Lane sees what's happening but he can't prove it. What's he going to tell Hudson—the patient's too polite? He just knows, and I respect him for it.
Kennedy gets his breakthrough at ten. I sit in his overheated office with the WORLD'S BEST THERAPIST mug steaming on his desk and give him a story about the groundskeeper's dog. A spaniel. Brown, old, running in circles on the lawn. I watched it for weeks because I couldn't work out why it was doing it.
"I think I was twelve before I understood the difference between playing and hunting," I say. I let the pause stretch. "The dog knew. I didn't."
Kennedy's breathing changes. His pen moves faster. He underlines something and writespatient demonstrates capacity for reflective self-awareness re: affective deficits, and I know this because I can read upside down and because Kennedy's handwriting is large and unguarded.
"That's real progress, Jude."
I've known it for twenty years. But the note fills his session log, and a full log keeps Kennedy invested, and his sign-off is what got Hope's sessions reinstated after the incident.
The clock on the wall reads 10:47 when Kennedy releases me. Three hours and thirteen minutes until she arrives. I've stopped pretending I don't count.
Back in my cell, I read. A battered copy of Dostoevsky that Kent brought in two months ago, the pages soft from handling. I don't retain the words. My ears are tuned to the corridor, sorting footsteps by weight and rhythm. Guard boots. Orderly sneakers. Devina's half-run. None of them are right.
At 1:53, I hear it.
Light. Steady. A pace that doesn't speed up at my door.
Hope.
She appears in the doorway at two exactly, hair pulled up, notebook under her arm, pen tucked behind her ear. She smells like burnt coffee and coconut lotion—my new favorite smell—and I close the book.
"Afternoon." She pulls the chair to its usual spot and crosses her ankles. "How's the week been?"
"Quiet."
"Good quiet or bad quiet?"
"I don't know the difference anymore."
She smiles and opens her notebook.
"Dr Kennedy says you're making real progress."
"He's being generous."
Her pen stops. She looks up. "That's your version of kind, isn't it."
She caught it. Nobody else would.
The session runs longer today. She asks about the new medication and whether I've noticed side effects, about the corridor transfers and whether the guards are professional. I answer all of it, honestly. She writes without rushing, her pen clicking twice every time she turns to a new page.
I've sat across from psychiatrists and parole boards and military tribunals. I've been evaluated by men with decades of training and security clearances that could put me in the ground. None of them made me want to keep talking.
Hope makes me want to keep talking.
I wait until she's settled into the rhythm of note-taking. Then I nod at the cup she brought in. Paper, no lid, steam curling off a surface that smells like something burnt.
"What is that?"
"Coffee."
"That isn't coffee."
"It's instant coffee." She picks it up with both hands and takes a sip. "It's good coffee."
I raise an eyebrow. She sets the cup down.
