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I haven’t seen or heard from Rhett. Not that I expected to. There was a certain finality in the last words he’d spoken to me, in the tone of his voice as he’d stepped out of the Jeep. It wasn’t just “thank you for the ride,” it was, “thank you for everything.”
Thank you, Sylvia… I’ve got it from here.
The message was clear: He was done with me—but I am far from done with him. The last forty-eight hours, Rhett Cohen has dominated my thoughts, past, present, and future.
I’ve spent the days in a mental game of time-warp ping pong, bouncing between memories of the trial, so long ago, and to now, to his reentry into my life. I’ve replayed every word spoken between us, every look, every touch. I’ve analyzed it all.
Two days ago I dusted off the folder kept hidden in my bedroom bookshelf which contains every article published on my mother’s murder. Marjorie’s Death Folder, I call it.
I studied everything, again. Reread every word, revisited the timeline of events, the points of evidence. Then, I spent hours studying old photos of myself, contemplating how much younger—better—I looked back then. The old me, the one Rhett remembered.
I dug out the outfits I was wearing in each picture taken at the trial. Thin, poly-blend suits (what I could afford), a few cute, conservative dresses. I washed and pressed them all, then hung them on my bedroom walls like a fashion show dressing room. Using a pair of kitchen scissors, I recut the layers around my face, exactly as I’d worn my hair twenty years ago. The last time Rhett saw me.
I rearranged my room. Scooted the bed to the corner, replaced the rug, rearranged my dresser and armoire. I taped up a picture of my mother on my closet door, like a preteen would a NKOTB poster in the 90’s.
I transformed my room and myself, to match exactly as everything had been in the weeks surrounding the trial.
For two days, I did this and nothing else.
Dirty dishes sat piled in the kitchen sink, mounds of laundry strewn over the floor, spoiled milk in the fridge. I’d even forgotten to feed Shirley, to clean her litter box, refill her water. She responded by ignoring my existence. I didn’t care. My thoughts were elsewhere, unable to focus on anything that didn’t involve Rhett, or murder.
I’ve wondered many things over the last few days, like where is Rhett staying? What are his means of transportation? Is he out of money? I even wondered if he was already back in jail, caught doing something he shouldn’t have been. So, I’d called the jail, said my name was Patty Plates—the best name I could come up at the spur of a moment—and I asked if they were holding a man named Rhett Cohen.
The dispatcher’s response? “Not yet.” She is obviously not a fan of Rhett. Most Thorncrest women aren’t. Something about the brutality of the murder he was convicted of.
But the question above all else, the one that I couldn’t shake from my thoughts: Is he with another woman?
In the evenings, I immersed myself in literature and articles highlighting life after incarceration and how difficult it is for an inmate to form meaningful relationships and reintegrate into society. Whether it be reconnecting with family and friends, finding a place to live, a job, learning how to cope with the stigma, or finding love, everything is a challenge for them.
I learned that Thorncrest does not offer any kind of halfway house for prisoners once released. No matter their circumstance, how long they’ve been in jail, or their mental state, ex-cons have zero options once their sentence is completed. They are simply given back whatever belongings were collected at the time they went in and kicked out the door.
To someone like me, post-prison assistance sounds somewhat trivial. You’ve just been released from a cage (literally) and handed your freedom. You should be happy, right? You get your life back. Get to start over. That’s great, right?
Wrong.
Most ex-cons can’t get jobs. Most lose their friends and family—either to death or to shame. And despite hating prison, they have gotten used to the structure and routine that incarceration offers. Every second of every day is planned by someone else. Even their food, when they eat and what they eat. They don’t have to think about the day to day stuff because it is taken care of for them. Then, when their sentence is served, they are just tossed out, back into the real world. It’s jarring. Much like a soldier coming home after war. You are forever changed and everyone just expects you to be grateful and step back into the role of productive citizen once again. But you can’t. It’s like you can’t reset to the way you used to be. You are something entirely new, youhave becomesomething entirely new.
I understand this far too well.
I remembered the rigidity to which Rhett held his body, the way he guarded his food, the cold, callous way he spoke. He’s been forever changed. In ways he’s yet to notice, I’m sure.
I downloaded multiple resources for family members, each offering advice on how to reconnect to someone who has just been released from prison. Use humanizing language, one suggests. Don’t refer to the former inmate as, well, exactly that, or, ex-offender, ex-con, parolee, delinquent, or offender. Instead, use words like “person previously involved in the justice system.”
I learned that ex-cons (because “person previously involved in the justice system” is just too much of a mouthful) are at an increased risk of suicide compared to the rest of the population. It is a sliding scale of severity. If the person has been incarcerated once, he or she is forty-two percent more likely to kill themselves once out. If the person is incarcerated twice, he or she is sixty-seven percent more likely, and three times, a whopping 113% more likely. Also, the longer the inmate is incarcerated, the higher the risk.
Rhett served twenty years.
The thought of him taking his own life, after being wrongly accused, makes me sick to my stomach.
It was my fault.
I’d helped put him there.
I owed him.
I owed him.
And with those three words tattooed on my brain, on day three, I pull myself together. I wash, dry, straighten my hair. Put on a full face of makeup, perfume, a brown cashmere sweater that once belonged to my mother. Skinny jeans and sneakers. With renewed energy and an ill-considered plan in my head, I set off for town.
