When Betsy dreamed of Ginny, she imagined her friend’s last moments a dozen different ways. But every time, Ginny bargained for her life, and McRae lied to her, like he did to all of the others. He told her she could live if she would just stop the screeching and cooperate. In fierce whispers, she warned him that one of her roommates was going to show up at any minute and find him there, and that he was going to rot in hell. In Betsy’s dreams, moments after the light faded from Ginny’s eyes, he heard the door downstairs, footsteps, and he tiptoed across the floor to hide behind the bedroom door. The floorboard creaked under his weight. He heard a fall, the sound of a chair slamming against the floor. He barreled down the stairs to the small hallway and slid on a pile of mail and newspapers. By the time he got back up on his feet and made it to the door, all he saw was a faint figure disappearing into the far edge of the dark parking lot. In her dreams, Betsy looked back and saw him in the doorframe. In her dreams, she tried to force herself to look back. But in reality, she couldn’t. She never did. She didn’t look back until it was too late.
According to all of the articles written about his execution, the last hours of McRae’s life passed without incident. He cooperated with the guards, said please and thank you when he was asked a question or offered the most basic comforts. By 4:00 p.m. he was led to the room next to the death chamber, which had a small bathroom and a couple of chairs. Some men’s clothes hung on hangers from a hook. Did he wonder about the person who would seal his fate, plunging the chemicals through a syringe into his veins while hiding behind a mask? At 5:00 p.m., Scottie showered and shaved. He put on a crisp white shirt, and new pants that fit around the waist but had cuffs that skimmed the ground behind his heels.
In the viewing area, which was separated from the chamber by a large window covered with a drawn curtain, prison guards brought in extra chairs to accommodate the forty-six people who had arrived to witness the execution. McRae’s brother and his pastor took seats next to the victims’ families. Robert Harrington, Ginny’s father, walked stoically into the room and took his seat toward the back. Despite his wife Martha’s pleas for him to stay home, to put it all behind them, to not be complicit in even more violence because their daughter Ginny wouldn’t have wanted that, he had to go. Betsy sent them a card a couple of weeks later, when she was home with Remi and lucid enough to pull it together. She never received a reply.
As Scottie waited, the prison warden read him the death warrant listing his crimes and the reasons for his execution, cited by the judge who delivered the verdict. Then the guards led him into a small and sterile room, strapped him to a hospital gurney, and secured his arm to the attached splint. A red phone on the wall, a direct line to the governor’s office for dramatic, last-minute pardons, did not ring. They rolled up his sleeve and placed the needle in his arm, forgoing the usual sanitary swipe with an alcohol pad. At 5:50 p.m., the brown curtains parted to a couple of short, stifled gasps, and low, muffled sounds of crying.
AT 6:00 P.M., Scottie began to sing.
He flung those stars into the vast heaven above
Created the rivers, the valleys, the fish and the doves
None greater than Thee . . .
Betsy never learned the tune, but the lyrics stuck with her. The dumbest song I’ve ever heard, she thought.
“What was that?” asked Caroline, who craned her neck around to look at Betsy in the backseat, huddled in the dark corner.
“Oh, um, the lyrics.” She was shocked that she’d said it out loud. “The shitty hymn that McRae wrote and sang right before he died. It is the worst, most predictably cliché song ever written. The song pissed me off more than the lobster.”
Caroline stared at Betsy. She saw the reflected, green glow of the dashboard lights in Caroline’s eyes. A minute passed before she looked away.
“It’s got to be hard,” said Caroline.
“What? I mean, which part?” asked Betsy.
“To send Remi out into a world that creates guys like Scottie McRae,” said Caroline. She turned back around to face the road. “I couldn’t do it. I just wasn’t strong enough to do it.”
Betsy nearly gasped with relief, and she saw Teddy reach over and place his hand on Caroline’s knee, just for a second or two.
“Oh, Car,” Betsy said, “you have no idea. There are days when I just, I can’t.”
TEDDY WAS PLAYING Explosions in the Sky on his phone, the sad, lush music that Betsy identified with Friday Night Lights, the TV show that made her rethink how she felt about nostalgia, how she finally understood its value now that so much of her life was behind her. And even though the characters were Texan, the love and the loss and the beer and the football and the struggle to get out from under it all made her feel nineteen and lost again, driving the streets of Gainesville, the wind filling her ears in the backseat of Ginny’s car.
All of those years later, everything looked different, smaller, blurrier, a little desolate, and they finished the drive mostly in silence. When they finally pulled up to the hotel in Tampa, groggy and weak from the drinks, the heat, and the endless day, Betsy and Teddy said their goodbye. He parked the car and waited while Caroline walked her to the door. Betsy had nearly forgotten about the moths, the way they fought to get close to the burning bulb, jostling for position in the murky light.
“You know that I dream about her,” said Caroline.
“Me, too,” Betsy nearly whispered. “All the time.”
One of the waiters from the hotel restaurant was off to the side smoking a cigarette and Caroline bummed two.
“I never do this anymore,” she said.
“I know, me neither,” said Betsy. “It tastes like shit, but I like it. If I make it to eighty, I’m starting again. At that point, what’s to lose?”