"Don't. Don't give me that look. Instant coffee gets a bad rap because people make it wrong. Too much water, wrong temperature. You have to commit to it."
"Commit."
"Yes. Commit. Give it a chance." She's leaning forward now, elbows on her knees. "Everyone writes it off because it doesn't come from a machine with a steam wand and a line out the door.But if you make it right—proper hot water, the right ratio, a few minutes of patience—it's good. It's honest."
"Honest coffee."
"Stop repeating my words back to me."
"I'm not."
"You're mocking me."
"I am not mocking you. I am taking your coffee theology very seriously."
She laughs. A real one—open, loud, her eyes closing, her shoulders shaking. The sound fills the room and bounces off the walls and the guard at the door shifts his weight. I've heard her laugh before. The polite half-versions she gives the orderlies when they crack a joke at the checkpoint. This is different. This is the sound she makes when she's forgotten where she is.
I want to hear it again. I want to be the only person who ever hears it.
When it fades, she looks at me a moment longer than she needs to. Then she picks up her pen.
"My aunt Kathy makes proper coffee. French press, whole beans. I was at her place last weekend—she and her partners, Dave and Neil, built this deck out back. Well, Dave built it. Neil supervised from a lawn chair and Kathy brought them both drinks every forty minutes."
"How long have they been together?"
"Since before I was born. Dave first, then Neil about five years later."
She shrugs and goes back to her notes. Keeps talking while she writes. "They're building a pergola next. Dave wants grape vines.Neil says they'll get wasps. Kathy just likes watching them argue about it."
She knows what I've done. Eighteen counts of murder, the trial transcripts, the psychiatric evaluations that use words likepredatoryandremorseless. She knows all of it, and she just told me her aunt's name and her uncles' names and what they're building in their backyard. Freely. Without stopping to wonder whether that was smart.
It wasn't. I want her to keep doing it.
"Why do you do this work?"
Her pen slows. She finishes the word and sets the pen flat on her notebook.
"You could be anywhere," I say. "Private practice. University. A desk in Denver with a window and a view. Yet here you are in this building with a man behind the glass in Ward C."
"You're not the reason I do this."
"I didn't say I was."
She holds my gaze for a long moment. Then she sets her pen down.
"My best friend, Mishel. She grew up in the system. Foster care." She pauses. "I watched the whole thing from the outside. My family was normal—loving, regular. I went home to parents who made dinner and helped with homework. Mishel went wherever the system put her."
I don't move.
"There was a placement when she was twelve. The family locked the fridge." Her voice doesn't change. "A padlock on the refrigerator so the foster kids couldn't eat unless they gave them food. The caseworker was supposed to do a home visit. Sheforgot the paperwork. My best friend was in that house for four months before anyone noticed."
"Four months."
"I was eleven. I told my mom. My mom called people. Eventually they moved her." She picks the pen up and turns it over between her fingers. "But the system didn't catch it. Nobody caught it. I was eleven and I decided I'd grow up to be the person who would."
Her eyes shift left and her thumb presses harder against the pen barrel. There's more she isn't telling me. Her shoulders tighten and she starts picking her words too clean. Worse than a padlocked fridge.
I want what she's holding back more than anything she's given me today.
