Sleep Toward Heaven Read online

  “August twenty-fifth,” I say. The execution will be held in Huntsville. Until then, Karen Lowens lives on Death Row in Mountain View Unit in Gatestown, which is about two hours from my house.

  “How are you feeling about it all?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Well, call me, if you need anything,” says my mother, trying her best over the miles. She lives in Wisconsin, where I am from.

  “I will.”

  I hang up the phone, and there I am: a widow, in the kitchen, in a magenta bikini.

  karen

  Sharleen is moaning, and she won’t stop. When the guard comes to wake them, Tiffany says, “For heaven’s sake, see what’s the matter with the Satan Killer.” It is a strip search day, and they stand outside their cells in their underwear. They watch while the guards try to wake Sharleen, who tosses her head back and forth.

  “It’s like The Exorcist!” says Jackie.

  Finally, Sharleen opens her eyes and spits at the guards. “I am allowed to dream,” she screams, as they drag her off to isolation. “I am allowed to dream!”

  “What a total freak show,” says Tiffany.

  The television comes on in a blaze of color and sound. Karen has been having hot flashes for days, waking feverish, covered in sweat.

  They turn on the radio at eight a.m. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice does not allow phone calls: no one can call a prisoner, and a prisoner cannot call anyone. Luckily, a radio station in Waco broadcasts “Words Through Walls.” People from the real world can call the radio show and give messages to prisoners. The host is Gerald Jones. Tiffany’s husband calls first, as always. “Hi, Gerald,” he says. Tiffany clasps her hands at the sound of his voice. She has been doing extra sit-ups all week in preparation for Dan’s visit, as if he will be able to tell, underneath her jumpsuit, that her stomach is flat and strong. She will not be allowed to touch Dan, has not touched him since she entered Mountain View. Death Row inmates cannot touch anyone outside the prison, from the day they are sentenced until they are dead.

  “Dan, good morning to you,” says Gerald, “and do you have a message today?”

  “I’m on my way to go see my baby, Tiffany,” says Dan, “and wanted her to know I’d be a few minutes late—I’ve got to pick up a present.”

  “Lucky lady. Dan, anything else?”

  “Yes. If anyone has any information about the terrible murder of my girls—anything that can help free my innocent wife, please, please call 1-800-FREETIF. 1-800-FREETIF.”

  Tiffany’s color is high. “He really loves you,” says Veronica. “I can tell.” She looks down at her wrinkled hands. “I want a cigarette,” she says.

  “I wish someone would call for me,” says Jackie.

  “Somebody will, hon,” says Veronica. This is a lie.

  Tiffany spends all morning getting ready. She ties her hair up, then lets it back down. “I’m so nervous!” she says, and she rubs lotion into her elbows and hands. She is ready by nine, but visiting hours don’t start until eleven.

  Each Death Row inmate is allowed one visit a week. Regular inmates have visitors on the weekdays, and Death Row inmates have visitors on the weekends. Tiffany’s husband has come every Saturday for two years. He brings her books and buys her Orange Crush from the soda machine. He cannot hand the sodas to his wife; he puts quarters in the machine, hands the can to a guard, and the guard gives the sweet drink to Tiffany. Dan has quit his job to free Tiffany.

  Veronica will have a visitor, too: her new boyfriend. Jimmy Quinton, a plumber, started writing Veronica after seeing a show about her on television. He wrote that he thought she was misunderstood and beautiful. They have fallen in love. He writes silly letters to Veronica, and she reads them out loud sometimes. He writes about the people he works for, strange items stuck in the drain, for example, and he says how much he loves Veronica, and how he knows she is innocent. Karen is glad that someone loves Veronica, but it’s pretty clear that Veronica is not innocent. They found cyanide in every dead husband.

  At eleven on the dot, just as “Montel” is starting (“Teens With Attitude Confront Their Mothers”), a guard bangs on the metal door that separates them from the general inmates. “Tiffany,” he says.

  Tiffany jumps up, holding out her arms. As the guard cuffs her wrists and ankles, locks the metal chain connecting them, Tiffany looks over her shoulder to Veronica. “See you out there,” she says. As she is led out, she looks at the floor and smiles, practically dancing.

  A few minutes later, a guard calls, “Veronica!” and Veronica runs her palms over her hair before the guard shackles her and leads her off. Though she does not smile—she has been here too long to betray emotion—her eyes are shining.

  Jackie kicks at the bars of her cell. “Fuck,” she says.

  Nobody ever comes to see Karen either. She has not had a visitor in over a year. “Want to play cards?” Jackie says. Karen shakes her head. “Fuck you, then,” says Jackie.

  After lunch (a piece of plastic cheese and mayonnaise on stale bread, an apple), Karen begins to feel nauseated. When she throws up in the toilet in her cell, Jackie yells to the guards in the chute, “She’s sick! She needs a doctor.”

  Guards cuff Karen’s arms and legs and take her down the hallway to Dr. Wren. Karen’s chains sing as she walks. She has to go past the others, and Karen closes her eyes. As the door to the general population slides open, the noise is deafening. Metal against metal, screaming voices: Highway Honey! Highway Honey! Highway Honey! Karen cannot close her ears. If she hums, it does not even mar the sound. Highway Honey! Highway Honey!

  The guards’ hands are tight on her arm. Some of the women try to befriend guards, but not Karen. Karen does not want friends. Any connection, any tiny strand, will bind her to this world.

  Finally, they turn the corner to the Medical Center. Karen is searched again, and then pushed inside. She sits on a metal bench.

  The Medical Center isn’t much. There’s a big, flat desk with file cabinets behind it. A guard sits at the desk. The nurses do almost everything: sew up stab wounds, hand out medication, belt you into straitjackets and shoot you full of Thorazine until the doctor arrives. There are some cots, two cold examining tables, and windows that show only the dark hallway, where guards can peer in. The Center smells of rubbing alcohol. People have babies somewhere else. Dr. Wren comes every Saturday and for emergencies.

  It is some time before Karen is led in to see Dr. Wren. He is an old man with kind eyes and tufts of white hair by his ears. “Karen,” he says, reading off a chart as she comes in. “You’re feeling badly?”

  “I threw up.”

  Dr. Wren nods. “You’re HIV-positive?” he says, as if it is a question. Karen nods. “Can you describe your symptoms?” he asks. Karen shrugs. “Do you feel tired?” says Dr. Wren.

  “Yes.”

  “How often are you sick to your stomach?” Karen shrugs again. Dr. Wren sighs. “Once in a while, or often?” he says.

  “All the time, pretty much,” admits Karen.

  “Let’s do some blood work,” says Dr. Wren. “In the meantime, let’s take a look at your meds.” He sounds authoritative, makes a note on a clipboard, but then his eyes widen. Karen watches him, and a flash of fear sears through her. Dr. Wren staggers, and his hand goes to his chest. He drops his clipboard on the floor. He opens his mouth but no sound comes out. Karen does not know what to do. “Dr. Wren?” she says, and when he doesn’t answer, his eyes falling shut, she says again, “Dr. Wren?” and finally a scream comes from her mouth, “Dr. Wren!”

  A red-haired nurse rushes in, looking at Karen with wild eyes. “What have you done?” she says, and then she falls to her knees. “Jack!” she says, “Jack, wake up!”

  “I didn’t do anything,” says Karen.

  “Get her out of here,” says the nurse, her voice uneven and hoarse. “Get her the hell out of here!” the nurse cries, and the guards come and take Karen away.

  Later, when
Tiffany comes back from her visit and shares Dan’s news from the real world, when Veronica reads a letter and Jackie shows off her sequins, Karen will finally have something to offer: the story of her afternoon, and the knowledge that Dr. Wren is named Jack.

  franny

  Salt, chilies, tomatoes. As soon as Franny opened her apartment door, she felt as if she were inside a Mexcian restaurant. Nat had been cooking. Franny dumped her books on the side table and called, “Nat?”

  He came to the kitchen door in an apron, his hands wet. “Hi there,” he said.

  “Hi,” said Franny.

  “Where have you been?”

  “There was an emergency, I…”

  Nat stopped her. “Never mind,” he said. “You’re home. I have a romantic dinner in the works.”

  “Nat, I’m so sorry. Tonight is not a good night for me. I’ve just got to grab a quick bite and head back to the hospital.”

  He shook his head. “I’m making chile rellenos,” he said, “to bring you back to Texas.”

  “We didn’t eat chilies,” said Franny. “We ate hamburgers at the Dairy Queen.”

  “Nonetheless,” said Nat. He held up his palms against her protests, and then disappeared back into the kitchen.

  “Nat, listen,” she said. He reappeared with a margarita glass, lined in salt.

  “Drink up,” he said. He held it out to her.

  “Nat…”

  “Take it,” he said. His eyes were a warning.

  “No. I have to read a stack of—”

  Nat threw the glass. It rolled across the hall, spilling tequila, but did not break. “Nat,” she said, “let me explain.”

  “No,” he said, “I don’t want explanations from you. I want some answers.”

  “Can this wait? I just—”

  He grabbed her wrist and pulled her into the kitchen. On the stove, a pot simmered, and he turned off the flame. “Sit down,” he said. Franny sat.

  “It seems to me,” said Nat, “that you no longer want to marry me.”

  “Nat—”

  “Let me finish.” He took a breath. “There was a time,” said Nat, “when being with me was what you wanted. You used to come to my shows, you used to like my friends. I used to feel like we were a team. I know that your career is important to you, but I just thought…”

  “What?” said Franny. “You thought what? That I would ignore my patients? What kind of a person do you think I am?”

  “I didn’t think our house—our home—would be filled with shit, Franny. I thought you’d leave it behind, and come home and love me.”

  “How can I?” said Franny. “How can I think about dinner and margaritas? If you had any idea what I deal with every day…”

  “You know, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you have to go through what you have to go through. But there has to be something left for me. You make me feel as if my life, and my problems, and my career are…”

  “Trivial?” said Franny. There was a silence.

  “Let me say, Franny,” Nat looked at her coldly, “that if this is the life you plan to lead—all excuses, no time for me or anyone but your…your fucking sick patients—until you dry up inside and turn into a bitter old woman, well, frankly, I don’t think I want to marry you.”

  Franny had nothing to say.

  “Franny,” said Nat. “Do you want to be my wife?”

  The smell of chilies was making Franny dizzy, the sheer heat. She said, “I…”

  “Yes or no,” said Nat. He leaned against the stove, and tears filled his eyes and then ran over.

  “I can’t…” said Franny.

  “Yes or no!” The bottle of tequila on the counter was half-empty.

  “I don’t know,” said Franny.

  Nat put fingers to his eyes, pressed in. After a moment, he took them away. He was crying openly now. “That’s a no,” he said, choking. “That’s a no to me.”

  The phone rang once, twice, and a third time. Nat watched Franny, and she picked up the phone.

  “Miss Wren?” said a voice thick with the sound of Texas. “Franny Wren?”

  “Yes?” said Franny. “Who is this?”

  Nat took his apron off and picked up the tequila. In six steps and a slam, he was gone.

  “Franny, honey, I’m calling from the prison in Gatestown. I’m calling about your Uncle Jack.”

  celia

  When school lets out, the library fills up. Parents drop off their kids when they need some downtime, and people come over to spend their lunch hour in the air-conditioning. Things get mixed up and turned around, and it drives me up the wall. If I had my way, I would only let two people in the library: an elderly man named Abe who comes to read the paper, and an eight-year-old boy who is saddled with the name Finnegan. Neither Abe nor Finnegan ever leaves encyclopedias in the Periodical Area or leaves books pushed open to save their places, mashing them willy-nilly with no regard for their fragile spines.

  I believe there are very few respectful humans on the planet, and you can tell immediately who they are from how they act in libraries and hotel rooms. You have the people who carve their initials into library tables and who leave dirty plates in hotel rooms. I dated (not only dated, I am sorry to admit, but slept with) a man who would mess the sheets around on hotel beds even if he hadn’t slept in them. He would sleep in one bed (OK, we would sleep in one bed, and not just sleep, he was good in the sack, I’ll give him that) and wake up in the morning and pull the sheets off the other bed just because he could. Because someone would have to make that bed, and he had paid to have both beds made. This is the same type of person who quietly (but not quietly enough—I always hear them) rips articles from library newspapers and sticks them in their pocket, or who fills in crossword puzzles or even worse love quizzes with complete disregard for the fact that someone else might want to know HOW SERIOUS IS HE? or ARE YOU THE JEALOUS TYPE?

  But then there are people like Abe and Finnegan. People who always say hello to the librarian, even ask about her day, people who fold the newspaper when they’re finished or who always put Clifford the Big Red Dog books back on the shelf, in alphabetical order, no less. If I could create my own perfect world, it would be me in the library with Abe and Finnegan, and Henry still alive at home.

  Instead, I get busybodies like Geraldine Flat. Geraldine has not a damn thing to do since her husband got the job on the oil rig, two weeks on and two weeks off. She has money coming out of her nostrils and diddlysquat to keep her busy. (Geraldine used to be a nail technician, but quit as soon as her husband’s bucks started rolling in. She went back to school to get her college degree, and began wearing miniskirts, knee-high boots, and baby T-shirts.) I would like to stick a hot poker up Geraldine’s nose, but I do not share this sentiment with anyone, especially Maureen who would certainly allude to my anger management issues.

  “I gather you’ve been following the news about the prison,” says Geraldine on Thursday, putting a stack of Harlequin romances on the checkout table and raising her eyebrow.

  I stamp her books firmly with my red rubber stamp (which I love) and answer, “These are due the fifth of August, Geraldine.”

  “I’m against the death penalty,” says Geraldine. “You know, it isn’t so great to live your whole life in that prison, either, and what right do we have?” From the strident tone of Geraldine’s voice, I can tell she has been planning this conversation for some time. Her words run over each other as she struggles to get them all out. I don’t answer, and don’t look up. I become extremely engrossed in my new copy of Library Journal. “What do you believe?” says Geraldine, her voice lowering, attempting to invite a tearful confession from me.

  “What?”

  “I said, what do you believe? About the death penalty?”

  Tears fill my eyes, and I do not look up. “You know,” says Geraldine, “some of us students are holding a protest this weekend over at the U. If you came and made a statement, maybe asked for mercy, you could make a real difference.”


  I don’t answer. I do not know what to say. I am speechless. “Think about it,” whispers Geraldine, placing a pink pamphlet under my nose. The pamphlet reads, “Two Wrongs Do Not Make a Right.” Geraldine gathers her romance novels and leaves me at my desk.

  After a moment, I stand up and smooth my skirt. I walk to the ladies’ room. I lock the door behind me and peer into the mirror. It has been five years since Henry died, and I still wear my hair long, the way he loved it. I still buy Ritz crackers at the grocery store, but I can’t remember if it was me or Henry who liked them. I go to movies he would enjoy, and hike alone down the trails he loved so dearly. I live our life without him, because I don’t want any life of my own.

  I know that Karen Lowens’ execution will never bring Henry back. I know, as well, that Karen is a fucked-up individual who has every right to live the rest of her life trying to make amends. I know that only God can take a life, that the death penalty is wrong. I know this in my bones. I also know that Henry would not want her executed.

  I know all this, and yet I do not care. I hate that woman for taking everything from me and Goddamn it, I want her dead.

  Maureen has told me to write a letter to Karen, to tell her how I feel. This letter is an exercise, Maureen was quick to tell me, and simply for my own well-being. It is not a letter to be mailed, but a letter to be burned, releasing some of the bitter anger that, despite my denials, I hold deep within my soul.

  Back at my desk, I take a fresh legal pad from my drawer. After checking out a stack of gardening books for a man who looks like Gomer Pyle (and who, interestingly, has no dirt underneath his nails), I take a breath.

  I begin with “Dear Karen,” and then I stop, and cross it out. I try again: “To Ms. Lowens,” and then the words come.

  part two

  july

  karen

  Needles are something they talk about in Mountain View Unit. Lethal injection is the default method of execution in the state of Texas, and everybody has an opinion. Veronica hates needles. If she had her choice, she declares, she would choose a firing squad. (Bill, Veronica’s third husband, was killed with a bullet. Although he had arsenic in his body, when they finally found him under the wishing well in Veronica’s yard, the coroners decided it had been the gunshot to the back of his head that had finally done him in.)