“Sorry, but with everything going on, I need to get it,” I said.

She nodded.

I answered the phone.

It was Sandy Strickland.

“How are you?” she asked.

“I’ve been better.”

“I stopped by the hospital to see you, but . . . you were still unconscious.”

“Thanks for coming by. I really appreciate that.”

“I . . .”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I’m hearing and reading some pretty horrible things.”

“I know. But they’re not true. And I know everybody always says that but . . . they really aren’t.”

“One time, sure, but . . . when there’s a pattern.”

“There’s not. Truly.”

“Anyway, that’s not why I called. If you are innocent . . . makes this even more difficult to do now, but . . .”

“Sandy, please listen to me. I didn’t do— Makes what more difficult to do?”

“Your first test came back . . .”

My heart started banging and I found it difficult to breathe.

“It was positive for the HIV infection.”

“What?” I whispered as the breath suddenly rushed out of me.

“I know this is the worst possible time . . . which I guess only matters if you’re innocent.”

“I am,” I said, “but that hardly matters now.”

When she hung up, I sat there with the phone still at my ear, unable to move.

“You okay?” Rachel Mills asked.

“Huh? Oh. Can we do this later? I need to—”

“Just a couple more questions. Okay?”

Though I gave no indication that it was, she pressed on.

“Was there anyone present at your meeting with Molly Thomas at the church?”

“Yes. I’d never meet with the wife of an inmate alone. The pastor of the church, the Reverend Dick Clydesdale, was in the next office monitoring the session, and I told Molly that he was.”

“Would you be willing to submit blood and semen samples? If you’re telling the truth, it will clear this up quickly.”

I nodded. “Gladly. Because I’m telling the truth.”

“I sincerely hope so. It would be a refreshing change.”

35

On Sunday afternoon, in record-setting heat, I was lying under a tall bald cypress tree near the bank of the Apalachicola River, my head on Laura’s lap.

Laura’s lap wasn’t as comfortable or as soft as the stack of pillows back on my couch. There were, however, other consolations.

The base of the bald cypress swelled to four times the circumference of the rest of the trunk, and there were cypress knees shooting up all around it. The grayish-brown, spiraling base of the tree was normally covered in water, but the summer was dry, the river low.

A small breeze rippled the surface of the coffee-colored water and waved the Spanish moss hanging from the craggy cypress branches above us.