Tell Anna She's Safe

by Brenda Missen

  *

  SHE FOLLOWED THE SENIOR VISITS and Correspondence Officer outside into the bright May sunshine and along a narrow flagstone path that bisected the lawn. High in the corners of the prison yard the cameras watched her every move.

  They watched her follow the officer toward the row of semi-detached houses. He stopped at one of two gates right next to each other. The gates led to two walkways across two tiny front lawns up to two front doors. A high chain-link fence surrounded both yards and ran between them. A green nylon sheet covered the portion of the fence between the two small patches of lawn.

  Except for the unusual highness of the fence and the heavy mesh covering the windows, the building looked like a normal house—a white clapboard bungalow, with a small cement stoop; it might have been out of the fifties. Lucy could pretend she was a war bride—as her mother had been, more or less. Except that her mother’s incarceration, starting out in a small post-war bungalow in North Toronto, had been permanent. Not a three-day visit.

  Lucy banished the thoughts of her mother; she had not invited her on this weekend. She watched the officer beside her. He shook out his ring of keys, selected one, and unlocked the gate. He swung it open and smiled for Lucy to go through. Inside the yard, she turned to watch him shut the gate between them. She watched, in horrified fascination, as the lock snapped shut.

  She looked up to the top of the fence and was suddenly dizzy. Before her eyes the fence seemed to be stretching upward higher and higher. The panic was rising inside her along with the fence. She reached out to grasp the metal and looked down at the grass. She was aware of the officer watching her. She concentrated on the blades of grass at her feet. If they could thrive in here, continue to grow and live, so could she. She wouldn’t need to scream. The guard would not have to re-open the gate and take her away.

  And, she reminded herself, there was a phone inside. All she needed to do was pick it up and a guard would be at the other end. Twice a day, a guard would be coming around to do a count, to see that everything was alright. She wasn’t being abandoned; there was an out if she needed it.

  She was so intent on bracing herself for her voluntary incarceration, she didn’t hear the front door open. It was the officer looking beyond her that made her turn.

  Tim stood on the cement stoop, in a white T-shirt and blue-jeans.

  Lucy stared up at the man on the stoop. This was not a numbered prisoner. This was Tim Brennan of Brudenell. And on his face were reflected all her own fear and excitement, anticipation and terror.

  She turned back to the V. and C. Officer. He was looking at her with a question in his eyes. A kind concern. And encouragement.

  She nodded and made her way up the walkway to Tim and the open door behind him.

  *

  “WHAT IS IT ABOUT YOU women, anyway?” Quinn was shaking his head. “There are so many documented cases of women befriending—and marrying—losers in prison. Trying to rescue them. And then ending up dead.”

  Lucy wasn’t trying to rescue anyone but herself.

  Lucy’s old friend Kevin’s words. I had a feeling they might be true. But Quinn’s view was probably going to be the prevailing view. That she had walked into a trap, possibly had deserved what she got. “She wasn’t trying to rescue him,” I said, knowing I couldn’t defend myself.

  “Well, I just don’t get it. Especially since his records show there was evidence of yelling and fighting even when he was in prison. He probably physically abused her there. Why would a smart, sane woman continue in a relationship like that?”

  I let out an audible sigh through my nose. I didn’t have any answer to that. I had no experience of violence. My impression of abused women had always been one of helpless women who got battered around by much stronger men. But Lucy was not helpless. Despite her fears. Despite her size. I knew how feisty she was. Even in my second dream she had not been lying there passively. Each time she’d come to, she’d been furious. Yelling at Tim. Provoking him so that he’d drugged her again and again. I had been assuming that whatever Tim had done to her—drugged her, strangled her, whatever it had been—had been an isolated act of violence. Now, here was Quinn telling me there had been violence even while he was still in prison. They would have been alone during their PFVs. Had it started there?

  “Anyway, enough about those two,” Quinn added. “I don’t want to talk about any of that disturbing stuff tonight.”

  You don’t want me running away. There was, I mused, no chance of that tonight. The wine was having its intended effect. I felt my body and my mind relaxing. I pulled a leg up onto the couch, tucked it under my other leg. I concentrated on the man beside me. He wasn’t a handsome man. His face was too round, his features too blunt. But he had physical presence. A confidence exuded from him. And there was no denying the chemical energy between us.

  He smiled at me now. “Tell me more about yourself, Ellen McGinn. You want kids?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe some day, before I’m forty.”

  “You’ve got years then.”

  “Flatterer.”

  “You can’t be more than twenty-eight.”

  I laughed and made a “keep it coming” gesture with my free hand. “I thought cops were supposed to be able to see through all that.”

  “We see through everything, Ellen. Make no mistake about it.”

  “So, how old am I?” I gave him a challenging look.

  He pretended to scrutinize me. I enjoyed the scrutiny.

  “You’re thirty-three,” he said.

  “You read my driver’s licence.”

  Quinn adopted an innocent look. “Now when would I have seen your driver’s licence?”

  “I don’t know, it must be on a computer system somewhere.”

  “Yes, all your vitals are there, for the entire force to read: single—newly single—beautiful strawberry blonde, five foot, hmmm, eight. Very fit. Likes biking, skiing, running, but not canoeing or swimming or anything related to water.” He was checking off the items on his fingers. Strong-looking square fingers.

  I couldn’t quite hide my smile. I didn’t even mind him mentioning the water. It was an understanding kind of teasing. Not a mocking. “Quite the system you’ve got there,” I commented.

  “You have no idea. Want to know what else is in there?”

  I shook my head, but I did.

  Quinn looked straight at me with that wide-eyed look of his. “It says you’ve been underappreciated. That you’re looking for someone who appreciates you for who you are, who shares your interests. Who believes in you.”

  “Okay, stop,” I said. The clichés, as true as they were, were making me squirm. I reached for my glass and took another long swallow.

  I put the glass down on the coffee table and stood up. “Mind if I go see if you’ve got any cheese and crackers or anything to munch on?” I wasn’t hungry in the least but I needed a break from the intensity.

  Quinn made to get to his feet, but I put a hand out to stop him. “Let me. You did say I was going to feed you.”

  He shrugged and sat back. “That was just an excuse, but go ahead.” He called out after me: “You’ll probably have better luck in the cupboards than the fridge.”

  I came back with a bag of chips and what little remained of the wine. “Strange bedfellows,” I said before I thought. I put the chips down on the coffee table and willed him not to make an innuendo.

  “It’ll hit the spot,” said Quinn. He stood up, I thought, to take the bottle from me. But it was me he reached for. “But this will hit the spot even more,” he murmured. “Mind?”

  Mind? I wasn’t capable of minding. I wasn’t capable of thought at all. I was enveloped in a shock of sensation. The sensation of being engulfed, no enfolded, in much bigger arms and body than Marc’s. I wrapped my arms around his back. There was solidity,
overlaid with the softness that came from not working out. But under the softness there was strength, no question. For the first time, possibly in my life, I felt small, vulnerable. Vulnerable in a good way. This was a man who could take care of me. Who could sweep me up into his arms and carry me to safety. Something I didn’t even know I wanted. I leaned into him. I think I even moaned a little. Quinn didn’t try to kiss me. There was a tension in his body, though, as if he were fighting every impulse to do just that, or to run his hands everywhere over me. But when he pulled back it was to push the hair back from my face, and to let out a long slow breath. “Oh God, Ellen McGinn, what have you done to me?”

  “Me?” My voice came out sounding like a little girl’s. I couldn’t shake the sensation that I had shrunk to half my size. It was strange. Exhilarating in the way of strange new things. I was a dainty feminine creature. How did he do that?

  “I think the question is what you’ve done to me.” I spoke against his chest. And felt the vibration of laughter inside. His arms tightened around me again.

  I don’t know how long we stood like that. In the tight, tense embrace. I could barely breathe. I wanted him to kiss me. And more. How far would protocol allow him to go? Was this whole night off the record? I found myself hoping it was. “We are not,” I could imagine Quinn saying in his stern cop voice, “having this intercourse.” I had to smother the impulse to laugh.

  In that uncanny way he had of reading my mind, Quinn loosened his hold again. “Come and sit down, we need to talk.”

  He pulled me down onto the couch beside him and turned towards me. He was brushing my hair with his fingers again. There was another sigh. “What am I going to do with you?”

  A voice I gave no permission to speak said, “What would you like to do with me?”

  His expression managed to be both lustful and wry. “Nothing so very original, I’m afraid,” he said. “Though I have no doubt it would be extraordinary. But….”

  “But.” I had pulled back, was looking directly at him. I knew he wanted me. It made me euphoric. Bold.

  Quinn groaned. “God, woman, don’t look at me like that. I can’t. We can’t.”

  “Because?” Of the case? Or something else?

  “You know why. This damned case. I can’t get involved with you. Not yet.”

  “And yet.”

  “And yet, what?”

  I shrugged. The wine had loosened my inhibitions, and my tongue. “And yet, I’m here.”

  “So you are,” said Quinn, and he looked so wary I did laugh then.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Your face,” I said. “Scared.”

  For a moment he looked angry. Then it passed. I had imagined it. “Me?” he said. “Scared of a minx like you? C’mere. I’ll show you who’s scared.”

  In a second he had pulled me onto his lap, was kissing me, not gently, gripping the hair close to my head, pushing my hips down to his, pressing me into his hard groin. I kissed him back with the same ferocity. A need had met a need. Quinn’s felt like it was the need for raw sexual release. I wasn’t sure what mine was. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been having satisfying sex. God, only a few days before! This was different. It would be. Of course. I was the object of passion. I might even have called it a violent passion. But scared didn’t enter my mind. For one heavenly moment in this whole nightmare, there was no fear. It felt good to be wanted like this. Possessed.

  I put my hands down to the belt of Quinn’s jeans. A hand suddenly clenched around mine. The other pushed my head back. For a moment fear was back. But then I heard the whispered “Holy fuck.” I wasn’t the scared one.

  The next instant I found myself back beside him on the couch. Quinn was leaning forward, elbows on his knees, breathing hard. He turned his head to me. “You pack a pretty lethal charge, don’t you?”

  I pulled my legs up to a bent-kneed position on the couch, grasped my ankles with my hands. My breathing wasn’t that regular either. “I’d say it was mutual.”

  I watched him run his hands through his close-shaven hair. “Ellen, I’m sorry. I’d love to be able to say screw my job, the case, the whole effing force. God, there’s nothing I’d like to do more than throw you down on that coffee table. But I can’t. I can’t get involved with you—that way. Not yet. But. When this is over….”

  He was looking at me with a hopeful expression. “When this case is over, and I’ve wrapped up some loose ends, and I’ve found a place in the Gatineaus, we can do this properly.”

  He spoke in a determined voice. So determined it unnerved me. I tried to keep the conversation light. “What’s properly? Candlelight and wine?”

  “Anything you want.”

  *

  THE HOUSE, NO BIGGER THAN a small apartment, consisted of an open-plan living room and kitchen in the front, two small bedrooms in the back, and an ugly beige bathroom. It was too small, too impersonal, too sterile to be a home. She stared at the empty hangers in the bedroom closet, the empty drawers she had pulled open in the dresser. Whose clothes had been there before? Was it worse to keep her clothes in the institutional suitcase she’d had to transfer her clothes into in the personal search room, or to put them in drawers that had held someone else’s? Why was she so neurotic about these things?

  She was aware of Tim standing behind her in the doorway. She felt trapped in the room, too close to the bed. She wanted to pull back the covers, make sure the sheets were clean (the rules had indicated that each family was responsible for washing all the linens after each visit; there was a washer and dryer in the kitchen, of course they were clean). But she didn’t want to give Tim the wrong idea.

  She could stand the confined space no longer. She brushed past Tim, leaving the suitcase open, unpacked, on the bed. In the kitchen she opened cupboards, inspecting their contents. Tim had followed; she was aware of him standing awkwardly by the Formica table.

  “I got all the food you asked me to.”

  Such as it was, she thought, remembering the list of items available. Anyway, it wasn’t the food she was checking but the cooking supplies, the dishes. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting (the Hyatt Regency, no less, her brain mocked her).

  “There’s no colander. How can I make pasta when there’s no colander?” She was slamming the cupboards shut; she couldn’t stop herself. Tim’s awkwardness unnerved her even more. She wanted to say, “Just let me do this. Let me complain about the lack of utensils and the size of the pots. Just let me settle in.”

  As if he read her mind, Tim left off watching her. She heard the electronic click of the TV, the tinned voices. The sound increased her irritation. She hadn’t come here to watch TV—or to watch him watch TV.

  She stood at the kitchen sink, running the water for a drink. What were they going to do for three days? It was only ten in the morning on Friday. What were they going to find to talk about until nine o’clock Monday morning? Stop, she told herself. This wasn’t a stranger, it was Tim. They’d known each other for a year. It was just the circumstances that were strange, that made them strange to each other. It was so forced, this so-called private family visit. They had never been a family before, had never had even a semblance of privacy. They didn’t know how to sit companionably together in a living room.

  She made herself go to the couch. She sat down next to Tim, not too close, but not too far away either. She reached over for the remote and took it out of his hand. Found the mute button.

  “Hey, what are you—”

  He stopped when he saw her face.

  “Tim.” She didn’t know how to continue; she didn’t know what to say.

  There was a long silence. She opened her mouth again, and the words came. “Do you mind,” she asked in a soft voice, “if I just sit here and look at you for awhile?”

  She woke up to bright sunlight. She rolled ove
r into Tim’s arms and breathed in the musky smell of his chest. “Oh God,” she groaned happily, “you snore. I barely slept.”

  “At least you slept. I ain’t shared a bed with a woman in fifteen years.”

  “You must have slept—you were snoring.”

  “How could I snore when I didn’t sleep?”

  She smiled sleepily. “Okay, you were snoring while you lay there awake. Go to sleep now.”

  “I don’t think so. I think I’m going to have to skin-search you.”

  She laughed and pressed herself in closer. “How far are you going to have to go?”

  “I’m going to have to search every crevice you have,” he whispered.

  And he did. With surprising tenderness. As he had the night before. She had underestimated him on several counts—his size, his sensitivity, his fit. He filled her being. Somehow the physical transmuted into the emotional. She let herself become lost in feeling—physical, emotional, it was all one. She and Tim were one. She had never known this kind of merging before. She forgot where she was. She almost forgot who she was.

  He didn’t stop after he’d come. He caressed her until he was aroused again. And again. They almost didn’t get out onto the porch in time for the morning count.

  *

  IT WAS ALMOST ONE A.M. when Quinn drove me home. He had graduated to the Scotch after the wine was gone. I had graduated to water. And an instant headache. I didn’t ask if he was okay to drive. He didn’t seem affected by the alcohol at all. He’d probably just have to wave his badge if we were stopped anyway.

  “For a second date, that was a pretty supercharged one.” Quinn’s voice came out of the darkness beside me. “Or was that the third?”

  I blew out a breath. “That,” I said, “felt like we jumped right to the fourth or fifth.”