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“Why don’t you go back to jail where you belong?”
I hit the gas, kicking rocks into the air as I speed down the driveway.
Sylvia is balled in the floorboard, sobbing.
I skid to a stop at the front door, jump out and jog around the hood, ignoring the screams and shouts. Sylvia lurches into my arms the second I open the door and shoves her house key into my hand. Cradling her like a baby, I kick the truck door closed, hurry onto the porch, and seconds later, we are inside the house.
I gently lay her on the couch, and stroke her head. “You okay?”
She sniffs, nods.
“I’m going to check the house and then call the cops; they’ll send someone out here.”
I hurry from room to room, pulling the shades, ensuring there is no clear view inside the house.
Shirley takes no interest in greeting Sylvia and instead, follows me through the house, the wrinkled ball of skin meowing for attention, totally oblivious to the tension in the air. Once I am sure the house is secure, I call Officer Young and demand she handle the crowd outside.
Sylvia is sitting up when I return to the living room. Her face is red, jaw clenched. Her fear has turned to anger.
“I cannot believe this, Rhett,” she seethes.
“I can.” I grab the bag of prescriptions, sit next to her and begin laying them out. Shirley jumps onto the couch, then onto the armrest, and curls into a ball.
I study the instructions on each bottle. “It says you need to eat with these. I’ll be right back.”
“Will you turn on the T.V.?”
After clicking on the television and turning up the volume to drown out the noise outside, I search through the kitchen cabinets, eventually settling on a can of chicken noodle soup. The cure-all, right?
I pace the kitchen as the soup heats. My stomach is in knots.
It feels like this is all happening again, so eerily similar to the weeks leading up to my arrest for Marjorie Stone’s murder.
I grip onto the sides of the kitchen sink and bow my head.
Inhale, exhale.
I cannot go to prison again.
Inhale, exhale.
Please, God, I cannot go to prison again.
A sickening panic of desperation sends a rush of tears to my eyes. Fuckingtears.I feel like I am spinning, that nothing is in my control.
I feel like I am going to throw up.
My mother’s face flashes behind my eyes. The pain, disappointment, the sheer horror on her face when the verdict was read and I was pulled out of the courtroom. I remember my father’s face, eyes wild with fear, face mottled with rage.
I remember what they were wearing and think about it often. Silly, isn’t it? They’d dressed up for the delivery of the final verdict. My mother was wearing a dingy, moth-eaten white dress (her “nice” dress), and a pair of scuffed flats with a hole in the side. My father wore the only suit we owned. The one he wore to weddings or whatever, and the one I wore to my high school graduation. He looked as uncomfortable as ever in it. My court-issued attorney (we had no money for a respectable lawyer) was wearing a navy suit that looked like it cost more than our family car.
I remember thinking I would never have the chance to offer my parents a better life. To buy them better clothes. I remember feeling so guilty that I was the cause of so much stress in a life already filled with insurmountable debt and depression.
My mother visited every week. My father didn’t visit once.
Then, he died.
I’ll never forget the final visit from my mother. She was wearing a pink beanie someone knitted for her from the church. It didn’t fit quite right, sitting crooked on her pale, bald head. Tiny strands of gray hair poked out above her ears, the few that remained after the chemo. She was jarringly skinny. Long veiny fingers pressed against the glass as milky, tired eyes stared into mine. She was wearing the same white dress that she’d worn to the trial and pink lipstick, as if she’d made an effort before coming to see me. I, on the other hand, had just been involved in my latest scuffle, and was sporting a black eye and busted lip. I was so embarrassed for her to see me like that.
