Accused

TWENTY-TWO

They were dressed for church the next morning when Rebecca came downstairs looking like she hadn't slept all night. Scott caught Karen giving Bobby a quick glance.

"Where are y'all going?"

"To church," Scott said.

"You go to church now?"

"Pajamae got us going."

"You want to go with us, Mother?"

"Maybe next week, honey. I couldn't sleep. Anyone make coffee?"

"I liked that preacher," Pajamae said. "He was interesting."

They were driving back from church down Broadway when Scott spotted the red Corvette parked on 40th Street adjacent to the Old City Cemetery. He pulled over and parked.

"I'll be right back."

Consuela was up front, and Maria was sleeping in her car seat between the girls in the back. Scott got out and stepped over the low rock wall bordering the cemetery. A woman stood alone among the graves. He walked toward her, staying on the grid of sunken sidewalks fronting the graves of Confederate soldiers, members of the old Galveston families, and victims of the Great Storm, past gravestones and tombstones and family mausoleums, and cracked and weathered statues of Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and an angel with one wing broken off. Rebecca was wearing sunglasses and a black wig. She was standing over Trey Rawlins' grave, and she was crying.

"I guess you never really know someone," she said.

"Were you happy with him?"

She nodded. "I loved him. I thought he loved me. But I didn't know the truth."

Scott thought of Trey Rawlins' all-American image and the real Trey Rawlins he was getting to know. What else would he learn about the man lying in that grave?

"I'm sorry," she said.

"For what?"

"Because now I know how much I hurt you."

"Rebecca, you need to stay at the house. I don't want Renee Ramirez to know where you're at."

"That's why I wore the wig."

"The wig works, but not the car. Everyone on the Island knows you drive that red Corvette."

"Oh."

"Where'd you get the wig?"

"From my closet. I told Bobby to bring everything."

They played tourist that day. Scott tried to put the murder trial out of his mind and to be a father instead of a lawyer, at least for a day. The top attraction on the Island is Moody Gardens, a 242-acre, "public, non-profit educational destination utilizing nature in the advancement of rehabilitation, conservation, recreation and research." Three glass pyramids rise tall above the Island at Moody Gardens: the blue Aquarium Pyramid, where the girls shrieked at the sharks and posed with the penguins; the pink Discovery Pyramid, where they toured the "Forgotten Gateway: Coming to America through Galveston Island" exhibit which explained the history of immigration in Galveston, an entry point into America for white Europeans and African slaves-Negroes and cotton had been bought and sold on the docks of Galveston; and the white Rainforest Pyramid, where they touched the turtles and chased the birds and butterflies flying about the ten-story-tall, one-acre-under-glass living rainforest with plants, birds, bugs, and fish from Asian, African, and South American rainforests. The tarantulas creeped out Pajamae, but Boo thought the Macaws were cool. They took an extreme log ride in the IMAX RideFilm Theater and smelled the dinosaurs in the 4D Special FX film Walking with Dinosaurs. They took a ride on the Colonel Paddlewheel Boat and then finished the day swimming and playing on the white sand at the Palm Beach pool. Rebecca looked stunning in her black wig and white bikini.

She had recovered from her morning melancholy. She acted upbeat and energetic. She laughed and played with the girls. It was as if the knowledge of Trey's affairs had released her from his hold. As if she were free of Trey Rawlins. Over him. She was a different woman. When they walked out to the cars, Boo stopped Scott and said, "Mother's changed. She smiles… she's sweet… she sweats. I like her again."

Late that afternoon they played a game of touch football on the beach. Consuela, Maria, and Karen sat under a big beach umbrella and cheered. It was supposed to be two-hand touch, but Rebecca put a full-body tackle on Scott; he didn't complain. Afterwards, he walked up to the house to check on the final round of the Houston Classic, but stopped on the deck and looked back at Rebecca. She and Boo were walking hand in hand far down the beach. They were growing close again. He wondered what an eleven-year-old girl talked to her mother about.

"Would you mind having sex with A. Scott?"

" Boo. "

Mother had a shocked expression.

"What?"

"You know about sex?"

Boo nodded. "Health class."

"I should've been there, to talk with you about it."

"A. Scott tried to, but he was pretty lame. He gave us a book, with drawings."

"So why are you asking?"

"A. Scott needs sex."

"He's not dating anyone?"

"Nunh-unh. Ms. Dawson-she's the fourth-grade teacher-she's got a big crush on him, but he won't ask her out."

"Why not?"

" 'Cause of you."

"Is she pretty?"

"Very."

"Prettier than me?"

"No."

Mother smiled a little.

"Do you want him to date someone?"

"He has us, but he needs someone his own age. And he needs sex. I told him Ms. Dawson would probably have sex with him."

"Why?"

" 'Cause she's got the hots for him."

"No. Why does he need sex?"

"So he doesn't have a heart attack."

" A heart attack? "

"Unh-huh. From the stress."

"Is he under a lot of stress?"

Boo nodded. "He's not making much money, because he represents poor people who can't pay. I think we're broke."

"I didn't know."

"He tries not to let on, but he's worried. And he won't take any of the medicine he's supposed to take, so sex is the only hope for him. So we were thinking-me and Pajamae-that maybe you could have sex with A. Scott again so he doesn't die on us?"

"Well, I guess I could try. For his health."

Donnie Parker won the Houston Classic. He didn't look like a killer.

Pete Puckett did. He was good with guns and better with knives. He had killed and gutted animals. He had had his hands in blood. He had threatened to kill Trey if he didn't stay away from Billie Jean, and Trey didn't. Had Pete carried through on his threat? Did he have his hands in Trey's blood? Did he stab that butcher knife into Trey Rawlins' chest? Scott needed Pete's fingerprints to prove Pete Puckett guilty and Rebecca Fenney innocent, but Pete would be in New York all week for the U.S. Open. He wasn't fleeing the country, so Pete Puckett's prints would have to wait until the tour returned to Texas. And Rebecca Fenney's fate would have to wait another week.

They cooked hamburgers and drank beer on the beach that night. At ten, Scott tucked the girls in bed then went out on the back deck where he found Rebecca standing alone at the far railing. She was still wearing that white bikini. The sea breeze blew her hair and brought her scent to Scott.

"Boo says you're stressed because you're broke."

"She's a thirty-year-old woman trapped in an eleven-year-old body."

"She also said you need sex. She's worried you'll have a heart attack, said you refuse to take your medications."

"My medications?" Scott laughed. "They want me to take every heart drug advertised on TV."

"So you're not having heart problems?"

"No. The girls just worry. Bill Barnes-you remember him? — he died of a heart attack."

"Oh, my God."

"Ever since, the girls have worried I'll have a heart attack, too."

"Is it true?"

"That I need sex?"

"That you're broke?"

"Yep, I'm broke. But I have options."

"Such as?"

"Ford Fenney. Dan Ford offered to change the firm's name, pay me a million a year to come back."

"Are you going to?"

"Not if Option B comes through."

"What's Option B?"

"Judge Fenney."

"You're going to run for judge?"

"Appointed. Federal bench. Sam Buford's dying of cancer, wants me to replace him. But that requires the U.S. senators from Texas to back me."

"Oh."

"Yeah. Oh."

"And I'm not helping, am I? My case? What if Option B doesn't come through? Do you want to go back to the firm?"

"No. But I will. For the girls. So they don't have to lie to survive."

"But what about your life? Your happiness?"

"Theirs comes first."

"So you'll never have the life you always wanted?"

"I made too many mistakes to have the life I wanted."

"Me. I was your mistake."

"It wasn't your fault, Rebecca."

"I had the affair."

"But I had the career. I didn't give you the attention you needed."

"And I had the Highland Park lifestyle, shopping and society balls, wearing five-thousand-dollar dresses."

"You paid five thousand dollars for a dress?"

"You paid two hundred thousand for the Ferrari."

He smiled. "I did." He shook his head. "That car was so…"

"Sweet?"

"I was going to say arrogant. But it was a sweet car. Sid's driving it now."

" Sid Greenberg? In your Ferrari? Now that's just wrong." She laughed. "It's a nice night, let's take a walk."

They went down the stairs and onto the beach. The sand felt warm and soft on his bare feet. The moonlight off the water provided enough light to walk the beach.

"Desolate out here," Scott said.

"Since Ike. Except for the birders during the spring and fall migrations. They come from all over the country, the birds and the birders. We get ducks, herons, loons, falcons, hawks, sandpipers, yellow-bellied sapsuckers…"

"Didn't know you were into birds."

"They're pretty."

So was she.

"You always wear bikinis?"

She shrugged. "I live on a beach. You don't like it?"

"No, I like it. You like living out here?"

"I did."

"Bobby says Lafitte supposedly buried his treasure out here somewhere. He's been reading the tourist guide in bed. Pregnant wife."

"That's the legend. No one's found it yet." She was quiet then she said, "I thought I had found happiness out here."

They walked down the beach a distance before she spoke again.

"This last week, Scott, it's been like the old times."

"Except for a pending murder trial."

"Except for that. When do I take the polygraph?"

"Karen's setting it up. You're not worried?"

"I have nothing to worry about. I'm innocent."

"Prisons are full of innocent people."

"Okay, now I'm worried."

"Sorry."

She laughed. "I'm not worried because you're my lawyer." She paused then said, "Scott, why are you my lawyer? Why are you doing this? Because you still love me?"

"Because you're still Boo's mother."

"She's lucky."

"That you're her mother?"

"That you're her father." She took his hand. "But you do still love me, don't you?"

The night air had a hint of cool. She put her arm through his and leaned into him as they strolled. He felt her skin against his, and he thought of all the times their bodies had been skin to skin. He missed those times. She abruptly stopped, turned to him, and kissed him. She pressed her body against his, and he felt the old desire for this beautiful woman rise in him again. Like the old times.

When he was at Ford Stevens, the male lawyers had often gathered after-hours and drank and talked about women and marriage, about how the heat of passion they had initially enjoyed had subsided after a year or two of marriage and it was only then that they had gotten to know their wives as people rather than objects of desire. For some of the lawyers, that had not been a good thing; they soon divorced and rediscovered the passion with a younger woman. The others had settled into a marriage in which children replaced passion. They had accepted the tradeoff-little league baseball in place of passionate sex-as an inevitable fact of life. Of course, Dan Ford's take on the matter was more succinct: "Hell, Scott," he had said, "marriage isn't about love; it's about survival." But then, Dan had always been a romantic bastard.

Scott had listened to the other lawyers complain about their sex lives, and he had felt lucky. Because his wife and his marriage were different. He had it better than those other lawyers. He had Rebecca. From the moment their eyes had first met and their hands had touched and their desire for each other had risen inside them, and for the next eleven years of marriage, sex had been as much a part of their life as breathing. It was as if sex were their reason for breathing. They had had sex anywhere and everywhere, anytime and all the time. Their heat for each other had never subsided… until she had taken up with Trey. Her passion had found another man but his had never found another woman. He had always wanted her, physically and desperately. He still wanted her. And she wanted him again.

"Are you healthy enough for sexual activity?" she said.

Breaking through the heat was Boo's admonition to use a condom.

"Rebecca…"

She released him and skipped down the sand, her arms spread and turning in circles. Then she stopped and faced him. She untied her top and tossed it aside. She pushed the bikini bottom down and kicked it away. Then she ran into the surf.

"Come on-for your health."

He went to her.

He embraced her and lifted her and kissed her, hard this time, and he wanted her as desperately as the first time. And it felt like the first time as the heat consumed them, and they touched each other. He had missed the heat of passion. He had missed being one with a woman. And he would miss it now. He had failed again.

"Sorry, it's been a while."

She smiled. "Don't worry-there'll be more opportunities."

She dove into an oncoming wave then surfaced and brushed her hair back with her fingers. The moonlight captured her face.

"God, I love the water," she said. "Being in it, on it."

They sat in the gentle surf. She pointed out to sea. The lights of the offshore drilling rigs twinkled in the night sky.

"Cancun is seven hundred fifty miles that way."

They sat in silence for a time then she said, "Scott, if I'm not… well, you know… we could try again. I'm not the woman who left you. I know a lot more now. I know you're the best man I'll ever know. And I know who I am now. I'm not the beauty queen or the society belle anymore, and I don't want to be. I know I don't deserve her or you, but I want to be her mother again. I want to be your wife again. If you both can forgive me." She turned to him. "Scott, maybe we can both have the life we always wanted."

"Missy Dupree made chair of the Cattle Barons' ball."

" Missy Dupree? Oh, God! She's so… me two years ago… except she's enhanced." Rebecca smiled. "Remember what I wore to the last ball? Powder blue fringed suede miniskirt and silk halter top, matching cowboy boots, and a pink suede cowboy hat. I spent days putting that outfit together."

"You looked good. How much did it cost?"

She laughed now. "You don't want to know. What'd you do with it?"

"Sold it. We had a yard sale."

"In Highland Park?"

"Yeah, it was quite the event."

"I can only imagine." She shook her head. "Society balls, social climbing, gossiping about other women at lunch…"

"What'd you call it?"

"Scandal souffle. I'm sure they had a field day with me back then

… and now. Rebecca Fenney on trial for murder and defended by her ex-husband-that'll keep them busy all summer." She turned to him. "When is the trial?"

"We'll find out in the morning."

The sea offered the only sounds for a time, until Rebecca spoke.

"Did you miss me?"

"Every day."

Scott stared out to sea. She was right: he did still love her. But should a lawyer love his client? Could he think like a lawyer if he loved her like a man? Was Melvyn Burke right, that a lawyer can only defend his client, not love her, too? That this case would destroy his career and his life? And what secrets was Melvyn Burke hiding behind the attorney-client privilege?