For Good (9 page)

“He came up that ladder, and I was yelling at him to leave me alone, and I threw another bale at him. And I thought, ‘He's going to kill me,' but he wasn't.” It was a question. It was
the
question. “He was just angry. I knew him when he was a kid. He wasn't going to kill me.”

“It's not your fault,” Kristen said quietly.

Marydale closed her eyes and saw the cinder-block walls of the penitentiary, the paint cracking with water and rust, the fence wrapped with razor coils and electrified so that it sparked on humid nights.

“I grew up ranching. You know when a calf's breeched. You know how to tap a jar to hear if the seal is good or how hard you got to hit a log to split it. I think I knew how high he had to climb before the fall would kill him.”

Kristen tucked a lock of hair behind Marydale's ear. “That doesn't mean it wasn't self-defense,” she said gently. “He cornered you in a barn in the middle of nowhere. He told you he was going to kill you.”

Marydale finally met Kristen's gaze. She was surprised by how calm her voice sounded. “But I killed him, and when I picked up that bale I knew I was going to.”

“I know.”

“I can't take that back.”

“I know.” Kristen wrapped her arms around her, and Marydale sank into her embrace.

“His parents split up after the trial,” Marydale said. “They sold everything to Ronald Holten. I think his mother is living with some guy in Ohio. Someone said his father started drinking. I did that to them.”

“Shh.” Kristen stroked Marydale's hair. They stood together. Finally Kristen said, “I'd like to park my car around back. I shouldn't be here, but I want to stay with you tonight if you'll let me.”

Marydale woke slowly. Her face felt greasy, and her hair still smelled of church hall dinner. She rubbed her eyes. Kristen lay beside her. As if sensing her attention, Kristen stirred and blinked.

“Hello,” Kristen said. “Did you sleep?”

“Yes,” Marydale said, although her sleep had been complicated by dreams of trains and wildfires. She snuggled closer to Kristen, rolling onto her side with her back pressed against Kristen's belly. Kristen put an arm around her.

“I wish we could stay like this forever,” Marydale said.

But the morning light came through the window, blue and cold.

Kristen didn't say anything for a long time, but she held Marydale tightly. Finally she asked, “What was it like in prison?”

Marydale saw the high-ceilinged breezeways, the tiers of cells going up and up. Once again, she felt the strange wind that blew through the blocks despite the fact that there were no doors to the outside.

She had never told anyone about prison except Aldean. No one else had asked. Now, with Kristen's warm body wrapped around her and Kristen stroking her arm as she held her, Marydale felt as if she could unroll the whole story like a faded carpet, and it would be okay because Kristen would understand how it was part of her and how it wasn't. It was her entire life story, and it was just a brief interlude between Trumpet's elegant canter and the smell of sunflowers in the garden.

“It was lighter than you'd think,” Marydale began. “There were a lot of windows. You couldn't look out them. They were too high up, but it wasn't a dungeon.”

“Was it hard?” Kristen asked.

Marydale tongued the gap where her tooth had been knocked out by an errant elbow. “It was hard.” She hesitated. “Especially when I first went in. There was a woman, Grace-Louise, but everyone called her Gulu. She was my daddy for a while.”

“Your daddy?”

“It made sense inside. She was straight, but she was in for a long time.”

“She was your girlfriend?”

“It wasn't quite like that but kind of.”

Kristen hugged her closer.

“Gulu called me ‘scholar' because I liked to read. I used to help the girls with their GEDs and their paperwork. We used to work in the laundry together, and she protected me for a while.”

Marydale rolled over so she could look at Kristen. She looked unfinished without her glasses, the skin under her eyes thin and veined with blue. And she was beautiful.
You'll break my heart,
Marydale thought.

“It just is what it is,” she said.

Kristen smoothed her hand over Marydale's hip.

“After I got out, I tried to get my parole transferred to Portland. There were too many memories here, too many people I knew, but you have to do your parole in the county where you did your crime. I can't even cross the county line without permission. But you know that. You went to law school.”

“We didn't study parole,” Kristen said.

“If I don't get a sanction for three years, my PO has to consider transferring my parole, but there's always a way to block it. He can say he didn't find anyone in Portland to supervise me. He can say he thinks I'll abscond. He didn't want me to rent you a room.”

“He knew?” Kristen looked startled.

Marydale stroked Kristen's hair, messy from sleep. “Everyone knows,” she said. “I'm not allowed to date women. I can date men, but being a lesbian…they say it was an exacerbating factor. If I hadn't been gay, I wouldn't have killed Aaron.”

“That's bullshit.”

“I know, but it still might be true.”

Marydale moved closer, pressing her lips to Kristen's so that Kristen would not ask any more questions. She was afraid Kristen would resist, but Kristen eased Marydale onto her back, kissing the hollow of her throat and running her hands over Marydale's breasts, pinching her nipples and sending sparks of pleasure, like bursts of Morse code, through her body. Then quickly, as though it was something she had been wanting for a long time, Kristen slid down the bed, parted Marydale's legs, and kissed her.

Marydale remembered the first time Gulu had touched her. Gulu had pulled her into a supply room and knocked into an oversized bag of broom heads.
Damn it, Scholar. Pick these up.
Even then, a new fish, a baby two months in, Marydale could tell Gulu was an actor projecting her lines toward the guard beyond the half-open door.

A second later, Gulu had shoved Marydale up against the shelves. She pushed her hand past the waistband of Marydale's prison-issue jeans, into the dull-gray underwear that held the smell of cheap detergent and other women's bodies. Gulu's fingers dug into her while Marydale stared, unable to speak. Contact with another inmate was an infraction. Masturbation was an infraction. Gulu jerked her hand a few times, her thumb grinding at Marydale's flesh.

A second later, an inmate in another part of the supply room called out,
Six-five. The floor's wet.
Gulu stepped back, righted the bag of mops.
Why?
Marydale whispered.
So you'll have something that's yours
, Gulu said. All that day, Marydale had felt Gulu's touch like a thumbprint in paste. She felt it as she threw laundry into the washer, as she lined up in the chow hall, as she stood for count. At night the guards walked up and down the metal grates, looking into each cell, the main lights glaring in the atrium. And Marydale felt a reluctant drop of moisture leave her body, not lubrication, just a memory, the last drop of rain ground out of a desert tuber. And she understood.

Now she felt Kristen drawing open the folds of her body. Marydale gasped as Kristen made a wide sweep with her tongue, touching every part of Marydale's sex. It felt like Kristen erased Gulu's touch. Pleasure smoothed away that sticky imprint, and the dry ache that had lingered beneath her skin dissipated with a sigh. Kristen slowed her kisses, exploring Marydale's body with small, hot strokes, her lips trailing across the sensitive skin. The whole time, Kristen murmured her approval.

“You're beautiful. I want to make you happy.”

And Marydale tried to tell Kristen that she didn't deserve to be, but she couldn't find the words, and she felt her clit expanding back into her body, turning her very tendons into extensions of pleasure. Then Kristen placed her thumbs on either side of Marydale's clit and rubbed while she tongued the opening of her body, in and up and around Marydale's clit and back in, until Marydale's whole body tensed in pure anticipation. Behind her closed eyes, Marydale saw a kaleidoscope of wings, as though a thousand frantic sparrows had suddenly been released from an attic window, and in that moment, she had never been imprisoned, and she sobbed as the orgasm raced through her body.

Kristen stepped out of the shower, toweled off, and put on a robe. In the kitchen, the coffeepot was percolating. Marydale stood with her back to the door, tossing something in a skillet. The kitchen window framed her hair in sky blue, and the sunlight caught in the steam from the pan. Kristen thought,
Maybe there's a way
. She walked over and put her arms around Marydale, resting her cheek on Marydale's back, breathing in her vanilla perfume. In the back of Kristen's mind, she remembered how strange her attraction to Marydale had first felt. She had never noticed women before. Her desire for Marydale was like a single electrical circuit left active when the rest of the grid was dark. But it didn't seem strange now. There simply weren't any other women like her.
I love you
, she thought, just to try on the words to see if they fit.

“Hungry?” Marydale asked.

Kristen released Marydale slowly and poured herself a cup of coffee. It tasted like Portland coffee, not the thin acid they served at the Ro-Day-O. She pictured Marydale working at a bistro in the city, someplace like the Veritable Quandary, where the waitresses wore long black aprons over their black slacks. Or maybe Marydale could start her own café, a ranch-to-table steakhouse or an organic sandwich shop that gave jobs to troubled teens.

Marydale moved with the efficiency of a short-order cook, so Kristen wandered onto the front porch to stay out of her way and to breathe. The rough boards felt cold beneath her feet and the air was clean.

She let out a long sigh.
Happy.
She had no reason to be. She was a deputy DA sleeping with a felon in a town the size of a family reunion. At that moment, her mother was probably waking up with her own felon-lover. Sierra was probably dropping out of college with the pansexual named Frog. And it didn't matter that Frog was dating a man named Moss; Sierra would manage to get pregnant by one of them, and the whole cycle would start over again.

Yet she could not bring herself to worry, because Marydale was in the kitchen cooking. It was Sunday. They had the whole day to lie in bed or walk out into the range, to drink whiskey and stare at the sky. Nothing seemed to matter beyond this day and maybe another and maybe one more.
Maybe there's a way.

Kristen glanced down the long drive, out to Gulch Creek Road. Two cars appeared in the distance, so far away they seemed to be barely moving. She watched for a long time as they drew nearer. Apprehension flooded her body.

“What's at the end of Gulch Creek Road?” Kristen called back toward the kitchen.

“Nothing,” Marydale said. “It just loops around.”

It occurred to Kristen she had never seen another car on the road, and now the cars were slowing down as they approached the drive. Her mouth felt dry. She felt sick. The cars turned.

“Someone's here,” she said.

It was a proselytizer, she told herself, or meter readers working in a pair, lest they get a flat or run into an unfriendly hermit. Her heart beat high in her chest. Marydale appeared at her side.

“Oh, fuck,” Marydale said.

“What is it?”

“You should go to your bedroom,” she said. “Hide.”

“Who is it?”

“It's Cody. My PO…”

Now that the cars were almost in front of the house, Kristen could make out a man in each car.

“Go,” Marydale said.

It felt wrong to leave Marydale standing in the doorway in her long T-shirt and fuzzy, slumped-over slippers, but Kristen hurried up the stairs and closed the door behind her.

She heard Marydale hurry into the other bedroom. A moment later she heard the front door open without a knock.

A man's voice echoed up the staircase, indistinct but stern. “Marydale Rae!”

Kristen cracked the door a fraction of an inch, then slipped out onto the landing and angled herself so she could glimpse the foyer at the foot of the stairs.

A man stood in front of Marydale, his body accented by a black vest, like an apocalyptic life vest, with the word
PAROLE
printed across the front.

“I'll let you get your shoes and a sweatshirt.” The man was chewing gum. It made his words juicy.

Marydale had put on jeans and now stood in the front hall, her back to the wall. “I haven't done anything,” she said.

The man grabbed Marydale by the shoulder and peered into her eyes. “I told you not to room with that woman.”

“I'm not!” Marydale lowered her voice, and Kristen couldn't hear what she said next.

The man glanced back at the open door. “You disregarded an explicit order from your PO.”

“You can't tell me who I can live with. Did Ronald Holten put you up to this? Is this all because he can't admit Kristen didn't want to take his bribe?”

“That's ninety days!”

Kristen held her breath. The other driver appeared in the open doorway, his thumbs hooked into his wide brown belt. Even backlit in the doorway, Kristen recognized Ronald Holten's swagger.

“Trouble, Cody?” he asked.

Marydale squared her shoulders. She was taller than both of them and bigger, too, but there was something heartbreaking about her posture, like the mountain lion that had been seen stalking the neighborhoods of northwest Portland until it got barreled over by a Smart car. Kristen didn't need a law degree to know Marydale was losing.

“Would you like to tell Mr. Holten about your little arrangement?” the parole officer said, striding up to Marydale until they were only a few inches apart. “You want to tell him about Kristen Brock?”

Kristen felt her face flush a hot, sick red like a heart attack about to happen.

“Okay, Cody, I'll go,” Marydale said quickly. “You're right. I disobeyed an order. Give me a sanction. I'll go with you.”

“All of a sudden you're ready to go,” the parole officer drawled, all mean courtesy.

Holten stood in the hall, smiling.

“What's upstairs?” the parole officer asked. Then he lunged for the stairs. Marydale stepped in front of him. He pushed her aside. Marydale stumbled back. He bounded up the stairs. Kristen didn't even bother to hide.

“Well,
fuck
me,” he said, grinning. “District Attorney Kristen Brock.” Then to Marydale he called out, “You're going down. Guess you already did.”

“We weren't.” Marydale stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up. “She lives here. She rents a room.”

“You said you weren't rooming with her. Boyd Relington is going to love this!”

“Leave her out of it. She didn't do anything,” Marydale yelled. “Cody, this has nothing to do with her!”

“You can't just come in here.” Kristen walked past the parole officer and down the stairs. She stopped in front of Holten.

“Are you fucking her?” Cody was right behind her.

“It's none of your business,” Kristen said. She turned to Holten. “He doesn't have probable cause to come in here, and as far as I can tell, you're trespassing.”

The PO glanced back and forth between Kristen and Holten. Kristen said nothing.

Holten said, “Guess you didn't study parole at that school of yours. Cody doesn't need probable cause. He's Marydale's PO. He just brought me for protection, since we hear Marydale's been getting up to her old ways.” Holten looked Kristen up and down. “It's just this kind of behavior that got my nephew killed.”

“What kind of behavior?” Kristen spat, but she knew the answer.

Marydale was already holding out her hands to the parole officer. He unsnapped a pair of handcuffs from his belt and clicked the cuffs in place. Then they were gone, and the house was empty. When Kristen returned to the Almost Home and called the jail, they said Marydale was still being
processed.

On Monday morning, Grady stopped Kristen on her way into the municipal building. A cold wind swirled the dust around their feet.

“Kristen,” he said. He seemed about to say something more, then reconsidered, then said, “I'm sorry.”

“For what?”

The wind blew her words away, but it didn't matter. Everything was sorry, from the gray sky overhead to the cracked asphalt beneath their feet. Even Grady's cream-white suit and ten-gallon hat—immaculate as they were—looked like a costume from a theater production long since packed up and forgotten.

“This whole damn town,” he said. “I'm sorry about the whole goddamn thing.”

I'm getting fired
, Kristen thought. It wasn't a surprise.

“I talked to Marydale before she got arrested,” she said. “She told me what happened.”

“Have you gone to the jail to see her?”

“No.”

“Go see her before you leave.” Grady looked down the street toward the pawnshop and the vacant storefronts. “I don't imagine there's much to stay for now.”

Some sad, romantic teenage girl inside Kristen cried out,
I'm staying for her!
Sierra would stay. Maybe that was why she couldn't.

Relington was at her office before she'd had a chance to check her voice mail. He stood in front of her desk without an invitation.

“I got a call from Ronald Holten last night,” he said.

“I'm sure you did.”

“You have a lot of freedom outside this office, outside your position.” Relington's voice was a judge's gavel. “But the district attorney has an obligation to uphold the law and the moral fiber of this community. The people of this county need to know that you will not be swayed by a criminal element to use your power to benefit some while unjustly prosecuting others.”

“That's bullshit.” Kristen slapped her hand on her desk. “And you know it.”

There would be no last-chance agreement, no work plan. She read it in Relington's eyes.

“I know who you prosecute and who you don't, Boyd. How many domestic-violence cases have you passed over? But a Mexican on a bicycle? Can't have that kind of element coming into our town. Can't risk that someone would finger the Holtens, can we?”

“That has nothing to do with your situation.” Relington spoke through his teeth.

“I think it has everything to do with everything in this town.”

“I will give you twenty-four hours to resign with a neutral reference. Dates of employment only,” Relington said. “If you stay one minute longer—and I mean stay in this town—I will file a complaint with the bar.”

After he left, Kristen looked around the room. There was almost nothing to collect. The Chamber of Commerce's potted palm had long since died. The photo of Sierra on her desk was the only personal item she had brought to work. She picked it up and stared at Sierra's optimistic smile. On her desk, her phone buzzed. A new text from Donna read,
I know you'll say no, but Falcon's still looking for a family lawyer.

The Tristess County Jail stood on top of a bluff overlooking a stretch of desert. From a distance, it looked like the building had been carved from stone, but up close it was clearly concrete, the windows barred with heavy black bands of metal.

At the visitors gate, Kristen was greeted by a series of signs bearing paragraphs of fine print. Kristen had gotten to item four—
no weapons, including firearms, etc.
—when a woman's voice blared from a microphone on a pole.

“Purpose?”

“I'm here to see Marydale Rae,” Kristen said.

Inside the building, she felt the staff watching her as she presented her ID. Their silence told her they knew. It occurred to Kristen that her mother had probably visited rooms like this, waiting for men named Hooch or Spike to emerge, dressed in their jailhouse uniforms. Her mother would be happy to know Kristen was standing in this line. She wouldn't mind that Kristen was waiting for a girl. She'd just be happy they were finally manifesting the same dream.

A guard in a tan uniform led her into a small room, much like the waiting area of a DMV office. The only decorations were faded drug campaign posters. Chairs were set up in widely spaced rows, some back to back, others facing each other. Half a dozen women were already waiting.

“You sit here,” the man said. “Other visitors sit here.” He indicated the same row. “The inmate sits there.” He pointed to a chair about four feet away. “There's no touching, no exchange of gifts. If either you or the inmate becomes agitated, we will remove you for your own safety. Is that clear?”

Kristen waited for a long time.
This is the right choice,
the
only choice
, she thought, but the angry calm she had felt in front of Boyd Relington had deserted her. Marydale had to stay. Marydale had to live in Tristess with her PO and Ronald Holten and a whole town of people whispering behind their hands because it was Marydale—not Kristen—who was the most interesting person in Tristess. It seemed so brutally unfair, and yet Kristen couldn't stay. She couldn't.

A door opened. Five women in loose orange shorts and navy T-shirts filed in, followed by a female guard. Marydale straightened when she saw Kristen, and Kristen could tell she was trying to pose, to flip her hair, to put on the parade-float smile. But her eyes looked flat and gray, and Kristen saw a bruise spreading down Marydale's jaw. Another darkened her wrist.

“What happened?” she asked when Marydale sat down.

“Things got a little busy.” Marydale shrugged.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course.” Marydale glanced at the guard in the corner.

Kristen wanted to wrap her arms around her, to pull her close, to press kisses into Marydale's hair.
I have to make the right choice
, Kristen thought. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

“I'm sorry that you had to see this. It's not exactly…” Marydale trailed off.

Kristen felt Marydale scanning her face.

“What is it?” Marydale asked.

“I…”