She couldn’t say anything to help him, to help her.
She knew it and he knew it. So they sat, just holding hands because that’s all they could do.
She heard the monotonous whir of the ceiling fan above them. In the distance she could hear paper rustling and voices down the back hallways. Someone laughed somewhere far away, yet she could hear that laughter. It almost seemed mocking. She could smell the acrid scent of the resin they used to polish the wood that was in the room. Then she heard the sound of heels on the floor tiles.
“Time’s up, Wyatt.” The guard looked at her. “Mrs. Wyatt.”
She started to rise, but she realized with something worse than despair that she needed help. So she didn’t move.
Hank stood stiffly and without a word he walked to the door. The guard opened it. Hank turned back, just once, and looked at her.
There was a long and difficult pause, each one desperately trying to reach across the emptiness. But neither Hank nor Margaret knew how.
Hank was truly scared. For the first time in his life something mattered. Four special people. Instinct made him want to kick and fight and beat his way out of there, to grab his family and run like hell back to that island where they could be safe.
But he couldn’t. And he wouldn’t. Because Smitty believed that this god-awful world was fair and equal and that good would triumph over evil and all that other horseshit he’d never believed in. But he’d been willing to try for her and for those kids. For a future with them.
He knew that he would live his whole life over, every shitty day. He’d beg. He’d crawl. He’d relive each second if he could make it through this.
He was not a man who lived his life believing much in God, but now he prayed. He made more promises and more deals with God than he’d ever made with anyone in forty years of living.
Because he had nothing left to bargain with except his black soul. For one last chance at a future worth living, he’d do anything, give anything. He had no pride left. He had nothing, if he didn’t have his family.
* * *
It was earlywhen the telegram came. Almost too early even for Margaret. She heard a bicycle bell ringing, and she jumped out of bed and looked out her bedroom window. The messenger’s bicycle was lying on its side by the front steps.
She threw on her robe, tying it as she ran out the bedroom door and down the stairs. She jerked open the front door just as the messenger had raised his hand to press the door chime.
“Telegram for...” The kid squinted at the envelope. “Harlan Smith and Margaret Huntington Smith
She snatched the envelope from his hand, grabbed a gold coin from her purse on a nearby table, and shoved it at him. “Thanks.”
She stood there staring at the telegram, her heart in her throat. She ripped it open, read it, then read it again.
She reached out and grabbed the edge of the open door, gripping it hard. She took a deep breath. One, then another. A second later she fell to her knees, bent over, and hugged her waist. She sobbed so hard she couldn’t get her breath.
It went on for a long time, those tears, weeks and weeks’ worth of tears. Then she pushed herself up and stood there, taking deep breaths as she tried to stop crying, tried to catch just one full, deep breath. She walked slowly to the staircase, looked up, and called for the children.
Hank heard the guard’s footsteps. The key in the lock, the creaking of the cell door. He blinked in the darkness of the cell, disoriented, jarred from sleep that hadn’t come easily.
“Get up,” was all the guard said. “Follow me.”
Hank stumbled to his feet. They felt as numb as he did. He walked down the small hallway to the outer cell. The guard unlocked the door and slid it open, then waited for him to pass through.
Another guard waited on the other side. The man just turned and walked a few feet. He opened a door to a room Hank hadn’t seen before. He tensed. He looked at the guard holding the door. Neither said anything. Hank slowly went inside.
He saw his father-in-law across the room. The older man turned and just looked at Hank for a moment, then crossed the room and handed him a telegram.
Hank’s hand shook as he reached for it.
This was it.
He took it and stared down at it, unable to focus for a second.
To: The California State Justice Department, San Francisco, California
From: Monsieur Guy De Partain, Laison de Justice, Papeete, Tahiti
