Own Me (The Wolf Hotel, #5)(96)
“No. It’s for getting into law school.” I level him with a serious gaze. “If you’d had a better lawyer than that shyster, you would have gotten involuntary manslaughter at most. Your sentence would have been a sliver of what you’re facing now—”
“No, wait.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “What are you saying, Mercy? That you’re going to give up on your plans and go to law school just so you can try and get me out of here? I mean, do you even wanna be a lawyer? I thought you hated lawyers.” He chuckles as if the idea is amusing.
Nothing is amusing about this. “I want to be able to hug you without some guard breathing down our necks.” My voice has turned hoarse. “I want my kids to be able to play and laugh with their grandfather.” It’s going to be years before there are actually tiny feet running about. But will my fifty-year-old father even live long enough to see the outside again?
“I don’t like this at all.” Dad shakes his head. “How many years of school is it, anyway?”
“A lot less than what you have to serve right now.” Three full-time, plus articling. If I even get accepted anywhere. I’ve always excelled in my courses, but this is a new direction, one I’ve never spent a second considering. And then there’s the whole “how do I pay for tuition and survive for three years while I’m going to law school full-time” question. All of our savings went to that joke of a lawyer who screwed my father.
It’s a lot to figure out, but I will figure it out, because there is no way I’ll accept coming here every Saturday for the next twenty-two years to watch my father slowly wither away.
“This isn’t the life I hoped for you. But I know better than to argue with you.” Dad sighs, his shoulders sinking. “So... what’s the weather like? I haven’t been outside yet today.”
“Sunny. Hot.”
“Shocking.” He offers me a wry smile.
Despite my mood, I can’t help but chuckle. It’s always one or the other in the desert. A lot of the time, it’s both, and in July, it’s oppressively so. But the eternal sunshine is the main reason we moved to Arizona from North Carolina after my mother died. It’s a natural mood-booster, my father says, and he has always worried about me inheriting her depression. “I had to change in the parking lot.” The dented blue shitbox that I drive has never had working air-conditioning, so I pulled my T-shirt and jeans on over my shorts and tank top. “Figure I’ll leave these clothes in the car for Saturdays. It’ll be like my prison uniform.”
He makes a sound. “Good call. Maybe bring a paper bag to wear over your head too.”
“Dad.”
“Trust me, I’ve heard the way the men in here talk about women, especially pretty young women like you....” His eyes narrow on a guy three tables over whose dark eyes flitter curiously to us—to me—while a ready-to-burst pregnant woman sitting across from him babbles away. “I don’t want anyone giving you grief when you come visit me.”
“Nobody is going to give me grief.” Except that guard, Parker, but there’s no way I’m telling my dad about him. “And if anyone says anything, ignore it. They’re just words.”
He harrumphs. “How’s the new place?”
I avert my gaze, dragging my fingertip across the table in tiny circles. “Fine.”
He sighs. “That bad?”
“It’s... lacking charm,” I admit. Anyone who has lived in Phoenix for long enough knows which areas of the city to avoid, and when my dad’s conviction was passed and we accepted the fact that I’d need to downgrade from the two-bedroom apartment we were sharing—a downgrade from the house we had before that—we started looking for cheap one-bedrooms closer to work and campus. We found one. A relatively clean, quiet twelve-unit complex with decent management and minimal needles littering the parking lot. A diamond in the rough, my dad called it.
Turns out it’s more like a diamond in Mordor.
The couple two doors down—Bob and Rita—fight like they’re sworn enemies. I’ve watched her launch glass from their fourth-storey balcony, aiming for his head as he runs to his car. The cops have been there twice that I know of. It’s only a matter of time before an ambulance is wheeling someone out—my bet is it’s Bob.
And then there’s my next-door-neighbor, Glen, a hairy-chested guy who I hear every morning through the thin walls masturbating to the tune of my 7:00 a.m. alarm and who likes to knock on my door in the middle of the night, bleary-eyed and wearing nothing but his boxers. He always asks for Doritos. I tell him I don’t buy Doritos—I hate Doritos—but he keeps coming back. I’m beginning to think Doritos is code for something else.
I don’t open the door for him anymore.
And I’m not telling my father any of this. He has enough to worry about in here.
The guards come around, tapping several inmates on the shoulder to let them know that their time is up. That earns countless pained expressions from both prisoners and visitors alike. My dad and I watch as people embrace, some adhering to the rules while others hold on until they get a bark of warning.
That’ll be us before long, and then it’ll be another week before I make the hourlong drive up here.
My heart sinks. “So... what’s your cellmate like?”