head,” Mattley yells to the newbie.

“What?” he responds. Is that all this guy knows how to say? What? Mattley skids the car to a stop on the soft shoulder. He turns from the front seat and grabs my head, right as I’m about to head-butt the window. Don’t ask me why I do the things I do when I am drunk, I just do. I hurt myself constantly, try to start fights so I get hurt, I feel I deserve to be raped, I’ll sleep with anyone with hopes that they’re sadistic just to feel the pain. This goes back to the glutton-for-punishment thing, I suppose.

After a small struggle, I give up on trying to break the window with my forehead. I think at one point I bite his hand. Probably. Mattley sighs with heaviness and turns to his partner.

“Next time I tell you to do something quick, do it quick and ask about it later.” He’s composed. See? That’s what I love about Mattley. The coolest and most collected man you’d ever meet. “When Freedom starts singing ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow,’ she’s about to hurt herself.”

“So, now what?” the kid asks. “We put her in the drunk tank for the night?”

“No.” I scream bloody murder, as loud as I can, and throw myself around the backseat like a slug on a salt mine. I lie on my side to kick the shit out of the back of the front seat.

“No, Freedom, don’t worry. I promise we won’t take you to jail, got it?” Mattley has a way of calming me down, but it always takes a few attempts. He really should be canonized for his patience. Saint Mattley. “There’s no point. She’ll be like this the day after tomorrow too,” he explains to the newbie. We pull up to my house. What a fucking depressing sight. Mattley pushes me up the steps to my shoddy apartment.

“Have I ever told you about Layla and Ethan?” I ask him. “Only now they’re Rebekah and Mason, or some stupid shit like that. I mean, who names their kids Rebekah and Mason? Amiright?”

“Shush now, Freedom. No need for any of that. You just get some sleep,” Mattley hushes as we reach the second story.

“Quakers! Quakers name their kids names like that.” I begin to laugh. “Like that Quaker Oats man on the oatmeal cans with the white curly wig.” Suddenly, I do my best impression of a Quaker. “Ho, ho, ho, I’m a fucking Quaker, and my Quaker offspring shall be called Rebekah and Mason Quaker Walton,” as I mock in a Santa Claus voice. I actually don’t know anything about Quakers.

He directs the conversation to Newbie, who stands behind in case I fall. Even I’m surprised I haven’t yet. Mattley knows to never take me through the front entrance. I just can’t stand the sight of the meth-head super, hate him telling me to keep it down. Sometimes it turns ugly, if I’ve had enough to drink. “Never mind what she’s saying. Just grab her key from under that plant.” He motions to the fake plant on the wooden fire escape at my front door on the second story of the building. And what fucking good are wooden fire escapes, anyway? Mattley carries me to my bed, kicking the mess in the dark with his toes.

“Try and go to sleep, Freedom.” God, I love his plummy voice. It’s audio Valium. I look up at Officer Mattley in the dark. He’s a stern copper with most everyone else, but for whatever reason, gentle with me. He feels sorry for me and I hate it. I don’t need anyone’s pity. I’m no victim. Faint white light from the shades paints him into a recognizable being in the bedroom. I can smell his spearmint gum and see his bald head, but he’s sexy. Good Lord, he is a sexy man.

Mattley helps my head onto the pillow and grabs a few blankets from the floor to drape over me. I pretend I’m dead. I pretend he wraps me in a sheet to take me to the morgue. I shut my eyes. I will have no recollection of any of this in the morning. Mattley is a good soul. I truly love his soul. Too bad he’s a Goody Two-Shoes, and too bad I’m the town drunk and too bad for a lot of things.

“Mattley, I need a huge favor.”

“What’s that, Freedom?”

“Those letters in the living room.” I point to piles by the hundred. “If anything were to happen.”

“We’ll talk about it when you’re sober, hon.”

“Third-Day Adventists. Mason and Rebekah Paul, Goshen, Kentucky.”

Mattley strokes my forehead for just a second. “Get some rest and forget all that.”

12 (#ulink_70598c15-b8d3-57c9-a67a-c48001e642b8)

The Firm and the Archangel (#ulink_70598c15-b8d3-57c9-a67a-c48001e642b8)

Glass flutes of gold ascend into the air with the cheers and salutations of the firm of Tyndall, Finn, and Moore, Esquire. Tight collars, crooked smiles, and ugly ties welcome Mason back to the office after this morning’s high-profile victory, when an all-star college football player was found not guilty by a jury of his peers of sexually assaulting his eighteen-year-old one-night stand. Guilty as sin, innocent thanks to a few motions submitted, sprinkled with a few objections against the assistant district attorney and a flood of press releases and exposure of the defendant, a would-be valedictorian and prospective NFL star. The photo of the victim giving him a lap dance moments before the alleged rape was the golden ticket, the smoking gun. Mason tries not to remember the look of horror on the victim’s face after the verdict was read out; he can’t afford to. He clenches his jaw and fights the thought from his head; he’s on a winning streak, so close to becoming a senior associate out of so many others clawing up for the position, the opportunity of a lifetime. Can’t let something as petty as compassion ruin a good thing.

“Way to go, Mason.”

“Mason the Caisson, full of ammunition and out on a mission.”

“Thatta kid.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” as Mason tolerates the discomfort of his shoulders being squeezed. “Piece of cake.” Sylvester Moore, known as Sly, hands him a glass of champagne, but Mason takes it with disdain. He sees the way Sly looks at Violet every time she walks by, the way he touches her shoulder, her back at every opportunity. But Mason lets it slide and pretends not to notice. He raises his glass along with the others, “Here’s to truth, justice, the American way. Oh, and standing next to your ugly mugs along the way.” The men beam into the glasses, feet in the air. “I need this vacation.” The words echo back from the glass. But Mason feels the weight on his shoulders, the burden that he’s responsible for helping a rapist get away with it.