Strange in Skin (2 page)

“Seems like an awful lot of food for just us,” I mumbled.
My father came in and gave me a quick peck on the cheek and then held out my chair. “Please, sit.”

Matthew, my disabled brother, came around the corner as my mother wheeled him toward the table
to his usual spot. His eyes became enlarged as he saw all the food. He clapped his hands together
excitedly and we all laughed. Seeing Matthew so happy made me feel better. I didn’t know why I was
in such a sour mood, but the events of the morning had haunted me throughout the day.

We all piled mounds of food on the beautifully decorated plates and were silent for a minute.
“Prayer, shall we?” my father said.

Bowing my head, I found it difficult to concentrate on praying. I heard my father’s words, thanking
God for the day, the food, those who prepared it, but my mind kept wandering back to the jail and
Emry Logan. He knew my name. Anna James, Pastor John James’ daughter.

“So how was your day today, Anna?”

 

My head snapped up, and I realized that I was the only one not eating. Matthew was digging into his
mashed potatoes.

 

“Well,” I began, realizing my mother was staring at me intently. “I made it down to the jail.”
“What?” My father practically jumped out of his seat. His eyes shifted to my mother who set her
fork down and began chewing on one of her fingernails. “You went down there?”

 

“Uh, yeah.” I narrowed my eyes at her. She hadn’t told him? I thought this had been his idea.

“Why on earth would you do something like that?” he demanded. I could see him begin to lose his
temper, something that rarely ever happened. He was always in such control of his emotions.
I sighed and then scooped my spoon into the middle of my own potatoes and let them slide back off
again. “I thought you two had this all planned out. You know, the pamphlets and all.”
“I had no idea. I would have never sent you down there. Were you alone?”

“Well, if you don’t count Buck.” I peered into my father’s eyes which now seemed wild and
alarmed.

 

“Helene?” He demanded an answer, knowing where to place the blame right away.
My mother shrugged and tried to smile. “Honey, somebody needed to do it. You were busy with
Mrs. Anderson and all. How’s her son?”

I was amused at the way she attempted to change the subject. There was no getting around it though.
“I would’ve done it tomorrow.”
“Honey,” my mother said calmly, her voice never rising. “You can’t do it tomorrow.”

This seemed to silence my father momentarily. “Do you have any idea what those men are like,
Helene? Anna should never have gone down there to listen to those filthy mouths.”

My father knew exactly what kind of things had been said to me. It made me slightly embarrassed
that he knew. I gnawed on a dry piece of chicken and swallowed hard. It seemed to stick in my throat,
and only the cool gush of iced tea allowed it to go down.

“Anna, it wasn’t so bad, was it?” My mother nodded toward me.
I looked away from her. “It was fine, really. Buck kept things under control.”
The meal went on and nobody mentioned my little visit to the prison again.

“I’m going to bed,” I told them as I dried the last plate and put it away in the cupboard just above
my head.
“Okay, hun.” My mother came over and kissed my forehead.

“Night.” My father was sitting at the table reading his paper. He looked up at me momentarily and
then continued reading, his glasses falling down to the bottom of his nose.

 

“Night, Matthew.” I gave him a quick kiss and hurried up the stairs.

The privacy of my own room felt so peaceful and relaxing. I quickly took off all of my jewelry and
placed them each carefully into their specific spot in the cherry jewelry box perched upon my dresser.
I changed into my flannel pajamas and looked in the mirror to pull back my hair. I pressed my lips
together tightly and then released them. I turned my head from side to side inspecting every angle of
my face.
This is stupid,
I thought after a few minutes. Why should I care what I look like? I have
never cared much before.

I sat down on my bed. A feeling of guilt rushed over me. Why was I feeling like I was hiding
something from my parents? Nothing really happened today.

I closed my eyes in the darkness quickly and then reopened them. A sliver of moonlight came in
from my window, making shadows appear on the adjacent wall. I closed my eyes again and tried to
relax. I did feel tired. This day was exhausting in so many ways. It was nothing at all like I had
expected it to be.

I knew that the world was generally bad. I knew that bad people existed out there and that terrible
things happened to many different people on many different levels. However, I had never really come
into contact with any of it. Nothing ever bad had happened in my family. My parents didn’t really
fight. Sometimes someone from the church would leave and go to another church or move away, but
that wasn’t so horrible. At that jail today, those men stunk of impurity, of sin. They weren’t the type of
people I was used to being around, which were proper, well-behaved Christians. Seneca’s crime rate
was pretty low. Every once in a while you’d hear of a kid getting into trouble with drugs at the local
high school or someone had too much to drink and drove home a little tipsy getting a DUI, but that was
about it. No one was ever murdered. Were those men murderers? What had they done to get such a
punishment as being locked up behind bars? There were bad people right here in Seneca, I realized.
They weren’t acting out obviously because of where they were, but they were still here right in the
middle of our little nested, secure town.

The realization made me shiver. I pulled a side of the comforter up and swaddled myself in it.
Shutting my eyes again, I took a deep breath and listened to myself exhale. The wind was beginning to
pick up outside. Rain again maybe?

My mind began to drift again. I was beginning to fall asleep, and then I saw his face. Emry Logan. I
repeated the name multiple times in my mind. I pictured his beautiful face as if he was standing in
front of me again. His head was bent downwards toward the floor, his rusty brown hair falling into
his face. I pictured his arms, his biceps protruding even underneath the bright orange jumpsuit and
how slowly he stood up, so tall and lean, almost graceful.

I realized how much I had been thinking about this particular inmate all day. Of course I was upset
by Buck’s reaction and now my father’s. They made me feel as if I had done something wrong,
something very wrong. I kept going back trying to uncover exactly what it was I said or may have
done that would necessitate such strong reactions. So I had told him I was the pastor’s daughter. So
what? Buck had been the one to actually say my name, not me. And my father, well, I thought I was
just doing what he had wanted me to do. I had no idea he hadn’t known I was going down there, but I
still felt bad about it nevertheless. Amongst all these thoughts that drifted through my head all day,
Emry Logan was still right there in the midst of them all, the most centered thought.

I wondered why he was in jail. He was so young, younger than me for sure. The other prisoners
actually looked like bad people to me. They had a rough look about them that screamed ‘I’m
dangerous’ out to everyone who looked in their direction, but Emry Logan, he looked … perfect. He
looked as if he could walk into the church with that orange jumpsuit on and nobody would even
consider him dangerous at all. And he seemed so very sad. Was it a mistake that he was in there? It
had to be, I decided. He looked like he couldn’t hurt a fly. I remembered seeing his slumped-over
shoulders and how motionless he had sat in the chair. No wonder he was so distressed. He must have
been framed. I started to become outraged at who exactly had done this terrible thing to him, who had
made him so sad that he would have to sit there and feel such pain.

Wow. I sat straight up in bed. When was the last time I had ever thought about someone so intently?
I couldn’t remember. I had never been fixated on someone like this before. I felt the lump return in my
throat. I searched for an answer. It had to be because I was so stricken by his pain. I felt genuinely
awful for him having to be locked behind those bars. And then in my mind, Emry Logan suddenly
looked up at me and his blue eyes fixated on my own tiny brown eyes and remained there. I tried to
remember the striking color as they lured me in.

Emry Logan. “Emry Logan,” I whispered, allowing myself to speak his name in the darkness. It
sounded like music rolling off of my tongue.

 

“Goodnight, dear.” I realized at once my mother had my door cracked open and was peering in at
me.

 

“Night!” I blurted out, immediately embarrassed and falling back down in the bed, my head
indenting into the pillow.

 

Had she heard me say his name? I held my breath for a moment, listening to my heart. No, I
decided. She hadn’t. It had barely been a whisper.

My head was spinning from the emotions. I felt remorseful. I was being secretive. I usually told my
family everything, but I couldn’t tell them I was thinking about one of the inmates that I had met today,
well, sort of met. My mind jumped ahead to tomorrow morning, getting up and going to work in my
mother’s antique store, and suddenly, I felt as if I didn’t really care. Work sounded boring. When had
I ever really been bored with my life before?
Never bored, always content
, I thought. But there were
other people out in the world, exciting people that fascinated me, like Emry Logan. I was absolutely
intrigued but couldn’t quite put my finger on why. I wondered what he would be doing down in his
jail cell at this exact moment. Would he be sleeping? Perhaps he was reading a book. Maybe he was
sitting on that chair again, his mind drifting, his mood depressed and sad.

No, that’s no good. I immediately shook the thought from my head. He didn’t wear sad well. His
kind of sad made me feel sad. He deserved to be happy. My eyes snapped back open and moved to
the white ceiling above my head. My eyes traced around the outline of the stationary ceiling fan. What
was the matter with me? I felt so alive. A funny feeling filled the pit of my stomach. I felt like such a
child. This was absolutely silly. I’m a grown woman thinking of ways to help a criminal escape from
a prison I didn’t believe he deserved to be in, but I didn’t know that for sure. It was exhilarating, this
feeling. I smiled at the way I felt, then I shut my eyes tight, pulled the covers up over my head and
forced my mind to be empty to try to get some sleep. Every time I tried, there stood Emry Logan again.

Chapter 2

The next few weeks seemed to drag on, especially since it rained almost every single day. I glared
at the gray clouds hovering above my head and cursed them as I wished they would go away. The air
was getting colder as winter approached and soon snow would cover all of Seneca. I wanted to enjoy
the remains of autumn. It was my favorite season after all, the red and gold leaves. However, this
nasty weather had made the leaves turn straight to brown and fall off the trees in a hurry. The wind
continuously whipped them in spiral swirls on the ground.

It had been almost a month since my notorious jail visit. My parents hadn’t brought it up again. My
memory of the morning had gone from front burner in my mind to back as I busied myself with
Christmas choir practice, and business at the antique store had suddenly picked up. It had seemed so
long ago, just a dull ache now.

On a Friday after a busy day at the store, Sammie decided to walk with me back to my house. She
was a part-time hire who sometimes came in to do inventory when things got too hectic. She had
bright green eyes and red, frizzy hair that was usually pulled back into a messy ponytail. It seemed as
though she never stopped talking. She was a few years younger than me and only lived a couple
houses down the street.

Days like these I forced myself to walk, even if it was getting chilly. Walking let me clear my head
from the day, unwind, and I knew there were only a few precious days left for walking before winter
really set in full swing. However, with Sammie by my side, it was difficult for my head to clear
properly with her jabbing away in my ear.

“And then I didn’t know what to say, you know?” Sammie paused to look at me, to make sure I was
listening, which I only partially was.

 

“So what are you going to do?” I asked, trying to pretend as if I cared. I truly just wanted to be by
myself right now and not try to keep up with Sammie’s drama.

She sighed as if this were so terrible. Two men. She had two men chasing after her. Dreadful. “I
just don’t know. I’ve been with Tim for three years. Three years is a long time. But then, on the other
hand, Dave is so cute. And he’s different from Tim, too, you know?”

No, I didn’t know. I didn’t even know what it was like to have one guy chasing after me. Guys
weren’t exactly drawn to someone like me. My background was intimating, first of all, and then there
was my appearance. I rarely stopped to look in the mirror before I left in the morning.

“I sure hope I can figure this out soon before I lose them both. That’s what they say, you know. You
have two men and then suddenly both of them go and you’re left all alone. I couldn’t imagine what that
would be like.”

I gave her a hard stare. She was talking to
me
about being alone. I had never really felt alone living
with my family, but recently something had changed in that regard. There was this strange sense of
loneliness wearing on my every move. That’s probably the reason for my being in such a sour mood
lately, I supposed. And then there was this weather, this dark gloom creeping in all around me,
suffocating me, and then the clouds lurked overhead, adding to my misery. I threw my hood up, put my
head down and picked up my steps so that I was almost jogging down the street and away from her.

“See you later, Anna!” I heard Sammie call out from behind me. I was sure by the tone of her voice
that she was frantically waving her arm up and down at me.