I’d Know You Anywhere

“How about we all go to pick up Albie, then make a Rita’s run?”

“All the way over to Grandmother’s?” It was fu

“I’m sure there’s one closer. And if not, there’s always Gifford’s or Baskin-Robbins.”

Iso gave a tiny nod, conferring her favors on Eliza. It was a win-win for Iso. She got a treat, but Albie’s presence would ensure that Eliza didn’t press her. She was a shrewd girl, and Eliza couldn’t help admiring that trait, which she had conspicuously lacked at the same age.

Then again, it was Holly-golden, self-assured Holly, not even a year older than Iso was now-who had gotten into Walter Bowman’s truck for the promise of fifteen dollars, while Eliza was the one he had to drag in by the wrists. Frankly, Eliza didn’t give a shit if Iso had hurt some girl’s feelings by denying her a place at a lunch table. Her fear was that this very same confidence could lead Iso into a situation that she wouldn’t be able to control.

BUT LATER, AS THE WATCHED Iso and Albie eat di

And yet, somewhere else in their own town, perhaps at this very moment, there was a mother who was comforting a child who believed Iso was the enemy.

24

IT WAS NEVER REALLY QUIET on Sussex I. It didn’t matter how many men were here, whether it was close up to full or spindly as it was now, with fifteen men rattling around a unit built for fifty. It was a loud place. The sound was weird, too, hard to pinpoint, whipping around corners and bouncing off walls, almost like a living thing that was stalking them all. Banging someone in, ingrained tradition that it was, was almost painful for Walter, but he wouldn’t deny anyone that honor. After all, he had the distinction of being the only man here who had been welcomed back twice.

Now, lying awake at what he figured to be 1 A.M. or so, he listened to the noises that seemed to prevail at night, roaming the unit like little forest creatures. Pops, whistles, echoes. You would think a person would get used to it, after twenty-plus years, but he still found the night sounds disturbing, and although it was not the noises that wakened him, they made it that much harder to get back to sleep. He thought he might have a condition of sorts, some kind of overly sensitive hearing. His father had hated loud sounds-the television, the radio, all had to be kept at low hums. He said he needed it that way because he spent his days surrounded by clanging and banging. As a young man, Walter had thought his father crotchety. But now that Walter was forty-six, he wondered if it was a change that came with age, if the ears just got plain worn out over time.

Forty-six. His father had been almost that old when Walter was born, his mother a few years younger. He was what they called a change-of-life baby, and he knew the exact moment of his conception: Christmas Eve, or maybe an hour into Christmas Day, after his mother had had some apple brandy. It was, his sister told him once, easy enough to date. It was the only time their parents had sex that year and probably the last time, ever. Of course, his sister could have been teasing. Although she was thirteen years older and should have known better, she had been hard on Walter, jealous of her new sibling. He always thought she resented him for getting the good looks that she could have used. Ugly as a mud fence, as the saying went, and the fact that Walter had never seen a mud fence didn’t get between him and understanding that phrase. His mother said his sister was plain, but Belle-unfortunate name-was ugly, aggressively so, with a lazy eye and a big nose and a witchlike chin. She had been lucky to find a man who wanted to marry her. A decent-looking guy at that, who made a good living. Some men just didn’t respect themselves.

Belle was his only living relative, and she had cut off all contact with him shortly after his parents died, a one-two punch, within six months of each other. Lung cancer had taken his father, and his mother had died from the stew of complications that went with diabetes. They had both been in their seventies, but Belle blamed it all on him, said they had died from the shame of being his parents. Why don’t you die, then? Walter had asked. Belle said she was lucky enough to have her own name and live in a different town, that she had escaped being Walter Bowman’s sister, otherwise she might be dead, too. To which he said: bullshit. He didn’t doubt that his arrest and his trials had been hard on his parents, but-lung cancer, diabetes! The men on Sussex had nothing on God when it came to killing people in painful, prolonged ways. The hardest case here hadn’t taken more than a few hours to kill anyone. God took months, years.

Besides, it wasn’t as if his parents had dropped dead in the immediate aftermath. They had both hung on for seven, eight years. Belle had just been looking for an excuse to cut him off, and once she buried their mother, she had one. She would be almost sixty now, her own children grown and, almost certainly, the source of some heartache for her. And he would be dead short of fifty, if the commonwealth of Virginia had its way. As of this year, he had spent exactly half his life in prison. Walter supposed some would see a neatness to that, a pleasing symmetry.

Walter begged to differ.

He sighed, practiced some techniques recommended for insomnia-breathing, counting, emptying his mind, meditating with the mantra Barbara had supplied him-but he could tell that this was going to be one of those nights where he was destined to lie awake. Sometimes he wondered if a part of his mind was greedy for a few more hours of consciousness, if it was trying to grab every moment of wakefulness it could. It’s okay, buddy, he soothed his fretful subconscious. Don’t count me out yet. We might have years ahead of us, still. Fu

November 25, the fretful half roared back. Less than two months. And you didn’t even get to talk to her today!

It’s okay, he said. It’s okay.

Walter was not the least bit perturbed that Elizabeth had needed to cut their conversation short. He assumed it was something serious-and definitely not a husband requiring a ride from the airport. Fu

He had no doubt that Elizabeth was a good mother. But he was still disappointed that this was all Elizabeth ’s life had amounted to, that this was what she had chosen to do with the great gift he had conferred on her. Ironic, he knew, because he was the one who was always advocating that women return to their natural roles. But he had never meant all women, just those women who took it too far, imagined themselves men. Fact was, he hadn’t always thought about Elizabeth as female, although he could understand why people were confused on that score.