Joyce was five minutes late to the café, and John was sweating it out over the fact that he’d had to pay three dollars for a cup of coffee just to be able to sit at one of the tables when she rushed in. She looked harried, her sunglasses pushed onto the top of her head, her long brown hair down around her shoulders.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, pulling out a chair and sitting across from him. She left about six inches between her and the table, even more space between her and John.
“You want some coffee?” He started to stand to get it for her but she stopped him with a terse shake of her head.
“I’ve got to meet some friends in ten minutes.” She hadn’t even taken off her coat. “I don’t know why I called you.”
“I’m glad you did.”
She looked out the windows. There was a movie theater across the way and she was watching the people who were standing in line.
John pulled the Christmas card out of his pocket, glad he had gone for the more expensive one. Three sixty-eight, but it had glitter on the outside and the inside was folded so that when you opened it, a snowflake popped up. Joyce had loved pop-up books when they were little. He could remember her giggling over one that had farm animals jumping off the pages.
He held out the card. “I got you this.”
She didn’t take it, so he set it on the table, slid it toward her. He had spent most of last night testing out his thoughts on notebook paper, not wanting to give her a card with words scratched out or worse, to write something stupid that would ruin the card and make him have to buy a new one. In the end, he had simply signed it, “love, John,” knowing there was nothing else he could say.
He asked, “What have you been up to?”
She focused back on him as if she had forgotten he was there. “Work.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Me, too.” He tried to make a joke of it. “Not like what you do, but somebody has to clean those cars.”
She obviously didn’t think he was funny.
He stared at his cup, rolling it in his hands. Joyce was the one who had called him, inviting him to this place where he couldn’t even afford a sandwich off the menu, yet he felt like the bad guy.
Maybe he was the bad guy.
He asked her, “Do you remember Woody?”
“Who?”
“Cousin Woody, Lydia’s son.”
She shrugged, but said, “Yeah.”
“Do you know what he’s up to?”
“Last I heard, he joined the army or something.” Her eyes flashed. “You’re not going to try to get in touch with him again?”
“No.”
She leaned forward, urgent. “You shouldn’t, John. He was bad news then and I’m sure he hasn’t changed now.”
“I won’t,” he said.
“You’ll end up back in jail.”
Would she care? he wondered. Would it be better for her if he was back at Coastal instead of living right under her nose? Joyce was the only living person in the entire world who remembered John the way he used to be. She was like a precious box where all his childhood memories were stored, only she had thrown away the key the minute the police had dragged him out the front door.
Joyce sat back in her chair. She looked at her watch. “I really should go.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Your friends are waiting.”
She met his eyes for the first time since she’d walked in. She saw he knew she was lying.
Her tongue darted out and she licked her lips. “I went to see Mom last weekend.”
John blinked back sudden tears. In his mind, he saw the cemetery, pictured Joyce standing at his mother’s grave. The buses didn’t go out there and a cab would cost sixty dollars. John didn’t even know what his mother’s headstone looked like, what inscription Joyce had decided on.
“That’s why I called you,” she told John. “She would’ve wanted me to see you.” She shrugged. “Christmas.”
He bit his lip, knowing if he opened his mouth he would start crying.
“She always believed in you,” Joyce said. “She never once thought you were guilty.”
His chest ached from the effort of reining in his emotions.
“You ruined everything,” Joyce told him, almost incredulous. “You ruined our lives, but she wouldn’t give up on you.”
People were looking, but John didn’t care. He had apologized to her for years—in letters, in person. Sorry didn’t mean anything to Joyce.
“I can’t blame you for hating me,” he told her, wiping a tear with the back of his hand. “You have every right.”
“I wish I could hate you,” she whispered. “I wish it was that easy.”
“I would hate you if you had done…”
“Done what?” She was leaning over the table again, an edge of desperation in her voice. “Done what, John? I read what you said to the parole board. I know what you told them. Tell me.” She slapped her hand on the table. “Tell me what happened.”
He pulled a napkin from the container on the table and blew his nose.
She wouldn’t let up. “Every time you were up in front of the board, every time you spoke to them, you told them you weren’t guilty, that you wouldn’t say that you had done it just so you could get out.”
He took another napkin so he’d have something to do with his hands.
“What changed, John? Was it Mom? You didn’t want to disappoint her? Is that what it is, John? Now that Mom’s gone, you could finally tell the truth?”
“She wasn’t gone when I said it.”
“She was wasting away,” Joyce hissed. “She was in that hospital bed wasting away and all she could think about was you. ‘Look after Johnny,’ she kept saying. ‘Don’t let him be alone in there. We’re all he has.’ ”
John heard himself sob, a bark like a seal that echoed in the restaurant.
“Tell me, John. Just tell me the truth.” Her voice was quiet. Like their father, she didn’t like to show her feelings. The more upset she got, the lower her tone tended to be.
“Joyce—”
She put her hand on his. She had never touched him before, and he could feel her desperation flowing through her fingertips and needling under his skin. “I don’t care anymore,” she said, more like a plea. “I don’t care if you did it, Johnny. I really don’t. I just want to know for myself, for my own sanity. Please—tell me the truth.”
Her hands were beautiful, so delicate, with such long fingers. Just like Emily’s.
“John, please.”
“I love you, Joyce.” He reached into his back pocket and took out a folded piece of paper. “Something is going to happen,” he said. “Something bad that I don’t think I can stop.”
She took her hand away, moved back in her chair. “What are you talking about, John? What have you gotten mixed up in?”
“Take this,” he said, putting the credit report on top of the Christmas card. “Just take this and know that whatever happens, I love you.”
John hadn’t brought the Fairlane with him, but he didn’t want Joyce to see him waiting at the bus stop outside the entrance to the mall so he jogged up the street toward Virginia-Highland, catching MARTA there. He didn’t want to go home, couldn’t face his roach-infested hovel or his fellow rapists in the hallway, so he went to the Inman Park station and picked up the Fairlane.