Back in my room, I walked around, still in my towel, and put away my things. The rooms were just large enough for two single beds, with bedding in a pale blue and beige checked pattern that looked like it had been washed a thousand times, and two chests of drawers. In a corner of the room there were lockers for our personal stuff. My new roommate was out, probably working. We hadn’t met yet and I was nervous—a bad roommate could make your life hell. I tried to focus on the goal: one more year and I could apply for full parole. I just had to stay out of trouble.
* * *
I had pulled on a pair of jeans and was standing in my prison-issue sports bra—I was going to have to go shopping for clothes soon—when my door was flung open. Instinctively, I grabbed one of my shoes from the floor in case I needed a weapon. A woman came rushing into the room, heading toward the dresser on the other side. She looked about my age but was probably a few years younger. Bleach-blond hair, too much makeup, scarred skin, like she’d been a druggie. She glanced at me, her eyes surprised, then started frantically searching through her top drawer. She kept looking back at the open doorway, saying, “Shit, shit, shit.”
“Are you okay?” I said.
She glanced at me again and looked like she was about to say something, then I heard heavy footsteps in the hall outside our room. The woman froze, her hand still in the drawer. We both turned toward the door.
A large woman was standing in the hallway, her face angry and mean. Wide-shouldered, with huge breasts that hung low under her black T-shirt, salt-and-pepper hair in a crew cut, a jagged pale pink scar running down the side of her head, almost to her ear. She was wearing men’s jeans with a wallet chain, and tattoos covered most of her throat, forming a collar. My body tense, I studied the tattoos up and down her meaty arms—prison style. Was she from Rockland?
One of the tattoos was a name, HELEN, with a knife through the H and a rose wrapped around the handle. Her eyes flicked to me. Now I remembered. Helen Rosanboch. She’d been at Rockland last year, but we’d been housed in different cell blocks, so we hadn’t had much contact. She had a violent reputation, and I’d heard she was a doper. But she got along well with the guards, knew how to play the game, and had friends on the inside. I didn’t know why Helen was at my door, but it couldn’t be for anything good. I gripped the shoe tighter.
“Where’s my fucking money?” she said to the blond woman.
So that was it. A beef over a bad debt.
“I’ve got some—and I’ll get the rest by the end of the week.” The woman’s voice was scared, her body almost cringing into the corner.
Helen took a few steps into the room. “We had a deal, Angie.” Helen glanced at me again. This time it was a challenge, daring me to interfere.
I turned back to my suitcase, but I could still see them both from the corner of my eye. I dropped the shoe onto the bed, where I could reach it. I was worried about a fight starting in our room. It was the last thing I needed.
Angie said, “I’ll get it—real soon, okay?” She grabbed a sock from the drawer, pulled out a handful of crumpled bills.
“You’ve been holding out on me?” Helen came all the way into the room, snatched the money from Angie’s hands, and started unfolding the bills. She mouthed the numbers as she counted, then tucked them into her bra.
“No! I was just waiting until I had it all. Can you give me a break, Helen? Just a few more days. You know my kids—”
“I don’t give a fuck about your kids. I’ve got kids too. What about my fucking kids, Angie?” Helen’s voice was enraged, her face beet-red. She gave Angie a shove. She fell against the side of the dresser, slid down to the floor with a thump. Helen leaned over her. “You think you can play me like that?”
Angie was cowering, one arm over her face. “I’m not. I swear!”
I turned back toward them, my pulse racing. Should I do something?
“I told you—you don’t pay me back on time, I’ll fuck you up.” Helen smacked Angie hard in the face, bouncing the back of Angie’s head against the side of the dresser with a hard crack. Angie let out a gasp.
I stepped forward. “Hey, that’s enough.”
“Stay out of this,” Helen said over her shoulder, giving Angie another slap. Angie was trying to curl into a ball, her arms covering her face and head.
“Stop, please. I’m sorry.” Angie’s muffled voice sounded terrified.
I glanced at the door. Where the hell was the house staff? Couldn’t anyone hear this? No cameras in the room either. Shit, I really didn’t want to get involved but I couldn’t stand by while this woman got her ass kicked.
Helen bent over and grabbed the top of Angie’s hair, lifting her off the floor. Angie cried out and scrabbled at Helen’s hand. Helen spun her around, threw her facedown onto the bed. Her knee in the middle of her back, she pressed Angie’s face into the pillow. Angie was crying hard now, making muffled pleas.
“Come on, Helen. Cool it,” I said.
She turned, her knee still on Angie’s back. “What did you just say?”
I had to be smart now, had to try to head this off without a fight. “If you fuck her up, she’s not going to be able to pay you back, right?” I smiled, trying to show we were all good, I was on her side. But I sat on the edge of my bed and gripped my shoe as if I were loosening the laces to put it on. If she rushed me, I could rear up and smash my head into the bottom of her chin.
“This isn’t your problem,” Helen said.
I loosened a lace. “When it’s in my room, you make it my problem.”
Helen’s hand lifted from the back of Angie’s head. Angie turned her face to the side, gasped for air. Her eyes met mine.
“You want to take me on?” Helen said.
“I just want to unpack my shit and have a nice day.” I kept my voice calm. “First day out of the joint, you know how it is.” I gave her another easy smile.
Helen got off Angie. Took a step toward me. Her face was calculating, like she was trying to figure me out. Close up she was even taller and bigger than I’d thought, and I had a feeling that if I tried to jam my head into her chin, I’d be blocked before I made it halfway up her body. I got to my feet so I’d have a better chance of fighting. The shoe was still in my hand.
She walked over, until we were barely a foot apart. Her gaze roved over my body, my small breasts, my tattoos. It wasn’t sexual—it was intimidation.
“I remember you.” She smiled, and it wasn’t friendly. “You hung with Margaret and her girls, thinking your shit don’t stink, thinking you’re all that. Here I run the house, and my bitches don’t run around causing problems. Got it?”
“Got it.” I was trying to keep my cool, but her trash talk about my girls, disrespecting Margaret, pissed me off. She was so close I could smell her—onions and something muskier, sweat covered by perfume.
Her lips curled. “What, you don’t like me talking about your bitches? One of them your girlfriend or something?” She lingered on the word girlfriend, trying to make it sound dirty.
A voice in the back of my head was saying, Toni, let it go, she’s not worth it. But something about the way she was standing there, so confident, like she could get away with anything, made me want to take her down a peg.
“You need to back the fuck off,” I said.
The second the words were out of my mouth and the mean smile spread across her face, I regretted saying anything. I’d just given her exactly what she wanted—an opening. I felt her step closer and braced. Was she going for it?
“I don’t like your attitude,” she said.
“That makes two of us.”
“You fucking stupid?” Helen said. She gave me a hard push.
I stumbled back a few paces, almost hitting the edge of my bed. “Touch me again and I’ll break your hand.”
She rushed me, trying to grab me in a bear hug. I put my hands up to my forehead, my arms tight to my body, then pushed out fast with all my strength, breaking her hold. I reached up and clapped
the shoe hard against her ear. Her eyes were stunned, but she shook off the pain like a dog shaking off water and punched me hard in the gut, making me double over. She came in for another blow. I jabbed my elbows into her lower ribs, forcing her breath out in a whoosh, then kneed her hard in the inner leg, then the outer leg, then her groin. Quick hard blows. She grunted but she was still coming at me, her face red and sweaty, striking me in the kidneys, ribs, thighs, anywhere it wouldn’t make a mark. I reached up and dug my fingers deep into the notch below her trachea, into the tender spot. She gasped and fell to her knees. I pressed down harder.
A noise behind me, the door opening, another woman’s voice.
“What the hell are you doing?”
It startled me, and my hand loosened for a moment. Helen reared up, slammed her shoulder into my gut, grabbed me around my knees, and knocked me onto my back. I hit the floor with a thud. She flipped me onto my stomach and sprawled her massive body over me, pinning my arm behind my back.
I squirmed, gasped for air, tried to kick up at her, but she had to weigh well over two hundred pounds.
“Better make it fast,” the woman said. “Harley’s coming up the stairs.”
Harley was one of the staff. I hoped to hell Helen wasn’t as stupid as she was mean. She leaned close, her breath hot in my ear. “Stay out of my way.”
Finally the weight left my back. I stayed still, trying to catch my breath, slowly moved my aching arm forward, groaned into the floor.
Helen’s voice said, “One week, Angie.” Heavy footsteps walked out of the room. The other woman followed.
I rolled onto my side, then eased up into a sitting position. I winced as I held my side and tried to flex my arm. I glanced at my roommate. She was gingerly rubbing the back of her head where she’d hit the dresser.
“Why did you do that?” she said.
“She had it coming.” I stood up slowly, sucked in my breath from the pain in my side.
She glanced at the door, like she was expecting Helen to burst in. “Now she’s pissed at you too. She’s going to make your life hell.”
I crawled onto my bed, nursing my wounds, my roommate’s warning resonating. I’d been so close to finally getting my life back. Now Helen was going to screw up everything. Why did I let her get to me like that? She was nothing.
* * *
I got up early the next morning and showered while my roommate and most of the other residents were still sleeping. The faint smell of coffee lingered in the kitchen, and I assumed some of the house residents were off to their jobs. One older woman with short dark hair and a scar that dragged down the side of her mouth sat in the corner, eating her breakfast. She gave me a nod and a “Good morning.” But she looked down again, making it clear that she didn’t want a conversation. Maybe she’d already heard about my run-in with Helen.
I could deal with loneliness—I’d gone through it before—but it still stung. I thought about my girls on the inside with a pang, remembering how close we’d all been. I hoped the shit with Helen would settle down and I’d make some new friends at the house eventually. I hadn’t reported the assault—nothing would get me beaten up faster. Plus, there’s always an assumption by officers that you must have done something to incite the problem. They might pull me out of the halfway house until things calmed down, which was the last thing I wanted. I just had to deal with it.
At Rockland, I’d spoken to the counselor about job opportunities once I was on day parole and I had a résumé made up. The counselors at the halfway house also provided guidance, and there were some house sessions once or twice a week on living skills. That morning I was going to the labor office to see what was posted, then I planned to drop off some résumés around town. I had a meeting with my community parole officer that afternoon to check in. That evening I was going to attend a Narcotics Anonymous meeting in town—the halfway house staff had already given me a list of the local chapters, and there were also meetings in the evening once a week at the house. I still didn’t believe I’d had a substance abuse problem, but that didn’t mean crap. I was high at the time of my sister’s murder, so one of my conditions of parole was that I had to stay away from drugs and alcohol. No problem there. I never wanted to feel again like I did the night Nicole was killed, never wanted to be that oblivious.
There were other challenges—how to figure out a bus schedule, how to get my driver’s license reinstated, how to apply for ID so I could open a bank account. But I decided to take it slow, one thing at a time. I took my envelope of résumés, dressed in my best jeans and shirt, and headed out. First, I was going to the thrift store so I could buy some clothes for job interviews. I walked along the road, breathing in the fresh air, noticing the shadows the big oak trees made on the streets, the tidy homes with their flower-filled yards. Despite the fight with Helen the night before, I was thrilled to be on parole.
We hadn’t gone down to Victoria often when I was growing up because it was almost a two-and-a-half-hour drive. Sometimes, though, our mom would take us to the museum or Fisherman’s Wharf, and we loved shopping in the city. Campbell River only had one old mall with a few small stores, but Victoria had three big malls and lots of boutiques downtown. Victoria was the oldest city on the island and also surrounded by the ocean, but it had a much different feel than Campbell River. There were Parliament buildings, quaint Victorian-style homes, horse-drawn carriages, the inner harbor, and lots of tourists snapping photos of the float planes and street artists. On the boardwalk, I stopped and admired a few sketches, wishing I could buy one, but clothes were more important right now.
I found a few items at the thrift store, a pair of black pants, some shoes, a plain white blouse, a small fitted blazer. It looked like something I’d seen women wearing on TV. I wished I could show it to Margaret. We used to watch Dancing with the Stars at Rockland, oohing and ahhing over the skimpy costumes. Margaret would get a crush on a contestant each season, getting upset if they didn’t win. We’d make ourselves snacks—you get creative with food from the canteen—then plop ourselves down on the old couch. Trash-talking with the other inmates was the best part, especially when Margaret would tell them to “shut your holes.” I liked watching the dancing, but none of the guys did it for me. I wasn’t like Margaret, who loved all of them—she even wrote fan letters. The only one I had a soft spot for was a motocross racer who competed one year. He’d reminded me of Ryan. Sometimes, when he was dancing, I’d blur my vision, and imagine it was Ryan, but then I’d want to cry, so I stopped doing that. It was easier not to remember, not to think about it.
But I found my mind drifting to him now. Was he at the men’s halfway house? Did he ever think about me anymore?
* * *
I changed into my new clothes, then spent the afternoon walking around and delivering résumés, with no luck. I also found a bus schedule and figured out how to get to the animal shelter. When I told the staff I was available for walking the dogs, they said I could come by any weekend. I spent some time in the back, poking my fingers through the kennel bars and rubbing muzzles and talking to the dogs, saying things like “Hey, I’ve been locked up too.” The chain-link fences, the noise, the shelter uniforms reminded me of Rockland, but there was a kind of comfort in that familiarity. The outside world was now the scarier place.
When I got back to the halfway house it smelled like burned meat and onions. Helen was in the kitchen, frying some hamburger patties and talking to a couple of women sitting at the table. I was starving but didn’t want to make my dinner with her in there, so I kept walking. She grabbed my arm when I passed the kitchen door.
“Hey, Murphy, one of my forks is missing. You take my fork?”
I gave her a dirty look. “No, and get your hand off me.”
Nervous snickers from the table while Helen’s fingers dug into my arm, pressing on the tendons. I tried not to flinch. She moved closer.
“You better hope it’s not in your room or you’re in deep shit, you hear?”
&nbs
p; I couldn’t figure out why she was making such a big deal about a fork. At the most I might get a warning from the staff for accidentally taking someone’s belongings. What was her problem? Was she just trying to start another fight?
Her fingers dug in harder. “I said, you hear?”
“I heard.”
* * *
In our room, Angie was on her bed, playing music on an iPod. The night before we’d talked a little after Helen left. She was twenty-six and had been in for drugs and prostitution but said she was clean now, trying to get her life together so she could get her kids back. She’d borrowed money from Helen so she could get her youngest a birthday present.
I crouched to look under my bed, lifted up the mattress, felt along the edges for any cuts or tears.
“What are you doing?” Angie turned off her music.
“Helen’s missing a fork.”
“And you think it’s in here?” She sounded confused.
“Something’s in here. Harley will be up any second.”
“Oh, shit.” Angie stood up. “If he finds drugs in here, we’re screwed.”
We ransacked the room, trying to work fast and quiet. We checked our pillowcases, drawers, the tops of the sills, light fixtures. Every time we heard a step outside or a noise in the hall, we froze and stared at the door, only letting out our breath when the person moved on. Finally we heard the knock.
I tried to look calm as I opened the door. “What’s up, Harley?”
“Sorry, girls, going to have to do a room check,” he said. “Stand out in the hallway, please.”
Angie and I watched from the doorway. Harley was a big guy with yellowed teeth and a two-pack-a-day smoking habit. He had small, mean eyes, and was supposed to be a real hard-ass if you messed up. I hadn’t had any trouble from him yet, and didn’t want any now. Each time he lifted a book or checked the pockets on our clothes or reached into our shoes, I held my breath. Finally he stopped in the middle of the room, slowly looking around, his face thoughtful.