Hope on the Inside

by Marie Bostwick

  Make the most of what you have.

  Her mother’s motto became her own, the core belief on which Hope hung much of her life and sense of self.

  No, life was not fair. But because of her mother’s influence, Hope came to believe that she could balance the scales of an unjust world by making the most of what she had. It was a belief that grounded her, helped her keep going even when she felt like giving up. It was a belief she had always shared with Rick, part of the reason she’d been attracted to him in the first place.

  And that, Hope suddenly realized, was why she was so frustrated with him. Either he’d abandoned one of the core principles that had bound them together or he’d never really believed it in the first place.

  No wonder she felt like she was living with a stranger.

  “So that was a really big moment for you, right? Kind of a turning point?”

  The sound of Liam’s voice interrupted Hope’s train of thought. He was still sitting there with his chin in his hand, waiting for the end of the story.

  “It was,” she said, pushing Rick to the back of her mind, talking to her son and not the camera, wanting him to better understand who she was and where she came from so that, by extension, he could better understand himself.

  “You know,” she said, “people spend a lot of time trying to figure out their purpose in life. In the details, it’s different for everybody. But at the broadest level, I believe we’re created to be creators ourselves, to leave our mark by making the most of what we have.

  “That’s what always excited me about teaching. Whether it was you and your brothers and sister, or the kids in the neighborhood, or the kids in my classroom—the moment I loved most was when I’d see their faces light up when they realized that they made this thing, this wonderful whatever it was, all on their own.

  “We’re created to create, Liam. When we lose sight of that, we lose sight of ourselves. When I teach somebody to make something they feel proud of, something beautiful and useful that they’ve crafted with their own hands, I am really teaching them who they are, why they’re here, and what they’re capable of.

  “That’s why I’m here,” she said, making a fist and pressing it to her chest. “Because I—”

  Lillabet, who had been curled up in a ball on the floor, chose that moment to leap onto the kitchen counter, knocking over Liam’s tripod and camera in the process.

  Startled by the sudden flash of yellow fur, Hope cried out. Liam spun around, dove for the camera, and managed to catch it before it hit the ground.

  “You are a very bad kitty,” Hope scolded when it was all over, lifting the cat from the counter. “Do you know how much that camera cost?”

  Lillabet, unimpressed, extended her tongue and licked her lips. Hope put her back on the floor and turned to Liam, who was checking over his camera.

  “Is it okay?”

  “It’s fine. No worries.”

  “Well, it was a good save. You know”—Hope laughed—“I really did forget it was there after a while. Should we set it up and go again?”

  Liam shook his head. “No, we’re good.”

  Hope gave him a doubtful look. “Are you sure? I didn’t demonstrate the sashiko yet.”

  “You don’t need to,” Liam replied. “Trust me. I got what I needed.”

  Chapter 10

  Hope slipped out of bed the moment she opened her eyes and tiptoed into the bathroom to dress. She was pretty sure Rick was only pretending to be asleep but she was quiet just the same and left the house without saying goodbye.

  What would be the point? They’d already said everything they had to say.

  At precisely eight, Hope was standing at the prison gate as instructed, holding a heavy and cumbersome cardboard box. A grizzled and gray-haired guard with a paunch hanging over his belt and a ring of keys dangling from it approached.

  “Hope Carpenter?”

  When Hope nodded he pressed a button to unlock the gate, holding it open as she walked through, a gentlemanly gesture at odds with the scowl on his face. Hope smiled anyway and said, “Thank you,” hoping to win him over.

  “Not that way,” he growled when Hope started walking toward a two-story beige brick building with rectangular windows and green hedges, a squat and innocuous structure that reminded her of a neighborhood middle school. “We’re going to medium. The superintendent wants to see you.”

  The medium-security building definitely looked like a prison. It was tall and formidable. The gray brick exterior was the color of spent fireplace cinders. The upper story had only one window, very large, made from a single plate of thick glass. The lower floors had no windows at all.

  Hope and Rick always slept with the windows open. What must it be like to spend days and nights shut away from the world, separated from friends, family, and all that was familiar, prevented from inhaling a free, fresh breath of air?

  Hope took a sudden gasping breath and then started to cough. The guard’s scowl deepened.

  “You okay?”

  “Yes. Fine. I was just—”

  “All right then, put your box down on that bench, then go over and talk to Cindy. She’ll give you a locker and get you checked in.”

  “A locker?”

  “For your purse. You can’t bring it or anything else inside. Didn’t you read the e-mail they sent you?”

  “Sure, yes. The purse isn’t a problem,” Hope said, glancing down at the box. “What about the rest of my—”

  “You can’t bring anything inside. That’s policy. You got a problem with that, take it up with the superintendent. I don’t have time to stand here arguing with civilians about policy,” he said, pronouncing “civilians” like it was a dirty word and “policy” as if it were the opposite, a force not just to be reckoned with but revered.

  “Right. Sorry. Thanks for your help.”

  The guard sniffed dismissively, then squared his shoulders and turned on his heel, like a private on parade, and marched out the door. Hope set her box down and approached the other guard, a woman in her mid-forties with dirty blond hair.

  “Don’t mind Wayne,” she said. “He spent four years in the Marines and never got over it. Best four years of his life, so he says. Everything since has been a disappointment.”

  “If the Marines was so great then why didn’t he reenlist?”

  “Probably so he could spend his days letting the rest of us know just what a disappointment we are. By the way, I’m Cindy,” she said as she searched through the deepest recesses of Hope’s purse. “Wayne’s not so bad. Once you get to know him.”

  “Umm,” Hope murmured. “Bet I’ll never have the time to find out.”

  Cindy barked out a laugh, a single delighted yelp, and went on with her search. Hope smiled. Cindy, at least, seemed nice.

  “Cindy, what’s it like to work here?”

  “Not bad. The hours are regular and the pay is decent. Good benefits. I like the people I work with. Mostly,” she said, grinning as she glanced toward the door Wayne had walked out of. “But it’s all right. Could be worse.”

  “And you’re never scared?”

  Cindy’s eyebrows popped up, as if the question surprised her.

  “You mean of the inmates?” She shook her head. “Not really. Just follow procedure, you’ll be fine. That’s why we have all the rules, to keep everybody safe, staff as well as inmates.

  “I’ll tell you something,” Cindy said as she continued riffling through Hope’s bag. “No matter how tough they are or what they did, most of our inmates ended up here for the same reason. One day they woke up and made the knucklehead decision to do something really stupid with, for, or because of some worthless—”

  The door opened, interrupting Cindy’s monologue. A petite young woman, just over five feet tall, with cappuccino-colored skin and a fringe of black blunt-cut bangs above her dark eyes, came in carrying an armload of books. She set them down on the counter without a word. Cindy started flipping through the pages, one after the oth
er.

  “How you doing, Mandy?”

  The younger woman shrugged. Cindy picked up another book, shaking her head as she riffled the pages. “You sure read a lot.”

  “I’ve got a lot of time for it.”

  “Not too much longer, though. Seven months?”

  “And four days,” Mandy replied.

  “Not that you’re counting, right?” Cindy smiled, closed the last book, and shoved the pile across the counter. “Okay, you’re good to go. See you next week.”

  Mandy picked up the books, pressing them against her chest like a mother cradling an infant, and cast a glance in Hope’s direction before leaving the lobby. Wondering what Mandy had done to end up in this place, Hope watched her walk across the path toward the beige building. She was so tiny and looked so young.

  “That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Cindy said. “That girl, Mandy Lopez? She’s doing five years on a drug charge because she was dealing for some worthless man. Talk to most any of these girls and that’s how they ended up here.” Cindy clucked her tongue. “After what I’ve seen here, I’m staying single. Forever.”

  Cindy handed Hope her purse and pointed to the bench. “Leave it over there next to your other stuff for now. We’ll give you a locker later.”

  “But my box,” Hope protested. “I need it.”

  “Everything you brought has to be inspected and approved before it comes inside. We’ll get it to you later. Right now, I just need you to walk through the metal detector. Hands down at your sides. That’s it,” Cindy said, waving Hope through.

  The machine started to bleep and buzz. Hope’s heart leapt like a startled gazelle, but Cindy wasn’t the least bit perturbed. She pressed a button to turn off the alarms, then told Hope to take off her earrings and shoes and try again. The result was the same.

  What had she gotten herself into? Would it be like this every day? Would she set off alarms every time she came to work?

  “Let me guess,” Cindy said. “You wearing an underwire bra?” Hope nodded. “Didn’t you read the e-mail they sent you? The one with the list of what you can and can’t wear onto the prison grounds?”

  Hope had read the e-mail. There were a lot of rules about clothing. You couldn’t wear blue jeans because that was what the prisoners wore, or T-shirts with obvious words or graphics, no hats, no gang colors (not that she knew what those might be), no sunglasses, no metal jewelry, nothing tight fitting, suggestive, or immodest.

  She had taken all these things into account when choosing her outfit: khaki trousers, bright pink blouse, brown jacket, and moccasins with rubber soles. What she had not taken into account was the impact of underwear on metal detectors.

  “Sorry, I must have missed that part.”

  “No worries. Just pop into the ladies’ and take it off. But hurry up, okay? Superintendent Hernandez isn’t a guy you want to keep waiting.”

  Hope stood there for a moment. Was Cindy serious?

  “But . . . why? Are brassieres lethal weapons now?”

  Cindy’s smile disappeared.

  “This is no joke. The rules and procedures in this prison are here for one reason, to keep everybody safe, including you. If we get slack and metal gets smuggled inside, trouble comes with it. Ask Wayne, or me, or any of the guards; we’ll tell you about how creative inmates can get when it comes to making weapons.

  “Some of the people who work here think that these girls are born bad and always will be, that rehabilitation is pointless because people can’t change. I’m not one of them. But I’ve worked here long enough to know that in the right circumstances and under enough pressure, people are capable of almost anything.”

  Hope’s cheeks went pink.

  She wasn’t used to being caught in a mistake or corrected so pointedly. She felt well and truly chastised. Why did those words sound so familiar? And hit so close to home?

  For the first time since setting out on this path, it occurred to Hope that she might be out of her depth. In the grand scheme of things, she had lived a very sheltered, very predictable, and very safe life.

  * * *

  Hope’s top was too heavy to see through, but she felt uncomfortable just the same. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone braless.

  However, as she sat on the hard metal chair that seemed to have been deliberately placed at a distance from the desk of Superintendent David Hernandez, it occurred to Hope that being bereft of her bra wasn’t the only reason Hope felt awkward and vulnerable.

  “If you’re going to work here,” he said, looking over the top of his black-rimmed glasses in a way that made it clear this was still a very big if, “it’s not enough to read the procedures; you have to follow them. To the letter. Understand?”

  “Yes. Absolutely,” Hope replied, nodding deeply before adding a final, “Sir.”

  This seemed to mollify him but not much.

  He sniffed and pushed his glasses up on his nose again but never took his eyes off her, as if to let her know that, as she had failed her first test in judgment, he never would.

  “This program wasn’t my idea. I want you to know that, up front.”

  Hope nodded. Message received.

  “It’s a waste of resources,” he went on. “Why are we taking money from a budget that’s already too tight, trying to turn felons into artists, when we could be using that money to teach them something useful? A trade or vocation. Something that might actually help them earn a living so at least a few of them won’t end up coming back here?”

  He shook his head and glanced down at one of the many pieces of paper on his desk. This particular piece of paper, Hope realized as she cast her gaze across the chasm that separated her chair from his desk, was her résumé.

  She waited a moment before speaking, wanting to make certain he’d finished looking it over before she said anything else. Superintendent Hernandez didn’t seem like the sort of man who appreciated having his train of thought interrupted.

  “Well, sir, I can understand that argument. It’s certainly something I’ve run across before, when I was teaching. Especially in an era of limited budgets, emphasis is placed on teaching skills that will help students get into the job market. I understand there’s only so much money to go around. But I believe there’s another argument to be made.

  “The reason to teach crafts isn’t because we’re looking to create artists or even teach a particular skill. I want to impart broader concepts—self-confidence, patience, problem solving, determination, and the ability to stick with a difficult and unfamiliar project, seeing it through to completion. Those are the kinds of life skills and attitudes that help people succeed in whatever work they end up doing.”

  Hope leaned in a bit, warming to her subject and encouraged that he still appeared to be listening. “You know, one of my students, Taylor, was applying to Cal Poly for engineering. It’s a very tough program to get into, especially if you’re from out of state. She wrote her admission essay on what she’d learned while designing and sewing a jacket in my class.

  “It was basically an engineering project, she said, but even tougher because it was a completely new medium for her, so she felt out of her depth. She talked about the frustration she felt when making mistakes, how she’d have to stop and take another approach when her first idea didn’t work, the sense of accomplishment she felt after successfully completing the project, and how much she learned about perseverance because of it.”

  “Did she get in?”

  “Oh yes,” Hope reported, grinning at the memory of it and the e-mail she’d received from Taylor at the end of her freshman year at Cal Poly, thanking Hope for being so patient with her. “You see,” Hope continued, scooting the metal chair a bit closer to the desk, “if you can teach students the skills to—”

  “Inmates, Mrs. Carpenter. . . .”

  He paused, glowering at her.

  “These aren’t a bunch of giggly teenage girls. They’re felons. They’re drug addicts and dealers, burglars
, money launderers, check kiters, identity thieves, car thieves, pornographers, prostitutes, and child abusers. The women in our custody have skills, plenty of them. But not the kind that a housewife from Portland can probably relate to.”

  He released his grip on Hope’s résumé. The paper fluttered from his fingers to his desktop, like a dead leaf falling from a tree.

  “How many years did you teach?”

  Hope’s jaw tightened with irritation. He already knew the answer because he’d just read it on her résumé. She kept her eyes glued to his, refusing to be cowed.

  “Four total; two before I had my children and two more after they left home.”

  “Four whole years of professional teaching experience,” he said. “None of it in a correctional setting. Until today, I bet you’ve never set foot inside a prison.” He tapped her discarded résumé with his index finger. “Do you honestly believe that a résumé like this qualifies you for this job?”

  “That’s not for me to say, Mr. Hernandez. But since I received a letter saying I was hired with instructions to report for work today, I have to assume that someone thought so.”

  “Someone. But not me. I was out of the office for three months, came back to work this week, and discovered that, in my absence, the arts and crafts program had been approved and you’d been hired as the teacher.”

  Three months? He’d been away that long?

  Hope could only think of one reason for a person to be excused from work for such an extended period of time—because they were on medical leave. That could explain the yellowish tinge to his otherwise swarthy complexion and the loose fit of his suit. With his close-cropped hair and perfectly pressed white shirt, David Hernandez didn’t seem like the sort of man who would wear an ill-fitting suit to the office, not unless he had recently lost a lot of weight because he was ill.

  “You must be glad to be back,” Hope said, feeling a bit more compassionate toward him as she tried to imagine what might force such a relatively young man—Hope guessed he was in his mid-forties—to take such an extended leave of absence. “I hope you’re feeling better now.”