Chapter Four
Olivia rubbed her aching temples and took another scalding sip of coffee, wincing as it hit the back of her throat. Across from her, Emily pushed her eggs from one side of her plate to the other. Her fork made the music of Olivia’s soul, a vicious, rhythmic scraping against the bone china. The plates had been a wedding gift from Erik’s mother, and Olivia had thought of smashing them more than once. But here they were, the last artifacts of her ruined marriage.
“Want a coffee for the road?” Olivia tried to sound normal. To pretend the thought of it—leaving the house, driving to the prison, going through the day—didn’t exhaust her. Didn’t worsen the dull throb at the base of her skull.
Emily gave no answer. The rain-soaked newspaper sat between them like an uninvited guest, stoic despite its gut-punch headline. Fog Harbor Mother Found Dead.
Olivia didn’t bother to unfold it. It had landed in a puddle on their front porch, the pages melded together. What more could it tell them anyway? She’d already spent the entire night staring at the ceiling, replaying the whole garish scene. The scream. The boots, the ligature, the anguish on James’ face. Finally, she’d surrendered and laced up her running shoes to hit the dirt trail behind the house, eager to outpace yesterday. Even if it meant her best sneakers were squishy and caked with mud. She’d left them on the front step to dry in the sun. If it ever showed its face again.
“Em? Coffee?”
Emily lifted her eyes. Mossy green, those eyes belonged first to their mother, then to Olivia. And ten years later, to Emily as well. Green as the grass in the Yankee Stadium, their father had teased, pinching baby Emily’s chubby cheek. But you’ve never been to Yankee Stadium, Olivia would remind him, the bench in the Crescent Bay visiting room cold and hard beneath her legs. By then, she’d feared he would never see anything beyond those barbed wire fences.
Emily sniffled and pushed her plate away, finally laying the fork to rest. “I still can’t believe she’s really gone. I keep thinking about the boys, you know?”
“Me too.” Olivia wondered what James had told Nathan and Noah about their mother. How he’d managed to get words out at all.
“They’re so young. Those poor kids going through something like that. They’re gonna be royally screwed up.”
Olivia stood abruptly, bumping the table with her hip. Her coffee sloshed over the lip of the cup, leaving a mud-colored puddle on the checkered tablecloth. “Shit.”
“I’m sorry, Liv. I didn’t mean it that way.”
Olivia waved off her sister’s apology and soaked up the stain, tossing the dishrag in the sink. Em didn’t know any better. She hadn’t even been born yet. A prison baby, conceived back when lifers still had conjugal visits, she’d gotten to know their father in small doses. Twice-a-week, hour-long doses. “It’s okay. At least Dad’s still alive. Come to think of it, that’s probably the only reason why I’m not royally screwed up.”
Typically Em would’ve jumped on that one, cracking a joke and making them both laugh. In fact, that’s exactly why Olivia had said it. Instead, Emily joined Olivia at the sink, wrapping an arm around her. Olivia let her pretend to be the big sister, leaning into her shoulder and laying her head against the fleece sweatshirt that covered Emily’s dental scrubs.
When they broke apart, Emily’s gray face brightened. Maybe the sun would peek through the fog today. Even in the middle of December. “Not royally screwed up, huh? Are you sure about that?”
Olivia sidestepped a brown pool of standing water as she showed her ID at the prison entrance. Every winter, like clockwork, the older lower buildings flooded, leaving the whole place slick with mildew and smelling like laundry left too long in the washer.
Olivia and Emily parted ways at the control booth, Olivia heading east to the Mental Health Unit and her sister heading west to the combined Education Department and Dental Services. Usually, Olivia watched Em until she reached the door, but today she waited until her sister had pressed the buzzer—twice for staff—and disappeared inside.
Then, she began the runway walk. She’d heard Melody Murdock call it that once, snickering, and that’s how she’d thought of it ever since. Down the long concrete corridor marked with lines of red paint. If the inmates stepped inside those lines, they’d be out of bounds, so they lingered on the outskirts, leaning up against the walls, watching and occasionally calling out. Olivia would’ve rather they simply crossed the red lines. Because their eyes did just that, following her as if they’d never seen a woman before.
Today, as she passed the first group of inmates, she realized the runway walk felt more like a funeral procession. The inmates appeared somber, averting their eyes and talking quietly, if at all. Somehow, stupidly, she hadn’t considered it. The way the news of Bonnie’s murder would reach them, through the dense forest that surrounded the prison on three sides. Through the walls and bars and regrets. That it would hit them just as hard, maybe harder. Because Bonnie had been one of the few who really saw them. Who, like Drake had written in his poem, treated them as men.
“Hey, Doctor Rockwell, can I have a minute?”
Olivia’s stomach flipped when she spotted Melody outside the door to the chapel, her eyes as tired as Olivia’s.
“Of course. How’s your sister?”
Melody sighed. “She’s holding up alright. Luckily, she had the day off. She was snuggled up with Luna when I left her. Anyway, she told me you were there too. By the river. Where they found the body. Maryann said to thank you. That you made her feel a little better.”
“I’m glad to hear that. She had quite a shock. We both did. The whole prison seems to be reeling.”
When Melody spoke again, Olivia strained to hear her. “So is what they’re saying true?”
“What are they saying?”
Melody scanned the corridor, her pale eyes darting. “Not out here.”
Olivia stifled a gasp as Melody opened the chapel door—one of the few in the prison that didn’t require a key—and tried to pull her inside. She felt the cold first. Inhaled a gulp of the stale air. Finally, when her head stopped swimming, she turned to look out at the sea of gray plastic chairs that faced a simple wooden altar with a door on either side. One, where the chaplain kept his office. The other, the confessional.
“I—I can’t go in there,” Olivia told her, freeing her arm from Melody’s grip. She floundered, searching for a reasonable explanation, but she couldn’t think straight. Not through the white noise of panic in her brain.
With a quick glance over her shoulder, Melody moved in so close Olivia could smell her peppermint toothpaste. Her breath warm against Olivia’s ear, her words startling and bright as a spot of blood. Still, as Olivia walked away she’d replay them again and again, certain she’d misheard.
“They’re saying that Bonnie was strangled by an inmate.”
Olivia kept her head down until she reached the Mental Health Unit at the end of the runway. After an inmate had jumped from the tier a few years back and his family had sued Crescent Bay for negligence, the MHU had undergone a complete facelift. The unfinished concrete floors had been replaced by tile that the inmate porters buffed once a week. It shined so bright beneath the fluorescent light panels she could almost see her own reflection. On the far wall, the patients had hung the holiday mural they’d created in their art therapy group. The bright red acrylic of Santa’s suit drew Olivia’s eyes, quickening her breath, until she realized: just paint.