Liquid Smoke

TWENTY-FIVE

The next day, I decided on a different tact. I was frustrated at making little headway and learning virtually nothing about Simington. I knew there was one person who would be able to provide some information, and I had avoided her long enough.

I needed to talk with my mother.

Carolina Braddock and I had reached something resembling a truce for the previous few months. We talked a couple of times a month, had dinner or lunch at least once. I tried to be pleasant, and she tried not to be drunk. We hadn’t erased the discord of the past, but we seemed to be moving forward rather than stalled in the yesteryears.

As I pulled up in front of her house, the place I grew up in and sprinted from the day I was able, I reminded myself that this wasn’t a social call.

This would be business.

The house looked the same as it always did. Not great, not awful. Just indifferent. Patches of brown grass. Cracks in the driveway. Faded paint. Dusty windows. A garage door that never hit the ground squarely.

I stuck my finger on the doorbell and wondered if it would ever change.

Carolina appeared behind the screen door. “Noah,” she said. “This is unexpected.”

My antenna went up. “Pleasant surprise” would have meant she was happy to see me. “Unexpected” said to me that she was partially into a bottle. But this wasn’t a prearranged meeting, so our truce rules weren’t in play.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think to call. Can I come in for a minute?”

“Of course,” she said, pushing the screen open and letting me through.

The living room hadn’t changed a second since I’d been a kid. Same brown corduroy couch and loveseat. An old, cheap coffee table that sported faint crayon marks. Shag carpet that had moved from beige to dirty beige. An old console television against the wall. An attempt to freshen things up with the odor of Lysol.

My childhood tried a full-scale rush into my head, but I slammed the door.

“Sit, sit,” she said, moving the newspaper off the sofa.

She wore a faded blue sweatshirt and jeans. Her brownish-blond hair was pulled away from her face and back into a rubber band. She still looked ten years younger than her age.

“I wasn’t expecting company,” she said, straightening the magazines on the table. “So sorry it’s a mess.”

“It’s fine. I didn’t mean to barge in.”

“You’re never barging. Would you like something to drink?” In this house, that question always felt like a powder keg. “No, I’m good,” I said.

Carolina walked over to the Formica dining room table and picked up a half-empty plastic tumbler. Ice and what looked like lemonade. A slight misstep as she turned back around forced her to catch herself and regain her balance.

Not just lemonade.

She smiled and came back to the sofa, tumbler in hand. “So. How are you?”

“I’m okay,” I said, wondering if the lemonade contained vodka or gin. She loved them both. “You?”

She took a sip of the drink and smiled again. “Good. Really.”

Maybe we had agreed to a truce, but there was nothing we could do about the awkwardness of it all.

“I need to ask you about something,” I said.

She held the cup in both hands, her delicate fingers around it like a vice. “Alright.”

“Actually about someone.”

Her eyes were clear, interested in what I was saying. “Okay.” “Tell me about Russell Simington.”

Her fingers flinched on the big tumbler and anxiety filled the edges around her light blue eyes. She held the tumbler up to her mouth and took a long drink. She brought it down and set it on the table. She readjusted herself on the sofa cushion, her back ramrod straight.

“I haven’t heard that name in quite some time,” she said.

“I’d never heard it until a couple of days ago.”

She folded her hands together, then unfolded them, like she didn’t know what to do with them. I couldn’t blame her. I had just showed up and thrown his name out there. She had probably been wondering what she was going to have to drink with dinner.

“Is this about my never telling you about him?” she asked. “Because you never asked.”

“No, it’s not about that,” I said. “You’re right. I never asked because I didn’t care. I’m not sure that I do now. But a lawyer came to see me.”

Alarm flashed through her eyes. “A lawyer? Why? What does he want from you? He never wanted anything to do with us before.” “He’s in prison,” I said. “On death row.”

She processed that, her mouth a tight line. “Unfortunately, I can’t say I’m surprised. Russell always seemed headed for something like that.”

I moved back into the sofa, ready to let her talk. She cleared her throat and stared at the tumbler, but didn’t reach for it.

“We met in a bar,” she said, a sad smile forming on her face. “I’m sure that’s no great revelation for you. It was out in El Cajon somewhere. I was with friends, and he was shooting pool. We struck up a conversation. He was polite, funny, charming.”

I’d been in a few bars in El Cajon. I’d never seen anyone with those three qualities patronizing them. More like rough, violent, drunk. But I let her go on.

“We dated for a few months,” she said. “He was into some bad things. He didn’t work, but he always had money. There were always hideous-looking people coming to his apartment at all hours of the night.”

“Did you know what those bad things were?” I asked.

“No,” she said, glancing at me. “I didn’t ask. He had a temper, and it always felt like one of those questions that wasn’t possible. And I probably didn’t want to know. I was starting to fall in love with him.”

The image of Carolina and Russell together didn’t fit in my head. But maybe that was because I couldn’t picture him in any way other than behind that glass, in that jumpsuit.

“I got pregnant,” she said, running a hand over her hair. “At first, he seemed to care. He was attentive, we talked a little about the future. I was excited. I wanted a baby. Maybe needed one, to give me direction. I don’t know. Then he came over to my apartment one night. With a gun.” She paused, clearly remembering the moment. “I asked him what it was for and he told me that he needed it, that he couldn’t take any chances. Very vague, but adamant. I told him that if we were going to have a child, he couldn’t keep going like that, doing whatever he was doing. I didn’t want that around my child. We fought, and he left.” She chewed her bottom lip, hesitating. “I wasn’t always a mess, Noah. I’m not sure how or why it turned, but back then? I thought I could be a good parent.”

She reached for the tumbler, stared into it for a moment, then took a drink, closing her eyes.

She placed it on the table again and swung her eyes to me, as sad as I had ever seen them in my lifetime.

“I never saw him again,” she said.