Somebody Else’s Sky: Something in the Way, 2

by Jessica Hawkins

  It made me think of Madison as a baby. I was six when she was born. I’d been an okay brother. I could’ve been better. Looking back, after her death, there were some things I regretted. I’d stay out after my baseball games instead of coming home for dinner. I’d hide her annoying flute, even though she needed to practice for a recital. I hadn’t considered that my little sister might not always be around to kick out of my room or tease for watching cartoons.

  “I think babies know,” I said.

  “But how?” He sounded sad.

  “Just do. It’s biological or something. Like how they just love you without having to be told or taught.”

  The bunk squeaked as he shifted. “Deep,” Wills said. “You know what I heard today? Avocado is a fruit. How fucked up is that?”

  “What’d you think it was?”

  “I don’t know. A vegetable, I guess. I never thought about it.”

  Avocado sounded like the most luxurious thing in the world right then. On sourdough bread with turkey and ham, sliced cheese and mayo? I’d trade a pack for a bite of the Lake Special. I lay there, imagining Lake layering meat with the precision of a surgeon. Even if the sandwich hadn’t been so good, I would’ve enjoyed it just because of the care she’d put into it. Why? What’d made her want to feed me? What’d given her the courage to come over to the wall that day I’d found her bracelet?

  I forced my eyes open. It was as if finding out Lake’s birthday had busted some kind of dam in me. I couldn’t keep her off my mind. I picked up the top envelope from the stack, turning it over in front of my face, and ran a fingertip along the corner, over my name in her neat, girlish handwriting. A mix of cursive and print, smooth but broken.

  “What’re you doing down there?” Wills asked. “Jerking off to your blonde?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Fine, geez. I did it the other afternoon just knowing she was in the building.”

  I was thinking about my blonde, and it made my chest burn. I grabbed more letters, sorting through them for the only one I’d actually opened. The first I’d ever gotten and had attempted to read. I unfolded the lined paper that had been ripped out of a spiral-bound notebook and words jumped off the page at me.

  So sorry . . . my fault . . . can’t live this way, knowing I did this . . .

  I gritted my teeth, looking away. I didn’t want to read this. Couldn’t. I still had two months in here and if I let her in now, it’d make things so much fucking harder. Why did she send them? What good did it do? I turned the page over to the last few lines.

  I’ll come visit every chance I get. Don’t be mad at me. I’ll make this up to you.

  I almost crumpled the page, my hand shook so bad. There was no mention of anything in the letter other than what she’d done. How sorry she was. All the ways it hurt. That wasn’t the life I wanted for her, and she knew it. I could still feel her between my legs on the horse, laughing into the wind, gripping my forearms even though she had to know I’d never let her fall.

  Since I’d gotten here, I’d been in two fistfights, had faced down a man with a shiv, and had been verbally abused by CO’s. But reading about her guilt over that night was harder than any of that. I found her most recent letter, the one I’d picked up last week, and stuck my finger under the flap, easing it open.

  Wills started on some rant about tonight’s mystery meat and how he’d probably have diarrhea in the middle of the night. That small motherfucker had a weak constitution. One thing I’d learned in prison was that I could eat anything and still, sometimes, try to bargain for more. I tuned Wills out.

  Dear Manning,

  I had to make a hard decision this week. I wasn’t going to be a camp counselor again. I thought it would be too hard without you, but I think I’m going to do it. I love it up there and I want to see the kids. I hope it doesn’t upset you. I’ll make it up to you by riding a horse, but since I can’t imagine being up there with anyone other than you, I’ll do it by myself.

  I swallowed and almost stopped reading. Selfishly, it did upset me. I wanted to be back there, in the woods where the air was fresh and cool, with no worries. Just her.

  My dad and I had a fight. He wants me to join the track team next year so I can put it on my college apps. I said no. I don’t run for him or for USC. I run for myself. Some days it feels like the only thing I can do. By the way, my infection is gone. I hope you weren’t worried. I know you worry.

  There will be a scar. Val says it’s cool, at least.

  My gut tightened, my hand instinctively balling up the envelope. What had infected her, scarred her? Who was Val? Was that a man or a woman’s name? Fuck.

  I skimmed to the end of the letter.

  Please write me back. Please add me to your visitor’s list. I miss . . . everything.

  Love,

  Lake

  PS My birthday is in less than two weeks. I’ll be seventeen (but you know that).

  I dropped my hand, clutching the page. Love, Lake. The words were tiny daggers dipped in sweetness and plunged into my heart. I’d never approve her as a visitor, that was for damn sure. She was a minor and couldn’t come alone anyway.

  Next to me on the mattress were the answers to my questions, but the first and last letter told me all I needed to know. I wasn’t strong enough to handle being in Lake’s head. When she hurt, I did more than hurt—I felt like shit. Like a real criminal for letting things get this far. But hearing she was doing better without me around, yeah, that made me feel like shit, too.

  I closed my eyes. She was going to camp. Getting back on the horse. Running for herself. She was better, stronger, growing up, and if I were still in the picture, that wouldn’t’ve been the case. The evidence was clear—in a matter of weeks, I’d turned her perfect life upside down. She was getting it right-side up again, like I’d always known she would. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt, knowing she was moving on, but as long as she was happy, being away from her was the right thing.

  I must’ve drifted. When I came to, the lights in the cells and hallway had dimmed. The jail was still, quiet, and that only happened at the dead of night. I gathered up the letters to put them away when I noticed the other one I’d been avoiding. It wasn’t from Lake, but it’d be easier to read since I didn’t really give a shit what it said.

  I ripped open the envelope, probably taking off some of the letter itself, and held it out to the bit of light coming into the cell.

  Did you get my last few letters, Son?

  I’ve been calling, but they say I’m still not approved to visit. Your mom, either.

  I was planning to drive out there. I didn’t want to go into all this over a letter, but what else can I do? It’s like a parasite inside me, and I can’t move on with my life until I get it out.

  Weak, pathetic piece of shit. My dad’s chicken-scratch filled up three whole goddamn pages, front and back. I’d read his first letter with my eyebrows drawn, certain it’d gotten to the wrong “son.”

  Apparently, he’d been released from Pelican Bay and had been looking for me ever since. If he’d reached out to Henry or my aunt, they hadn’t mentioned it, because we all had an understanding—we didn’t talk about my dad. It wasn’t until I’d been locked up that Dad had been able to find me. His letters were so fucking pitiful, sometimes they even made for a good laugh.

  I skimmed the words so I could trash it as fast as possible.

  Rehabilitate myself . . .

  In a program . . .

  Bad things.

  Your sister.

  Innocence.

  My attention snagged on Madison’s name. I held the letter closer to my face, squinting to read.

  Your sister lived in her own world. Madison could occupy herself for hours. Sometimes I just couldn’t stand not knowing what was in her head. It drew me to her . . . and it infuriated me. My counselor says her innocence and simplicity “defied” the chaos in my head. I would ask her what she was thinking, but she kept me out on purpose to torture me.
To tempt me. She matured too fast. One minute she was my innocent little girl, and overnight she started to change. You don’t know what it’s like to watch a girl become a woman.

  The priest says I can be forgiven, but I have to ask for it, so here I am, asking. First, I should explain.

  My father, your grandpa, started molesting me when I was seven or eight. The first time I touched your sister, it was an accident.

  The floor bottomed out. I sucked in a breath as I shot up to a sitting position, knocking my head on the top bunk. No no no. This wasn’t happening.

  I made confession to the Lord. It’s not enough. I want your forgiveness, too.

  My teeth ground together to the point of pain.

  Your mother took it hard, but she’s decided to stand by me . . .

  The dankness of the cell began to close in, suffocating me. I put my head between my knees, holding my ears as the room spun. My quiet, thoughtful sister who’d once cried herself to sleep because we’d caught a mouse in a trap. Who wouldn’t harm an insect. It had to be wrong. A sick joke by a sick motherfucker. My dad had always been off, had demons.

  I got up and paced the cell. I hadn’t known any of this, but I had known he was fucked in the head. That he’d beaten each of us up at some point. And I hadn’t stopped him.

  My brain pounded, swelling in my head. My eyes burned. My heart blistered, setting fire to my chest, face, and scalp. That fuck. That stupid fuck. It wasn’t enough to kill Madison, he’d had to ruin her, too. Steal her innocence from right under my nose. Maddy’s and my bedrooms had shared a wall. How could I not have known? I wanted to scream, howl, feel the cold, steel bars of my cell breaking apart by my hands. I want to get loose so I could wring his neck and drain the life from his body.

  I leaned my back against a wall and pinched the inside corners of my eyes. Like a sponge, hot water came out. I hadn’t shed a tear since Madison’s death nine years ago, not even during her funeral.

  Because I didn’t cry. I didn’t breakdown. I got stronger. I made sure it didn’t happen to anyone else I loved. I protected.

  This, though, this was different. I’d lived under the same roof as a monster. Madison had never said a thing to me. She’d been a shy kid, and now I knew—she must’ve been a scared one. She’d never try to spite or manipulate my dad. That wasn’t her. His belief that she had, that she’d tempted him, was one of a coward. Fuck forgiveness. He hadn’t changed a bit.

  I slid down the wall, sitting with my head between my knees and my hair in my fists. This was the end of the fucking line for me, a second death for Maddy. Any goodness I might’ve thought there was in this world, my dad had just weeded it right out. And there wasn’t a fucking thing I could do about it, barred in an eight-by-six cell, trapped with nothing but my father’s sins and the encroaching memories of Lake, the seventeen-year-old girl I needed to forget—now more than ever.

  3

  Manning

  Playing cards were dealt, checked, folded, swiped off the table in front of me. Three of clubs. Ten of diamonds. The queen of hearts blinked at me, morphing into a jack of spades. I rubbed the corner of my eyes and tried to focus. I couldn’t lose this game.

  I didn’t normally gamble—I could go to SHU for it, and that’d be getting off easy. I didn’t want to owe anyone anything in here, least of all money. Lately, I needed more and more ways to burn off my nervous energy, though. Working outdoors eight hours wasn’t cutting it. I hadn’t slept more than three hours a night since reading my dad’s letter earlier in the week.

  Some men shouted at the fight on TV, then at each other.

  I slid three brown M&M’s into the middle of the table. “Raise.”

  Officer Ludwig sauntered into the room belly first. “Hey,” he said, circling the couch to block the TV. “Settle down.”

  It was the worst thing he could say. Shut the fuck up would’ve been better. At least that was man to man. Settle down was for disruptive elementary kids.

  Ludwig turned his back to leave the room.

  “Sorry, Lovedicks,” one of the guys watching TV said.

  He looked back, his jiggly jaw tense. “It’s Ludwig.”

  “That’s what we said.” Wills spoke from next to me. It was what nobody said. We all called him Lovedicks behind his back. He sometimes took it up the ass from inmates, even though he had access to outside pussy.

  I glared at Wills for getting involved. “Don’t be an idiot.”

  Like a predator picking up a scent, Ludwig prowled toward our table, hand on his holster. “You girls gambling?”

  Sweat dripped down my temples. I wiped it away with my sleeve. “No, sir.”

  “Just enjoying some Go Fish and chocolate,” Hendricks said from across the table, adding a lisp that made the guys snicker.

  “You think I’m dumb?” the CO asked. “Can’t tell a game of poker when I see one?”

  “You wouldn’t know a real game of poker if it poked you in the eye,” Puentes said. He’d been transferred here for having his men on the outside kill a guard in his home. “Like Hendricks’s dick did to you last night.”

  The mocking only ticked Lovedicks off more. He hated that we all knew his taste for cock, but it didn’t bother him enough to stop. He jabbed his baton into Hendricks’s shoulder. “He’s dreaming if he said that.”

  “So I guess that white stuff in the corner of ya mouth is mayo,” Wills said.

  Lovedicks slammed his baton on our table, scattering M&M’s. “Shut up, or I’ll call lights-out early.”

  The guys never learned. They just liked to start shit, even though the guards always won—no matter their size, disposition, or rank on the ladder. My knee bounced under the table. It wasn’t nerves—I had a good hand. It was the fact that it was always a million fucking degrees in this place.

  CO Jameson came into the room, her brown ponytail swinging like a horse’s mane. “Everything okay in here?”

  Lovedicks retreated to lean against the nearest wall, but he kept his eyes on us.

  Jameson scanned the room and met my eyes. “You good, Sutter? Sweating through your scrubs there.”

  “Fine. Just hot.” Jameson was the only guard I sometimes talked to. She was my age, still wanted to help around here. I hoped she’d wise up and get out of this place soon, just not before I did.

  “Go Fish, cabrón,” Puentes hurried me along.

  “Trout.” I matched Puentes’s bet with the code word for call. Goldfish meant money, Betta was all in, and chum signaled you were out.

  “You ever get on top?” Wills asked Lovedicks but continued before he could respond, “Nah, never mind. You’re not the type.”

  “Why, you interested?” Lovedicks asked. “I wouldn’t shove my baton up your ass, even if you begged.”

  Wills stood up, his temples going veiny. “Beg? Me? You think I got to beg for anything? I don’t beg for shit, lardass.”

  “Sit your ass down, con,” Lovedicks said.

  “Yeah, sit the fuck down,” I said, “and trout or chum so I can wipe the floor with your ass, get my goldfish, and go to sleep.”

  “Sutter’s gotta go jerk it to his blondes,” Lovedicks said.

  I ignored him, motioning for Wills to play his hand or fold.

  “Blondes?” Wills asked. “He got more than one?”

  “Yeah, you haven’t seen the other one?” Lovedicks asked. “Blonde, sweet-looking thing, barely-legal pussy. She’s come by a couple times, trying to sneak in and see him.”

  Every muscle in my body locked up. I didn’t even think her name, didn’t picture her so they couldn’t read my thoughts. She’d come around? Looking for me? I didn’t want her within a hundred miles of this place. The card under my thumb creased down the middle.

  “Tsk, tsk,” Wills said to me. “You been holding out on us, Sutter?”

  My pulse pounded against my temples. She’s seventeen. Seventeen. I would’ve told them that to shut them up except that it’d only make things worse. These fuckers would hav
e no problem beating off to a seventeen-year-old and some of them were probably pedophiles like my dad.

  Pedophile.

  It was the first time I’d associated him with the word. What made me different from him? From them? I’d put my hands on Lake when she was sixteen, and I’d wanted to do a hell of a lot more than that. Her face flashed across my mind, and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to erase her from this shithole.

  “Legs for miles,” Lovedicks continued. “Blonde hair past her tits. Just like Manning’s girl, but younger. Sweeter.”

  “Shut—” I wheezed, my chest too tight. “Shut the fuck up.”

  “What’re you gonna do, make me? You can’t do shit.” Lovedicks rounded the table, prodding the middle of my back with his baton. “Pussy that good can’t be off limits. The little bitch is straight from heaven.”

  My hands shook so hard imagining Lake in the same room as Ludwig, I dropped my cards. She was too good to be talked about that way. “Stop.” I wasn’t sure if I was commanding myself or him. “Stop.”

  Jameson had moved away to watch the fight, but she looked over. “Let up, CO.”

  “Don’t you know?” Wills said. “Manning don’t like pussy. He’s a closet fag.”

  “Come on, Sutter,” Hendricks said. “Plenty of us were in your shoes once. Trust me, the sooner you give in, the sooner we’ll get you loosened up.”

  Wills knew I’d never turn, but some days, out of boredom, he went on benders, trying to get me to explode. “I told you a thousand times—my girl’s off limits.”

  “I’m not talking about your girl,” Lovedicks said. “Talking about the other one. What’s it, her little sister? When’s the last time you saw her? Skinny little thing, but I’ll bet she didn’t have any tits back when you knew her.”

  Time slowed. The fluorescent lights above flooded the room, turning the walls that’d held me inside for months blindingly white. Words, not truths. They want you to crack. Words meant to instigate. That was what I told myself when the guys dug in, but still, I found myself standing, my rage too big to sit on.

  “You ever tasted that sweet, young cunt?” he asked.