Tribute

brink, she pressed the photo to her heart. “I grieved, Miss McGowan, every day of my life, for what happened to my boy. Jimmy was never the same after that night. It was more than never walking again, or using his arms. He lost his light, his spark. He just never found himself again. I lost him, and I lost my husband that same night. He spent years tending to Jimmy. Most of the time he wouldn’t let me do. It was for him to do. To feed him, to change him, to lift him. It took his heart. It just took his heart.”
    She drew herself back up. “When Jimmy died, I’m not ashamed to tell you I felt some relief. As if my boy was finally free again, to be again, and walk and laugh. But what was left in my Jim just shriveled. Jimmy was his reason for being, even if the being was bitter. He snapped, that’s all. The weight of it all, it just broke him. I’m begging you, don’t send him away to prison. He needs help. And time to heal. Don’t take him, too. I don’t know what I’ll do.”
    She covered her face, her shoulders shaking with sobs. Out of the corner of her eye, Cilla saw a movement. As Ford came down the stairs, Cilla held up a hand to stop him.
    “Mrs. Hennessy, do you know what he did yesterday? Do you understand what he’s done?”
    “I know what they’re saying, and I know he hurt you yesterday. I shouldn’t have told him you came. I was upset, and I started on him, how he had to let it go, leave it, and you. How I couldn’t take you coming to the house that way. And he went storming off. If I hadn’t riled him up—”
    “What about the other times?”
    She shook her head. “I don’t know about other times. Can’t you see he needs help? Can’t you see he’s sick in his heart, his mind, in his soul? I love my husband. I want him back. If he goes to prison, he’ll die. He’ll die there. You’re young. You have everything ahead of you. We’ve already lost the most important thing in our lives. Can’t you find enough pity to let us try to find our peace?”
    “What do you think I can do?”
    “You could tell them you don’t want him to go to jail.” She reached out to grip Cilla’s hands. “The lawyer says he could ask for a psychiatric evaluation and time in a hospital. That they could send Jim to a place where they’d help him. He’d have to go, isn’t that punishment? He’d have to, but they’d help him.”
    “I don’t—”
    “And I’d sell the house.” Her hands squeezed Cilla’s harder, and her desperation passed from skin to skin. “I’d swear it to you, on the Bible. I’d sell the house and we’d move away from here. When he’s well enough, we’d move to Florida. My sister and her husband, they’re moving to Florida next fall. I’ll find a place down there, and we’ll move away. He’ll never bother you again. You could tell them you want him to go to the psychiatric hospital until he’s better. You’re the one he hurt, so they’d listen to you.
    “I knew your grandmother. I know she loved her boy, too. I know she grieved for him. I know that in my heart. It’s that Jim never believed it, and he blamed her, blamed her every time he looked at our boy in that wheelchair. He couldn’t forgive, and it made him sick. Can’t you forgive? Can’t you?”
    How could she hold against such need? Cilla thought. Such terrible need. “I’ll talk to the police. I can’t promise anything. I’ll talk to them. That’s all I can do.”
    “God bless you. God bless you for that. I won’t trouble you again. Jim won’t, either. I swear it to you.”
    Cilla closed her eyes, then closed the door. With a tired sigh, she walked over to sit on Ford’s steps. She leaned her head on his shoulder when he stepped down to sit beside her.
    “There are all kinds of assaults,” he said quietly. “On the body, the mind, and on the heart.”
    She only nodded. He understood she felt battered by the visit, by the pleas, by the tears.
    “It’s about redemption, isn’t it?” she said. “Or some part of it. Me coming here, bringing her house back. Myself back. Looking for her in it, for the answers, the reasons. She never recovered from Johnnie’s death. Was never the same. And most people say she took her life because of it. Couldn’t you say Hennessy didn’t have that luxury? His child was still alive, but so damaged, so broken, so needy. He couldn’t turn away from it, and had to live with it every day. And that broke him.”
    “I’m not saying he doesn’t need