The Forgotten Hours(58)

The idea of leaving home is also the only thing that is keeping her from losing her mind. Over the summer, she changes her name on all her paperwork; she’s becoming someone new, someone with no history. As much as shucking off her father’s name gives her a hollowed-out feeling in her gut, she has to do it—if she can’t talk about these things at home, she certainly can’t talk about them anywhere else. And one day it will all be over, he will be free again, and they’ll be able to forget this ever happened. It’s just a matter of getting from here to there.

A middle-aged woman puts coins into the slot in a locker, turns the key, and then opens it. One by one, she slips gold rings off her fingers. Four . . . six . . . seven. Then a bracelet.

“This is okay, right?” she asks her husband, pointing to her necklace.

He scans her neck: a gold cross on a thin chain hangs on the tired skin above her breasts. “Yeah,” he grunts. He is wearing a smaller cross on a thicker chain.

Katie wonders who they are visiting. The woman’s face is heavily made up, pale-blue shadow and purple eyeliner. Her crisp linen shirt is tucked into black slacks. She pulls a rhinestone-studded belt from the loops of her pants. Her movements are assured. There is no trace of conflict or embarrassment in her expression, yet her face falls when she catches Katie’s eye. A guard comes to the back door and calls out: “Honey Rivera! David Price! Marsha Atkinson! Charlotte Gregory! David Gregory!” he says. “Katherine Gregory!” The six of them stand obediently.

A female guard lifts Katie’s hair off her shoulders with one hand and runs her fingers along the ridge of her back. “Shake it out, would you?” she demands. “Take those off,” she adds, pointing to the little earrings in the extra holes Katie punctured into her ear with a blunt needle during a long night when she and Lulu were bored.

The older lady yanks off her cowboy boots and puts them through the scanner. “It’s Trish today,” she whispers to Katie as they pass along to the next barrier. “She’s real picky. Sometimes they let you through without a problem; sometimes they don’t.” She shrugs and smiles, high wattage but pained.

Katie wants to ask her who she is visiting. A son? A nephew? A father? What was he accused of? Does she know whether he is really guilty or not?

Katie has so many questions for her father. When he is outside his cell, does he have his arms pulled back behind him, his wrists cuffed together? Do the shower stalls have doors or curtains? Is he afraid of the other men? Are any of the guards nice? If it’s hard for Katie to sleep, what is it like in here—can he fall asleep at night? Is he allowed to take his pills? Is he afraid when it’s time to shower? Does it make him feel better or worse to know that guards are watching him when he is naked? And where does he get shampoo? Does he want her to send him his Selsun Blue extra strong dandruff shampoo? Does he miss his rum and tonics? What does he do all day?

Her blood seems laced with caffeine as they walk in a pack across the jail yard. Something about being surrounded by barbed wire and gates and fences and buckled concrete makes her want to run very fast. She looks up at the rows of gray windows overlooking the yard. Are they allowed to smoke? What if they don’t want to come outside? Are there ever prisoners who just want to stay in their cells all day?

The thick glass in the cubicles is milky and scratched. The ubiquitous phones, attached to the wall. The bars clang shut to lock each inmate into a booth, where they sit on a stool bolted to the floor and pick up the phone. The hands that reach up to touch the glass, leaving oily fingerprints. The guards pacing up and down, beating on the bars every now and then to make sure they are locked.

Prisoners come in one by one. Where is Dad? she frets. He isn’t coming. David takes a seat next to his mother, and Katie remains standing. Clammy palms, questions swirling. Everyone else is murmuring into their handsets, leaning toward the partitions as though this will help them make their point.

And then there he is. His face is curiously blank, but when he sees the children, it lights up. His hair is longer than usual. As he sits down, the guard slams the bars shut and locks them behind him. There are only two phones on their side of the glass. David turns away, not ready to talk yet. His chapped lips are cracked and scabbed, and he licks them. Just looking at those broken lips, swollen and pink around the edges, is painful. She wishes he were a little kid again so she could wrap him in her arms, but she can’t protect him anymore.

John grins at his wife. “Charlie Gregory,” he says, “you are so fine. I swear you are looking younger by the minute.”

“Stop trying to flatter me,” she says.

“I’m not trying,” he says. “I’m just doing.”

So much small talk. This and that, none of it important. Washing machines and letters, car maintenance and a broken doorbell.

“What’s the matter, Katie? Cat got your tongue?” John asks his daughter. He’s telling a story about helping an inmate write a letter. His eyes are sharp, but his face is relaxed, as though he’s waiting for them to get some joke that he is enjoying. “These guys are harmless.”

“It’s prison, Dad,” she says under her breath.

“What’s that?” he asks. “Speak up, will you?”

“Nothing.” And then, giving in to the need for small talk, “So who’s Gus, then?”

“Nice-enough guy but can’t string two words together. I helped him with a letter to the appeal board. Basic stuff—I mean, no English degree necessary.” John laughs. He asks how the summer is going, and Katie tells him everything is fine, great; that is what he wants to hear, after all. She doesn’t tell him about the girl who’s been in her class since second grade who burst into tears when she bumped into her at CVS and then looked so relieved when Katie didn’t ask her what was the matter. There’s no mention of stomach cramps or sleepless night. Or the dreams, the ruinous dreams.