“Lucy! Lucy! ”
Her screams tore through the quiet house. I found her in the kitchen at half past four, eyes wide open but not seeing me, her little body rigid.
“You’re okay. You’re okay. You just had a nightmare. ”
She’d been sleepwalking again.
The night terrors had started the day her mother died. I held her until she came back to herself, and then I called my ex to check on my own son, who’d decided he didn’t want to live with me anymore. Cath, the woman I share a cell with, heard me on the phone. “Calling home?
”
“Yeah, my son. He’s ten. He’s struggling with all of this. ”
“It’s how you are once you’re a parent.
You never stop worrying. ”
I told her about my ex, Danny, a copper who wasn’t around anymore but still helping out. She gave me a knowing look. “If you have any bother because of it, you let me know.
”
I hadn’t been in long. My case was big news in our town. The other inmates had taken notice. One of them, a blonde with a Rangers tattoo, had cornered me in the canteen.
“If I show my face in here again, it’ll be the last meal I ever eat. ”
Cath knew exactly who I meant. “Someone you don’t need to worry about anymore. I’ll mark her card before tea time.
She likes to try it with all the new fish. ”
I was grateful. I wasn’t used to having anyone in my corner. My whole life had fallen apart in a single night.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Danny and I had been separated for months, but the divorce wasn’t final. He was still the man I called when my son was sick. He was still the man I trusted to look after Harry.
And Harry was with him now. Because I was here. The trouble started with my neighbor, Jodie. She’d been at the rec room, staring at me with that cold look she had.
She cornered me in the common area, her voice low and mean. “You think you’re better than us, don’t you? ”
“I was trying to talk to you and you blanked me. ”
“I wasn’t blanking you.
I just didn’t have anything to say. ”
It escalated faster than I expected. She grabbed my arm. I tried to pull away, and my nails scratched her skin.
She screamed like I’d stabbed her. “You see! You see what she did! ”
I was shaking.
“It was an accident. She grabbed me first. ”
But she’d already won. She had witnesses on her side, and I had a reputation I didn’t earn.
Later, when Danny came to visit, he had that look on his face, the one that said he was trying to work out if I was lying. “Yvette said you scratched her on purpose. ”
“She started it. She’s been making my life hell since I got here.
”
“I’m just saying, be careful. You don’t need any more trouble. ”
I couldn’t believe he was questioning me. But Danny never quite knew what to believe about me anymore.
He thought I was fragile. He thought I was broken. Maybe I was. The worst part was the phone call from my sister, Bethany.
She had Harry. She was trying. “He’s not himself. He seems lost.
”
“Don’t put too much pressure on him. He’s just a kid. ”
“I feel like I can’t reach him. And I feel like I’m putting all of this on you.
”
“Don’t worry about us while you’re in there. You’ve got enough going on. ”
But I couldn’t stop worrying. My son hated me.
He blamed me for what happened, or maybe he just needed someone to blame. He wouldn’t talk to me on the phone. He wouldn’t come to visit. Every time I thought about it, I felt my chest tighten.
Then there was the meeting with the lawyer. He said there were complications with my case. The victim’s family was pushing for a longer sentence. He said, with the way things looked, I might be in here for a while.
“It’s only a matter of time,” I told Cath. “Everything is going to fall apart. Harry’ll be on his own again. ”
“Don’t be daft, love.
You’re not on your own. ”
“I’m not his family anymore. I’m just the woman who’s in prison. ”
She didn’t push.
She just told me to focus on myself, to eat, to sleep, to get through the day. She was a guardian angel, but even she couldn’t fix the growing ache in my chest. Then the day came when I had to face the person who hurt me most. Lucy.
She stood in the doorway of the visiting room, her bag slung over her shoulder. She didn’t look at me. She looked at the floor. “Hello, love.
”
“Can I have my charger? ”
“It’s over there on the side. ”
Her voice was flat. Empty.
I tried to tell her we knew Jodie had started it, that we believed her, but she just shook her head. “Why did you lie to her? You told her I scratched her on purpose. ”
“I didn’t.
I just said it was an accident. You know, to calm things down. ”
“You had no right. You had no right to tell her anything about me.
”
Her dad was trying to calm her down, to tell her she was family, that we were all trying to look out for her. But she saw through it all. “I’m not your family. She definitely doesn’t want me here.
”
She was right. I didn’t want her there. I didn’t want to be sitting across a table from a girl who’d watched her mother die, a girl who’d told the police that my husband, her father, had only acted in self-defense. The girl who was sending me to prison.
I tried to push the thought away, but it kept coming back. My husband was gone. My son was gone. My life was gone.
And the one person who could have told the truth didn’t care. “She didn’t mean it,” her dad said. “What she said is the least of my worries. ”
“Why would you lie to her?
”
“What else could I do? She was upset. ”
“Well, she’s going to be even more upset when she finds out what really happened. ”
I looked at her, standing there, so sure of herself.
I thought about my son, alone in that house with a father who couldn’t see what was right in front of him. I thought about the lies I’d told, the secrets I’d kept, the truth I’d buried. “It wasn’t an accident,” I said. “And it wasn’t self-defense.
”
The silence in the room was loud. Her father’s face went pale. Lucy finally looked at me, and for the first time, I saw something other than anger in her eyes. Fear.
“What do you mean? ” she whispered. I could feel the walls closing in. I had a choice.
I could keep the secret, protect her, protect myself. Or I could tell her everything. “I’ll tell you what really happened,” I said. “But you’re not going to like it.
”
