All for a Sister (33 page)

Nothing.

She checked again, just to be sure, though she couldn’t imagine where it might be hidden.

The sight of such emptiness brought on a roiling nausea, making her grateful to have skipped breakfast for her shower. She did, however, have a tin water pitcher and cup, and she poured herself a drink, slaking her thirst and settling her stomach somewhat.

Effie had never forgotten her before, but perhaps, as Marvena said, she had been given duties in the new infirmary. No bother, as she had plenty to read. Climbing up onto her bed, she opened her book to a favorite story, that of Oceanus and his refusal to
engage in a war with his father. Withdrawing, instead, to become the embodiment of the sea.

Her throat burned with unshed tears; her stomach and head ached in consort with hunger. The words lost their comfort as they blurred in and out of focus. She closed the book, curling herself around it, and fell asleep.

She awoke to fire—a thin blanket of heat stretching the length of her skin, her new, clean dress pressed to her body with sweat. A look at her clock showed the time to be two thirty, long past lunch. Nobody had bothered to come for her, and nothing had been left inside her door. No matter, though, as the sickness she felt in her stomach was nothing akin to hunger. Praying that some water remained, she swung down from her bed and held on to steady herself before venturing out to drink straight from the pitcher. She went to the door, clutched at the bars, and laid her head against the blessedly cool metal.

The hall was empty, as was the cell across from her, and—judging by the decided lack of noise—every cell to the right and the left.

The flu, Marvena had said. And here it had come to roost within her.

Upon her return, the top bunk loomed, an impossible task, and she crawled onto the bottom to lie flat on her back. When she woke up, it was dark, the deep dark of night. She’d slept through supper, through presleep inspection. She’d slept through her own prayers.

There might be water in the pitcher, but she didn’t care. Fighting against the aches in her body, she peeled off her dress and nearly shook to death in the moments it took to drop her nightgown over her head. When she reached up to pull her blanket down, her book tumbled with it. Though it was too dark to read,
she clutched it to herself for comfort, creating a central, solid space to direct her chills.

She awoke again to silence. Perfect, uninterrupted silence, meaning she hadn’t wound her clock, and even if she had the strength to reach it, the face would tell a lie.

Finally she awoke to Effie.

“My word, girl, you’ve given us all a fright.”

“Ef—” But she lacked the strength to say her name.

“Shhh, now. Effie’s here. They had me workin’ in the infirmary, with all the other sick ones.”

In the next moment, a cool cloth bathed her forehead, and Effie was helping her to sit up so she could drink from a cup held to her dry, cracked lips.

“You’ve got it,” Effie said. “Just like all them others.” She coaxed a spoonful of thin broth into Dana’s mouth. “Going to have to move you. They won’t let you stay here sick, you know.”

“No,” Dana croaked, and risked the pain to grasp at Effie’s sleeve.

“It’s not far.” Effie spooned more broth. “And Effie will be able to look after you. Right now, I’m snuck away. Off duty, even, because I didn’t know if anybody would think—”

“No.” Her response was stronger now, and she turned her head, refusing another bite. She couldn’t leave. She might never come back. This, as wretched as it may be, was her home. She’d been taken from home once before; she wouldn’t let it happen again. “Please.”

Effie set the bowl down and brought the blessedly cool cloth back to bathe Dana’s face. “I can’t just leave you here, girl. It’ll get us both in trouble.”

“I promise I’ll get better.”

Effie smiled, a rare sight. “You can’t do such a thing.”

“What does it matter if I die here or there? Don’t make me go.”

She seemed to consider. “I can only come to you in the early morning and late at night.”

“That’s more than anybody else.” She could have died already, and no one would have known—or cared.

Before leaving, Effie fetched in a wooden crate, from which she fashioned a makeshift table beside the bed. Here she placed a fresh pitcher of water and a stack of soda crackers, moving a bucket close by for any necessities. All of this was a blur to Dana, as was most of the earlier conversation. For two days, measured by Effie’s visits, she coughed when she wasn’t sleeping, her body shifting in and out of fevers until her gown was soaked stiff with salt. When consciousness allowed, she prayed: thanks for Effie, and deliverance from death.

Unless death would bring her to her mother.

“Oh, Mama.” She hadn’t said the word aloud since the moment Mrs. Karistin christened her Baby Killer. She said it now again: “Mama.” And then, “Father.” The heavenly Father in whose hands she placed her life.

For what she’d done, for the greed and envy that plagued her that terrible night, for the anger she held toward Mrs. DuFrane and Judge Stephens, she begged forgiveness.

Take my sin and bring me peace.
And if that peace meant death, it held no fear.

“Dana, girl.” Effie’s voice edged into the darkness of her sleep, and she opened her eyes, feeling rested and whole. “Wake up.”

She felt Effie’s hand on her brow and could tell the woman was pleased.

“I’ve brought you some food and tea. Time to get your strength back.”

Dana struggled to sit up, feeling a welcome ravenousness. Effie
handed her a cup of lukewarm tea; a plate with a scrambled egg and a biscuit sat on the overturned crate. She ate slowly, carefully, finishing only half the food, but drinking all the tea and wishing for more.

“That’s my girl,” Effie encouraged. “I’m going to try to see you again today, and tomorrow. You need to be better tomorrow.”

Dana pinched off one more corner of biscuit. “Why?”

“Because—” Effie’s eyes darted, as if someone could be listening—“I don’t know if we got ourselves in trouble or not, but the warden wants to see you.”

Two flights of steps separated the warden’s office from the prisoners, and midway through the second, Dana found herself clinging to the banister, her legs burning with the effort of the climb. A trickle of sweat dampened the back of her dress, and a good, reinvigorating breath seemed as far away as the third floor.

Ahead of her, Marvena offered little encouragement other than “C’mon then,” and only the thought of freedom gave Dana the strength to take one more step. And then another.

By the time she stood outside the door labeled
Warden Brewster
, her entire body shook and her legs felt like ribbons beneath her. Marvena opened it and motioned Dana inside, where a woman she had never seen before looked up over a pair of narrow spectacles and blinked incessantly, a thin, sharp pencil poised in her grip.

“And you are?”

“Prisoner Dana Lundgren, here to see the warden.”

Blink, blink. “And is he expecting you?”

“I should hope to glory so.”

The woman buried the pencil in a mass of graying hair, stood,
and went to yet another door, opened it, and peeked inside. Dana, meanwhile, thankful for the delay, prayed for enough strength to walk across the room.

“You can go in now,” the woman said, holding up a thin hand to stop Marvena from following. “Just her.”

Marvena shrugged halfheartedly and was about to settle her weight on the cushioned bench across from the desk when the woman said, “I’ll summon you when it’s time to bring her back.”

The door to the inner office had been left open, and Dana walked across the threshold trying to look stronger than she felt. After all, at first glance, Warden Brewster seemed so much stronger than his predecessor as he stood upon her arrival and asked her, please, to shut the door behind her.

“I don’t believe we’ve met face-to-face before,” he said, extending a hand across his desk. She stared at it, not knowing quite what to do, and he turned the gesture into one indicating the chair in which she should sit.

She’d seen him before, of course, looking out from his window over the courtyard, occasionally walking the halls. But no, they’d never spoken.

“Now, Miss Lundgren.” He drummed his fingers on a thin brown folder. “Some issues have come to my attention regarding your stay here, and I believe there has been an error in judgment.”

Dana leaned forward, feeling a new beat in her heart. This wasn’t about her refusal to go to the infirmary. This was much, much more. “Then you know?”

He opened the folder and thumbed through some of the few pages within. “What I know is that you entered as a juvenile having committed a very serious crime and, without benefit of counsel, have perhaps been improperly transitioned—”

“I never had a trial.”

“I have here a coroner’s report listing the death of one Mary DuFrane, aged four months, ruled an accident, but I have also your signed confession.” He held out a sheet of paper, and she instantly recognized her writing, remembering the moment when she sat in the cozy police station, painstakingly recalling the events of that horrible night. She knew every detail without benefit of reading, since she lived it in her mind as a final thought before going to sleep each night, but she forced her eyes to take in word after word, ascending them as she had the stairs. Though she found nothing in them that spoke of murderous intent, each one brought weakness to her argument for freedom.

“I was twelve years old. I’ve been here now for more than half of my life.”

Warden Brewster scowled. “You’ve lived far longer than Mary DuFrane. Do not misunderstand me. What I am presenting to you here is an error of clerical oversight, not a miscarriage of justice. Had you been sentenced, properly and legally represented, I’ve no doubt you would have been given the opportunity to go before a parole board, and they might have had the mercy to end your sentence. But that did not happen.”

“No.” She choked on the word and recovered. “No, sir, it did not.”

“And do you believe, were I to arrange such an opportunity, that you would be capable of exhibiting remorse for your actions to the degree needed to satisfy such a board’s desire to act with mercy?”

His serpentine sentence confused her, and she risked asking for clarification.

“Do you regret your actions of that night? Can you, with a clear conscience, ask the state to forgive you of your crimes? Are you sorry for what you did?”

“I am. I wake up every morning wishing that baby hadn’t—”

“Do you regret your crime?”

“It wasn’t a crime. I only—”

“Do you deserve forgiveness?”

“I know God has forgiven me.”

“That is not the same. And it is not enough to grant you freedom from this place. I’ll go back. Do you regret your actions?”

“With all my heart. If I’d only realized the baby—”

“Not the baby!” He slammed his fist on the desk and stood, looming toward her once again with his hand outstretched, only this time not in a gesture of welcome, but with a single, accusatory finger. “
You!
Do you understand your actions to be a crime? And do you regret that crime? And can you promise upon what little honor you retain never to commit such a heinous act again? Because that, my girl—” he moved his hand, now shaking, to point at the cross-stitch on the wall—“is the truth that shall set you free.”

She followed his finger to stare at the words. “But it isn’t true.”

“Nonetheless, it will bring to a close what I’m sure has been a sufficient amount of time for you to reflect on your actions and pray for a new path. Am I correct?”

“I have been here a sufficient amount of time, yes.”

Warden Brewster sat down, composed himself, and reached for a clean sheet of paper. “Now, then,” he said, unscrewing the top of a thick, black pen, “I shall arrange for a parole board to be gathered directly.”

“But I won’t be able to say that—” she searched her recent memory for his exact wording—“that I understand my actions to be a crime. It was a tragedy, yes. But not a crime.”

“We do not grant pardons for tragedies.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t imprison people for them, either.”

He stopped the scratching of his pen and looked at her, and for the first time, she saw a flicker of fear in the eyes of authority.

“It does not fall to me to determine who walks in through these doors. I am charged only with maintaining order and overseeing the process of who walks out and when that privilege is granted, in accordance with the sentence imposed by the judge, of course.”

“And what sentence was imposed upon me? I’ve never known.”

“It is—” and he squirmed like something trapped as he shuffled the papers in the folder—“indefinite.”

What hope she had was extinguished with the word, like a single flame plunging her future into darkness.

“I take it to mean, in light of Judge Stephens’s death, that I maintain some discretion. And that should you satisfy the conditions of a parole board—”

“I won’t.”

“Then it shall have to suffice to grant you a change in status. You are hereby a trustee.”