Chapter 2: Release

IT RAINED THE morning I walked out of San Quentin. Drucker, the corrections officer on the East Gate, watched me leave. No “good luck” or “take care.” I didn’t expect any greeting. The officers weren’t particularly hostile, except maybe for one or two, but they weren’t friendly, either. I’d heard the lifers in their wing got to know their guards a little. Maybe so, but not the ones around me.

Three years, release on parole after eighteen months, for a rape I did not commit. I didn’t do it. I know that in my mind and in my heart. I’m pretty sure of that.

In the good old summer time, hm hm hm...

“Christopher! Over here!” Mom and Dad and Nicole waited in the rain beside the Jeep. I ran as fast as I could, awkwardly, while the plastic bag of clothes and stuff from my cell I wanted to keep banged against my leg.

Nicole stepped out to greet me and all of a sudden my arms were full of wet little sister. Without thinking I dropped the bag and kissed her and held her tight. I felt her muscles move as she squirmed to get closer. I hugged her tighter then, and she laughed when we broke the kiss.

“Nice hug, big brother!”

I let her go and swatted her rump and turned to greet Mom. She squeezed me and trembled and her warm tears touched my cheek. Dad’s not a hugger but today he did. I felt something, call it contentment, call it warmth, I don’t know, but with my arms around parents and sister I was almost complete, except I really wasn’t.

“Mom, what about Ellie?”

Mom’s tears started again. Dad looked away. Nicole began to cry. Mom spoke into my neck.

“She knows what she remembers and what she learned at your trial and she knows you, Christopher. She doesn’t know what to believe.”

I knew why. Ellie’s family said I’d done it and for them that was that. They wouldn’t listen to me, to reason. As far as I knew, the whole town thought I was guilty.

Sometimes I wondered if they might be right.

In the good old summer time, hm hm hm...

Ellie lived down the block from me. We’d gone to school every morning together as soon as we were old enough to walk without a parent or older brother or sister. Mateo, Ellie’s twin, often walked with us. I remembered how much fun it was to hold hands as we walked. Sometimes all three of us held hands, Ellie in the middle. The older kids laughed. “Puppy love!” I didn’t care. Ellie didn’t, either. She went off with her girlfriends to one end of the playground as soon as we arrived at school. Mateo and I joined the guys at the other end of the playground in a solid game of dodge ball.

At the end of recess everyone raced for the water fountain. I had to be first, even if I sometimes had to elbow out another kid, boy or girl, who’d gotten ahead of me. I always had to be first. I was special. I was the best.

After the last bell we always met out front of the school.

“Ready, Ellie?”

She finished putting her books into her backpack. A last whispered consultation with her friends. She always had a gang with her.

“Let’s go.”

She took my hand and we walked home together, sometimes again with Mateo. Today it was Ellie’s house for our after-school snack. We headed for the kitchen and Ellie’s mom.

“Hi kids, how was school?”

We looked at each other and shrugged. Parents asked this question every single school day. It was always the same. Except when it wasn’t, like the time a substitute teacher lost her cool and yelled at us. She used bad words, too.

“It was OK, Mrs. Rodriguez.” I turned to Ellie.

“Yeah, Mom, it was OK.”

Mrs. Rodriguez looked at us. She smiled. “Only OK?”

Ellie sighed. “Yeah, Mom, OK.”

We almost always had a banana and cookie and milk. There was no real homework until third or fourth grade, maybe later, so after our snack we headed out to the garden. Ellie’s house backed up to the park and their back yard was large enough almost for a football field, it seemed like.

It was the same thing at my house.

“Hi, Mrs. O’Brien.”

“Hi, Ellie. Hi, Christopher.”

I put down my knapsack and hugged Mom.

“How was school, kids?”

In the car going home, Nicole put her hand on my arm and leaned close. “Christopher, don’t be too hard on her, OK? She’s had it pretty rough, especially with her dad. You know where her dad works, right? Well, her dad’s boss is sure you did it.”

I was pretty sure I knew why that boss thought I was guilty. In addition to being Ellie’s father’s boss, he was Dale’s dad. Dale, the class bully. I wondered if Ellie’s father knew Ellie had consistently refused Dale’s moves. Ellie had no romantic interest in Dale.

“What about Mateo, Nicole?”

“He’s one hundred percent on Ellie’s side. I don’t think he’s one hundred percent sure you did it. Still, even if you were friends before, he’s got to look out for his sister.”

I’d depended on Mateo for so long I’d forgotten what it was like to be without him. Christopher, Mateo and Ellie, the threesome almost always seen together. Dale’s interest in Ellie scared me. There’d been a rumor or two about girls he’d kissed when they didn’t want to be kissed, but nothing ever seemed to come of it. One girl moved away, I knew that. I was pretty sure Dale depended on his father to get him out of trouble.

My house looked the same as before. Trees in front and on the sides, they almost hid the house itself behind them. Our back yard wasn’t as big as Ellie’s, but it had a pool and lots of lawn. I knew how much lawn there was because as soon as I was old enough to push a mower, I’d been responsible for mowing it.

The rain had stopped by the time we got home. The sun showed brilliant off the wet leaves. Nicole had taken possession of my room as soon as I left. I’d stay in Nicole’s old bedroom, now a guest room.

I sat on the bed and tried to decide where to begin. The notes, the little collection of tones, came back. I’d never forgotten them, but I’d never heard them again.

In the good old summer time, hm hm hm...

Chapeter 3 Summer in the Valley

WE’D GROWN UP in the Valley with its dry summer heat and cold wet winters. Flat. Mornings were the best. The breeze through my window called me. The air, fresh and cool on my skin. Calling me to what, I wasn’t sure. To be outside, to let the sun warm my skin, to breathe as deeply as I could.

Mateo and me, and sometimes Ellie, until she got more involved with her girlfriends later, dared each other to go farther and farther on our bikes each summer day. Often, we rode to the edge of town even before breakfast. The two-story Mason house across the highway with its old-fashioned tall narrow windows, the funny decorations along the eaves, and peeling paint beckoned us in a spooky kind of way. We never saw anyone in or around the house. Vines covered most of the first floor outside. Trees heavy with walnuts surrounded the structure.