Unwritten Laws 01(19)

“A minute ago you were telling me not to worry.”

“I’m just saying take it seriously. The chance of this going to trial is small. We just need to find a way to nip it in the bud.”

“I hear you.”

“As far as an arrest, I honestly don’t think there’s a cop or a deputy in town who would serve a warrant on your father.”

Shad is probably right about this.

“Call me as soon as you talk to your dad. I can’t stall Lincoln Turner forever. Call my mobile, not my office. You still have the number?”

“I always know how to find you, Shad.”

The DA clicks off.

“Viola Turner,” I murmur, setting down my telephone with a shaking hand.

The district attorney has given me a gift, but only out of self-interest. During one of the most harrowing nightmares this town ever experienced, I discovered a digital photograph of Shadrach Johnson in the act of committing a career-ending felony. And though I gave Shad what I told him was the original SD card containing that image (in exchange for his not running for reelection), he can never be sure that I didn’t keep a copy, and that I won’t use it against him if he pushes me too far.

I glance around my office while my heart tries to find its rhythm again. My gaze wanders over the framed photographs on the wall to my left. Most are family snaps spanning the years from 1960 through the last tumultuous months, which have been filled with work generated by Hurricane Katrina, whose fury reached Natchez two days after it slammed into the Gulf Coast. But centered among the photos of New Orleans refugees and downed trees is a more formal portrait, shot seven years ago by a Houston photographer: the last pristine photograph of my family before my own personal hurricane hit. In this photo I am thirty-eight years old; my wife, Sarah, is thirty-six and vitally, startlingly alive; seated between us is our daughter, Annie, four years old and smiling like a sprite sprung from the dewy grass. My eyes are drawn to Sarah today, for just before this photograph was taken, we’d learned that she had breast cancer, stage IV, already metastasized. Above her smiling lips I see the knowledge of mortality in her eyes, an awareness that only self-deception could suppress, and Sarah was never one for denial. My eyes, too, are freighted with the terrible knowledge that happiness, like life itself, is ineffably fragile. Only Annie’s eyes are clear in the picture, but soon even she would sense the soul-crushing weight pressing down on the adults around her.

This portrait always triggers a flood of memories, both good and bad, but what comes clearest today is the night of Sarah’s death—an experience I rarely revisit, and one I’ve never fully recounted to a living soul. In those final weeks I saw something unfamiliar enter my wife’s eyes—fear. But on the last night it left her, washed out by peace and acceptance. Only the next day did I understand why, and I’ve never asked my father to confirm my judgment. But now my mind superimposes Viola Turner’s beautiful young face upon that of my wife. Viola probably suffered as terribly as Sarah did as death approached (I watched a strong uncle die of lung cancer, and it left me forever shaken). But what I know in this moment is simple: whatever Viola Turner’s son believes my father might have done to his mother last night, he could be right. For where assisted suicide is concerned, one thing is certain:

Dad has done it before.



“MOM, IS DAD HOME?”

“No,” says Peggy Cage, her voice instantly taut with concern. “Is something the matter?”

Instinct says not to reveal too much to my mother. “No, I just wanted to ask him something.”

“Are you sure?” Definite stress in her voice. “You don’t sound like yourself, Penn.”

Trying to fool my mother is a challenge akin to flying a 747 beneath NORAD coastal radar. “There’s a lot going on in City Hall. Do you know where Dad is?”

“I think he’s at his office, working on records. Penn, the last thing you need to do is worry your father over something. His angina hasn’t let up for days, and I know he’s taken at least one nitro already this morning.”

I’d like to ask Mom what time Dad left the house this morning, and also whether he was home last night, but my gut tells me to ask him first. “Seriously, it’s nothing major. I just need to ask him something about his retirement plan.”

“Well, I keep up with most of that information. You know your father. I’m sure I can help you.”

Christ. “No, I need to talk to him.”

A long pause. “All right, then. Try the office.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

Before she can say anything else, I click off. But instead of dialing my father’s office, I set the phone on the cradle and leave my hand on it. For the past few weeks, I’ve assumed that my father, after nearly fifty years of practicing medicine, has been dealing with his traumatic but inevitable decision to retire. Seven weeks ago he suffered a myocardial infarction that he survived only by virtue of luck and heroic medical intervention. Had not my mother, one of the most compulsively prepared humans on the planet, insisted that Dad keep portable defibrillators both in their house and at his clinic, my father would probably be dead now. He always argued that defibrillators only helped in certain types of heart attacks, so keeping them around didn’t justify the cost. Thus, no one was more surprised than Dad when, after dropping to the floor in his office, he was brought back to life by his young partner, Drew Elliott, using the defib unit Mom had demanded be always ready to hand.