Can’t Do This Anymore
“GOD, YOU LOOK HORRIBLE, RYE!”
Reilly stood in the doorway and watched as Sylvie rose from the sofa in the family room and walked toward her. Self-conscious, Reilly ran her fingers through her still-damp hair. Conflicting emotions rose in her. She hoped that Sylvie would reject her, while at the same time she yearned for Sylvie to wrap her in her arms. She didn’t deserve to be comforted, yet she craved the warm balm of sinking into someone familiar so she could forget everything, if just for a few minutes.
Sylvie halted several steps away, her eyes searching, her expression full of something that might have been sympathy or pity or another emotion that was equally upsetting, equally unwanted. Reilly averted her eyes.
Since Reilly was offered neither comfort nor rejection, she didn’t know what to do. So she stood there, eyes cast down while hot tears ran down her face.
At the top of the stairs, she had felt closer to normal than she had in days. The shower had helped. Her resolution to stop taking the mind-numbing pills had helped. Anticipating Sylvie’s visit, and being reminded of who she once was, had helped. But by the time she had reached the bottom of the stairs, it occurred to her that she didn’t have the right to feel better. She had killed someone. She would live with that forever.
Sylvie’s distance—both physical and emotional—confirmed the judgment.
They stood like strangers, each uncomfortable in the other’s presence.
“Why don’t we sit down?” suggested Sylvie.
Numb, operating from a remote place deep inside, Reilly obeyed. She followed Sylvie into the room and sat, sinking into the corner of the sofa. Sylvie sat at the other end. Reilly watched her fumble with her purse, first setting it in her lap, and then placing it on the floor beside her feet. When Sylvie glanced at her, Reilly had to look away.
“Your mom said that you haven’t left your room since you’ve been home.”
Reilly didn’t answer. She watched Sylvie chew her lip and cross and uncross her legs.
“That isn’t healthy. She says you won’t eat.”
Reilly shrugged and shoved her hands under her thighs to keep from biting her nails. Her thoughts were buried and unreachable.
They sat for a few minutes and silence made a fragile wall between them. From her inner bunker, Reilly watched Sylvie fidget. Sylvie never fidgeted. As an attorney, she was always poised and in control. It was one of the things that had always made Reilly feel safe.
“You haven’t returned any of my calls,” said Sylvie. “I’ve tried to call you. I’ve come by to see you,” said Sylvie. “Has your mother told you? I didn’t want you to think that I haven’t tried. I’ve been worried about you.”
Reilly regarded Sylvie. The fidgeting became worse. Reilly noticed that Sylvie appeared tired and thinner. Reilly hated what she had done to the people around her.
“It’s funny. I’ve talked to your mother more in the last five days than I have in the last three years,” said Sylvie with a nervous laugh, glancing at the doorway. Reilly wondered if Sylvie thought that Melissa might be listening to the conversation. Or maybe she just wanted to leave. Reilly didn’t blame her and wondered if Sylvie had just come to see her out of obligation or guilt.
“I killed a man.”
Reilly wasn’t sure if she said it, or thought it. She lifted her head.
Sylvie watched her with wide eyes. She must have said it.
Sylvie seemed to register her words, and the uneasy fidgeting stopped. They sat silently and Reilly watched Sylvie trying to figure out what to say next.
Finally, Sylvie spoke.
“I know this isn’t good timing. But I don’t think that I can do this any longer, Rye. I didn’t come here to tell you that. I swear. I came here to see you. To make sure that you’re okay,” said Sylvie. “But, you’re not even talking to me. As I try to carry on this one-sided conversation, all I can think of, all that floats through my mind is that I can’t do this anymore. I can’t. I’m sorry.”
Reilly had never seen Sylvie cry. She would have thought it would have made her feel something, but it didn’t.
Sylvie stood up and Reilly sank deeper into the couch.
Reilly could feel Sylvie watching her, but she couldn’t meet her gaze.
Sylvie stood for a moment just watching her. Reilly sensed more words dangling from Sylvie’s lips, but Sylvie didn’t give them voice. She just stared. Reilly stared back without blinking, a steely chill holding her still. The air felt thick and flat, the space between them a chasm filled with expectant silence. Then, taking her unspoken words with her, Sylvie pulled the strap of her bag over her shoulder and walked out of the room.
Reilly felt nothing.
Having a Tough Time
“REILLY, COME ON. YOU HAVE to eat,” said Melissa.
“I feel like I have something stuck in my throat,” said Reilly, pushing the mashed potatoes around her plate.
“You should at least try. Besides pot roast with carrots and potatoes are your favorite.”
“Thanks for making it, Mom, but I just don’t think I can eat anything right now.”
Reilly kept her eyes on her uneaten food, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother lower her fork and lean back in her chair. Reilly didn’t have to see it, to know that her mother’s face wore an expression that spoke of last meals and disappointment. The old Reilly would have had something to say about the lack of support, the inability of her mother to at least try to fake encouragement. But that Reilly was buried deep inside, in a small space set aside for who she used to be. The new Reilly, the Reilly that felt nothing and thought about nothing, couldn’t muster the energy to engage. She just kept on pushing food around her plate.
“Where’s Dad?” she asked after a few minutes, her eyes still on the circles she had drawn in her uneaten potatoes.
Her father’s absence was another guilty sentence to her—a sentence she had already given herself. She didn’t need to wait until the next day, when the verdict would be read. She already knew.
She closed her eyes and the pictures that haunted her dreams flickered like an old-time home movie across the inside of her eyelids. She wanted to open her eyes to stop the show, but like the ads before an internet clip, it had to finish before she could do anything else. First the running shoe. Always the running shoe. On its side on wet pavement. The laces still tied. Flash to the horrible photo that had been presented as evidence, of a man slumped over a round concrete parking barrier, propped up between the hood of her car and the immovable object. Then, there was the white sheet covering the shape of a man, a red patch spreading along one side as the fabric absorbed the blood, all the blood. So much blood. Then, the portrait the prosecution had used as an emotional weapon by displaying it every day at the trial. Next to the witness stand, the full-length framed painting of the little Traynor family, all four of them, blond-haired and blue-eyed, stood there, the epitome of the American family. Matt Traynor, still alive, smiling, with his wife Lydia, and his two daughters, seven-year-old Paige, and nine-year-old Taylor. It had worked—at least on Reilly—who now had the picture forever imprinted in her mind, except that her traitor mind had added a bonus—when their faces morphed into glares of accusing hatred, even though the surviving Traynors had never once met her eyes from their seats behind the prosecution’s table.
Melissa’s voice broke through Reilly’s dark thoughts. Reilly lifted her head to see her mother’s lying face.
“Your father had to stay late at work tonight.”
Reilly doubted her father’s architectural firm required him to work long nights any more, especially since he was a primary partner. If he’d wanted to, he could have been home. Her father’s neglect, so unfamiliar, would have hurt more than her mother’s, if she could feel it. But she didn’t, so she stored it away.
“Will he be there tomorrow?”
Melissa regarded Reilly for a moment, and for the first time in a long time she wasn’t wea
ring her manager’s face.
“I don’t know, honey,” she said. “He’s having a tough time with this.”
The old Reilly would have had an angry retort, but the new one told her that she didn’t have any right to be angry after the chaos and pain that she had caused her family and friends.
“I hope he comes,” she said, drawing another circle.
The Verdict
“FOR THE CHARGE OF VEHICULAR manslaughter while under the influence of drugs or alcohol, we find the defendant guilty as charged. A date for sentencing will be…”
Just as she had done throughout the weeks of emotional drama that had been whipped into a frenzy during the highly publicized trial, Reilly sat still as the verdict was read. She fought the urge to stare at the hands she had folded in her lap, and followed the instructions of her attorneys by watching the jury foreman as he read the verdict, but she did all of this as if from a distance. She sensed the disappointment that rolled toward her from every direction after it was read. While none of the feelings that she would have expected to feel seemed to make it through the fog that continued to dampen her thoughts and emotions, she was aware of the disappointment of her attorneys over the fact that she hadn’t been cleared. At the same time, disappointment came from the prosecution team because they hadn’t been able to get a second-degree murder verdict. Reporters and those who had been watching the trial closely exuded disappointment that the trial hadn’t been more dramatic. Matt Traynor’s family continued to show no reaction, but Reilly watched them silently move out of the courtroom, protected by their own attorneys from the army of reporters that tried to ask questions. She imagined their disappointment that she was alive and their husband/father/son was not.
The sense of numb detachment that she’d felt for so long held its place within her, and she took the announced verdict in as if she were listening to a lecture. But even though she didn’t feel much about it as it pertained to her, she couldn’t help but try to understand the thoughts and emotions that were battling within everyone else around her. The team of attorneys that her mother had hired to defend her was the best in the business, and they had been so certain of a verdict of not guilty. They had already been successful in reducing the charge from second-degree murder to vehicular manslaughter, and they had gone into the trial confident that they’d win the not guilty verdict, as well. Her testimony had been the Achilles’ heel, though. They’d tried to keep her off the stand, but the prosecution had pressed, and the judge had agreed. She’d followed her attorney’s guidance, but her eyes must have projected the guilt she felt. The energy of optimism was notably subdued in the days after her testimony. Still, the verdict was less than what the prosecution had asked for, and she felt the disappointment from them, as well.
She felt the gazes of her parents behind her. Her father had finally come, but she didn’t have any feelings about that. Wiping away a tear she avoided looking back so they wouldn’t see how empty she was, what a waste of time it had all been for them. As the courtroom cleared she sat. What happened next was out of her hands. But wasn’t that the story of her life?
Sentencing
“WE HEREBY SENTENCE THE DEFENDANT, Reilly Tatum Ransome, to twenty-three months at Ral-Rutherford Women’s Correctional Facility, to begin immediately.”
Reilly never lifted her head. She stared at the table in front of her and wished for nothingness. She heard the clamor of a hundred feet shuffling to stand up in the small courthouse. Other than that, there was no sound. No one spoke. There was no loud noise to signal the agreement of the universe, no outraged denial from a bereaved loved one. Just the shuffle of feet, and the rustle of belongings as the collection of personal items was accomplished.
A shadow fell over her, and she raised her head. One of her lawyers shook his head in apology. She hoped her eyes conveyed her thanks, because she was unable to speak. An officer appeared next to her and led her from the defendant’s table to the bailiff, who put handcuffs on her.
She glanced at the seats where the Traynor family had been sitting throughout the trial. As usual, not one of them would return her gaze as they filed away. She didn’t know if she felt relief or regret at the lack of vindication that she had expected to see in their faces. She tried to tell herself that the universe would even the score, would set things right in its inalienable ways, but she knew that there would never be punishment enough for what she had done.
She was taken to the nearby jail—the same one into which she had been booked the day of the accident—and put into a temporary holding cell to wait for the bus that would take her to Ral-Rutherford Women’s Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison located in the middle of the Mojave Desert. The guard looked at her with pity in his eyes as he shut the door to the cinderblock and steel-barred cell.
“The bus to RR only runs twice a week. The good news is that it runs today, so we don’t have to process you into here. The bad news is that the bus don’t leave until after dinner, so it’s gonna be a long wait. You might as well get comfortable.”
The guard wrapped his beefy fingers around a bar, tugged on the door to make sure it had latched, and turned away with a sad shake of his head. Through the bars that spanned the front of the cell, Reilly watched him walk back along the way they had just come.
His words sank into her reality like acid and she took a seat on the metal bench at the back of the cell.
She was going to prison.
As the guard predicted, the wait for transport took most of the day, and Reilly began her long relationship with learning patience.
Reilly had been one of the first few women placed in the holding cell that day, but as the hours drew out, about two-dozen women joined her in the twelve-by-fourteen foot space. By then, there were more women in the cell than there were seats, and women sat on the floor against the wall and bars. She watched larger and more menacing women enter the cell and stand next to other women who wordlessly gave up their spots. Reilly was surprised that she was allowed to keep her perch on the hard metal bench, pressed into the cinderblock corner, and she waited for the moment when someone would cast their shadow over her. It never happened.
With a manufactured air of detached disinterest, she watched the sporadic business of the receiving desk across from the cell. Prisoners were processed through the facility all day long, like packages on a loading dock. Despite the stress that had to have been simmering under the surface for many of the women in custody, there was little emotion displayed—if you didn’t count the one woman who started screaming for a cigarette break late in the afternoon.
Bag lunches containing an apple and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich were handed through the bars just after noon. Reilly wasn’t hungry, so she ignored the press of bodies toward the bars and focused her unseeing eyes on the gray cement floor. A small, oily-haired woman with sunken eyes and missing upper front teeth stepped in front of Reilly and dropped a bag in her lap.
“Take it. They might not give you dinner.”
Reilly looked up, but the woman just shrugged without meeting her gaze and moved over to the wall, sliding into a seated position. The woman attacked her lunch with a gusto that turned Reilly’s stomach. The toothless maw smacked open to reveal each new churn of food between decaying teeth. Reilly tried not to look and dutifully sampled her sandwich, but her throat wouldn’t open for her, and the bread scraped down in a painful gob. Water was provided via a leaky water fountain that Reilly couldn’t bring herself to use for two reasons: she had seen no less than four women spit hocked-up mucus into it, and requests for restroom breaks were received by the guards with hostility. When Reilly hadn’t been able to ignore her bladder earlier in the day, she was chaperoned into a dark and dank closet-sized bathroom, where the stainless steel toilet had no seat and there was no toilet paper. Fragrant puddles of urine spotted the concrete floor. The guard stood just inside the door facing Reilly, her arms folded across her chest. They were shin to knee as Reilly dropped her pants and hov
ered over the dripping toilet rim. She stared at the expensive heels she wore and wondered if the designer ever imagined them flanking the piss streaked basin of a prison toilet. Though Reilly had to pee worse than she ever remembered, the guard’s stare filled her with a performance anxiety that turned the urgent need for release into a hesitant trickle that took forever to cease. The impatient look on the guard’s face had only made it worse.
As the day wore on, she studied her cellmates. The group was quiet and Reilly tried to determine if it was because the cell was across from the booking desk, where two stern guards stood post, or if the women just wanted to keep to themselves. Like her, each new arrival took a seat and waited. There was minimal interaction among the incarcerated. It wasn’t until several hours into waiting that Reilly noticed the wordless communication that was happening all around her. Body language and attitude conveyed quite a bit, and Reilly studied the silent dialogue.
Some of the women were dressed in civilian clothes, as if they had woken in their own homes that morning, just like her. Of those, she could tell who were first timers like her, and those who were making a return trip just by the way they sat. The first-timers were nervous, fidgety, eyes darting around the room. Those whom she suspected had been through it all before took their seats with what were probably practiced airs of indifference, but Reilly could tell that they still took in every detail around them.
Late in the day, two women were brought in wearing orange jumpsuits. The rest of the women made room for them and kept their distance. Until then, Reilly had felt removed from everything around her, like it was happening to someone else. When she saw those jumpsuits, Reilly felt the first real fear about what waited at her destination. It was then that she realized that she would have a rapid learning curve ahead of her. She cursed the days of catatonia between arrest and sentencing, when she should have been preparing for life in prison. She didn’t speak the language. She didn’t know the rules. A cold anxiety grew within her. After preparing for roles her whole life, this was a role that needed the most preparation, and she was not ready. Reilly tried to assume the demeanor of the ones who had been through the system before.
Life in High Def Page 10
