“Is he still?” I ask. “Angry?”
“I hope not,” she says, dropping her face and looking at her timer. “We don’t talk anymore.”
“You don’t?” I ask.
She shakes her head, making her braids flip from side to side. “I wrote to him every week for years, hoping to be the one person who stayed by his side. But he was so bitter about the maximum sentence ... he started seeing me as a resource, not a daughter. He was always in debt in there, claiming he needed money for this or that, using my loyalty to ask me to send him money, even when I was living off student loans.”
“You sent him money?” I’m so mad, so disgusted, the words feel toxic.
“I felt like I had to,” she whispers. “I didn’t have anyone else, and neither did he. I just wanted to be close, to get back the dad I had growing up. It cost me almost $6,000 over the years, but I sent it. One month, I couldn’t afford rent, and I realized something had to change. I finally told him I couldn’t send any more. I begged him to go back to Gamblers Anonymous, like he had when he first was imprisoned.”
I watch her throat tense as she swallows. “He never responded.”
“Are you kidding?”
She sniffs and gives me a brave smile that makes me feel sick inside. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” I say, shaking from anger more than from the burn in my thighs. “How could he do that to you?”
I’m talking about her dad, but something about this resonates. Like I’m talking about my granddad—and dad, by extension. About everyone who’s made us feel like we’re only worth what we can give them.
“Prison?” she asks with a shrug. “He was so bitter that he got such a severe sentence. He dealt with it well at first. He was penitent. Wanted to make it right. But prison is hard. Seeing some people do the same crime and get reduced sentences. Seeing violent repeat offenders somehow cycle in and out of prison. The injustice of it never stopped hurting him.”
When Grace and I talk on the messaging board about sentencing, I always say,“Don’t do the crime if you don’t want to do the time,”but Poppy’s face is red from exertion and hurt, and the idea of adding to it makes my stomach lurch.
I feel my lip curl. “My brother got punched outside of a bar the night after finding out he was the top pick in the MLB draft. He went out to celebrate with friends, and he got chippy with some guy. He told Evan they should take it outside. When Evan got out to the parking lot, the guy sucker-punched him. Evan’s head hit the pavement. TBI.”
That familiar rage adds to the anger I already feel over Poppy’s situation. The idea that her dad would treat her so badly, would take advantage of her like that?—
I want to quit these freaking wall sits, but Poppy’s still going, so I am, too.
“I’m sorry, Oliver.”
“You know how much time that guy got?” I ask. “Zero. He got community service and anger management. Meanwhile, my brother was in a trauma ward for six months relearning his right side from his left.”
Poppy doesn’t look shocked the way I expected. She just looks sad. “I’m sorry. How is Evan doing now?”
“This isn’t about Evan,” I say, standing up. I don’t care if there are twenty seconds left on her timer. “It’s about how messed up the system is that your dad could get fifteen years and the guy who attacked my brother got none.”
She furrows her brow and purses her lips, like she’s chewing on a thought. “Sentencing is hard. There are so many considerations.”
“Hard? More like broken.”
“That too.”
Her timer beeps, and she releases the wall sit to stretch her quads. After a beat where I’m panting angrily at her, I do the same. My anger is bitter enough to curdle milk. “Some bleeding-heart nonprofit—Mercy in Justice—was at the trial. Claimed they were advocating for fair sentencing. Bull. They should have been handling cases like your dad’s, not letting violent idiots walk free.”
Poppy must cool down a lot faster than I do, because all of the red has drained out of her face. In fact, she looks almost faint.
“Hey, you look sick. Did you overdo it?”
She drops her leg. “Nope! I’m fine. Let me get ready real fast and we can head out.”
Her smile is too bright, her voice too high. Something is wrong, but I have no clue what.
“Okay. I’ll go … check out the breakfast,” I say, because she’s being weird.
“Great! I’ll be down in ten minutes!”
