“I said I’m sorry.”
“But why?” she asked.
“I heard you laughing,” he said. “You and the girls. I don’t like when people laugh at me.”
“We weren’t laughing at you,” Saffy said. The words sounded wooden, untrue.
“I shouldn’t have done it,” he said. “Sometimes I do things I can’t explain.”
“You can’t explain it?”
He shrugged. “You know what I mean. You know what it’s like, to be left all alone. The sound itself can make you want to hurt things.”
“I’m not alone,” Saffy said, too forceful.
A pause, like he didn’t believe her.
“I’m sorry, okay?” Ansel’s voice was soft, full of everything she’d been looking for in the first place.
“It’s too late,” Saffy said, with less conviction now. “I’m leaving.”
She hated Ansel, for the way he bit his lip. The wanting that had captured her was awake again, stretching stiff limbs. It was foreign, intolerable—her desire. A force Saffy could not wrangle into any proper shape, a new dimension that snuck up on her in the dark. She did not dare look it in the eye.
“Come on, Saff,” Ansel said, walking closer. “Before you go, please forgive me.”
Inches away, his face was bright and open, tragic and lovely. Ansel reached out and pressed one finger to the jut of Saffy’s collarbone. She thought of the baby, dead in that farmhouse, tiny toes and lips and eyes and fingers. What it meant, to be stolen from.
She nodded, reluctant. Yes. Forgiven.
Ansel stepped forward, engulfing Saffy in a hug. It did not feel how she had imagined, his warm body pressed against hers. She was numb and stupefied, giddy with his touch. For the first time, Saffy hated herself. She hated herself with a profound sense of awareness, less like a girl and more like a woman—with fury, desperation, shame. It was the sort of hatred that lurked in the shallows, gnashing its jaws, the ugliest thing about being herself. She reached, cradling, and welcomed it in.
8 Hours
The screaming drowns. The screaming consumes. The screaming is like a flood—once it begins, you are stuck here, waiting in the ruin. The baby shrieks, blinded by some pain you cannot soothe, and time is a standstill, the terror painted directly across the walls of your skull. You know, from a lifetime of this place, that the screaming is a sound no one else can hear, that it is meant for you alone.
Baby Packer has something to tell you, but he is too little for words.
*
You curl fetal on the concrete. From the gut of you, an anguished moan.
When you first arrived at Polunsky, they called a doctor. The doctor took your pulse, and your blood pressure, then listened to your heart. You were fine, the doctor said, and he never came again. When the officers walk by, they pretend not to see you, rocking on the floor with your hands over your ears like a child playing some stubborn game. The Execution Watch Log requires a visit every fifteen minutes—you dread the officers now, witness to your misery. You know how it looks. The weakness only sharpens the fury.
Shawna caught you like this. Just once. She appeared right as the screaming took over, holding your lunch tray, a worried blur at the door. Words were impossible, through the baby’s wailing. Her presence loomed, degrading.
When Shawna returned the next day, she wore a softness you had never seen before. The paradox hit you with a bursting sort of amusement: your weakness had melted her. She was riveted, caught in the thrill of your vulnerability.
This, you could use.
You know how to turn Shawna to clay—when you said that her eyes were the color of an Adirondack spruce, the delight rippled eagerly across her face. Jenny used to be the same, shivering as you ran a thumb over the ridge of her nose. When you tried that with Shawna, she giggled like a child, high-pitched and annoying. You crammed a tender smile into the corners of your mouth. Most of the time, you understand women—often better than they understand themselves.
But every now and then, you are very, very wrong.
*
The detective was a woman. Of all the ironies that make up your fate, this one seems particularly sharp.
She had dark hair that snaked down her back. Hooded eyes, soft woman skin. She spoke calmly, trailing you along until your shoulders had lowered. You were in that questioning room for only a few hours, but by the end it was like she had the tip of an ice pick lodged in your brain. Before the detective convinced you to tell the story—before she revealed her sneakiness, her trickery—you had not thought about those Girls in a long time. They were from another life. A different world. They never haunted.