He was kneeling on the wheat-colored carpet, his head bowed, clutching the soft pink stuffed puppy that had once been their daughter’s second-best friend in the world, next to her brother. “Daisy Doggy,” he said thickly.
Jude remembered with a stunning clarity how much she loved this man and how much she needed him. She tried to think of what to say to him now, but before she found her voice, Zach came up beside her.
“What’s all the—” He saw his dad, holding Daisy Doggy, crying, and Zach started to back up.
“Zach,” Miles said, wiping his eyes, but Zach was already gone. Down the hall, a door slammed shut.
“We’re losing him,” Miles said quietly. Slowly, as if his arm didn’t quite work right, he put down the stuffed puppy.
Jude heard the censure that had crept back into his voice, the blame he placed on her, and she felt weighed down by it. “We’re all lost, Miles,” she said. “You’re the only one who doesn’t get that.”
Before he could answer that, she went back downstairs and crawled into bed.
*
Lexi knew now why her lawyer had wanted her to plead not guilty. Prison was a place where women beat one another up for a hand-rolled cigarette. You had to be careful every second. The wrong look at the wrong woman could literally get you killed.
She was afraid all of the time, and when she wasn’t afraid, she was irritated. Her temporary cellmate, Cassandra, had turned out to be a crystal-meth addict who would do anything for drugs and moaned all night in her sleep. Lexi had spent the first four weeks dodging the big mean women who ran the drug trades. She spoke to no one.
Today, though, she had something to look forward to.
It was visiting day. Lexi knew it was wrong to make Eva come up all this way, and she wished she were strong enough to tell her not to come, but she couldn’t. It was so damned lonely here. Eva’s visits were the only good thing left in her life, the only hour all week to which she looked forward.
She spent all morning counting the minutes, listening to Cassandra puke in their lidless steel toilet. When the guard showed up to take Lexi to the visitors’ room, she practically leaped up. Following instructions precisely, she made her way through the various doors, past the inspections, and into the big, windowed room where family and friends came to visit.
There, she found an empty table and sat down, tapping her foot nervously on the floor. Guards were stationed around the room, watching everything, but other than that, it almost looked like a school cafeteria.
Finally, Eva came through the door. She looked smaller and older, with her gray hair frizzing out around her pleated face. As always, she looked uncomfortable in here, out of place.
“Over here, Aunt Eva!” Lexi said, raising her hand as if she were a high school girl again.
Eva shuffled forward. At the table, she stopped suddenly and kind of collapsed into the chair. “Lord, help me,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest. “You’d think I was the criminal.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh. I didn’t mean that. It was just an ordeal, getting in today. Something must be up. That’s all. How are you?” She reached across the table and patted Lexi’s hand, smiling brightly. “How are you this week?”
Lexi didn’t mean to grab her aunt’s hands, but she couldn’t help herself. It felt so good to touch someone. The depth of her need surprised her. She was so hungry for conversation, for connection, that she launched into a review of the book she’d read this week, and she told Eva all about her job in the laundry. In turn, Eva told her about the summer sale at Walmart and the weather in Port George.
It wasn’t until Lexi had run out of news that she really looked at her aunt, and that was when she saw the changes. It had only been two months since Lexi’s incarceration, but these visits had already left marks on Eva’s face. Her wrinkles were deeper, her lips thinner. She had to keep clearing her throat, as if it hurt to speak.
Once Lexi saw all of that, she couldn’t unsee it. She understood all at once how selfish she’d been to this woman who had never been anything but kind.
“Have you started taking college courses yet?” Eva asked, pushing the fuzzy hair out of her eyes.
“No.”
“You can get a degree in here. Just like you planned.”
“I think ex-cons have a hard time getting into law school.” Lexi slumped back in her chair, feeling defeated now, alone. She’d been through this kind of thing before, back when she’d been in the care of strangers. She’d waited and waited to see her mom, only to be heartbroken again and again. Sometimes the only way to survive was to stop hoping. Stop waiting.