by Abby Tyler
Still nothing.
Would he straight up ignore her? That seemed ridiculous.
“What do you think?” she prodded.
The first indication that he’d even heard her was the tightening of his grip on the steering wheel.
When he finally spoke, his voice pounded her ears like a jackhammer. “What I think is that we need to make good time to the prison to see my junkie sister try to act like a mother.”
A familiar flush crept through her, hot and prickly. She knew it well. It was the one that made her do outrageous things, saying the truth without softening her tone. But she’d been living a fantasy, and now Jack was ruining it.
“Well, that’s rich, Jack Stone. Here you are, one of Applebottom’s big, tough police officers, and you’re letting something as simple as seeing your sister turn you completely inside out.”
When his only response was to stare angrily at the road, she tumbled on.
“This could be a nice day. A great day. A day where you could enjoy the progress you’ve made. Celebrate how well Ella is getting on. And just be freaking happy that you get to see your sister and Ella gets to see her birth mother.”
Louisa’s arms flailed about, as they tended to do when she got too excited while talking. “But no, instead you sit there like a statue—an angry, dark, miserable statue—instead of making a sweet memory to tell Ella about when she’s bigger.”
Jack’s voice was pure frost. “Right, baby’s first prison visit. Post it to Instagram. I’ll be officer of the year.”
“This is not about you. And it’s not even about Jenica. It’s about Ella. Her life. And you can’t make it nothing but anger and disapproval. You have to find some grace. You have to leave room for understanding and forgiveness.”
Jack’s face did not relent in the slightest. “Louisa, this is not the plot to some TV drama. This is about a baby left in my care, who now has to be exposed to the seedy, ugly reality of prison.”
At least she had him talking. “She’s not going to see any of that. What she’s going to know is the smell of the woman she recognizes from her earliest memory. She’s going to hear the voice that was the only sound she could pick out in her watery world in the months before she was born. Whatever this visit is for you doesn’t matter. It’s for her.”
Finally, something she said seemed to make an impact. Jack’s shoulders relaxed a notch. He loosened his grip on the steering wheel.
“Is it true? Will she really know all that?”
“The experts seem to think so. Newborns turn their heads to the sound of their mother within minutes of birth. While they are in the womb, they recognize patterns—the number of steps into the house before the door creaks open. The swing of movement from the bed to the bathroom. It’s home to them. And Ella’s whole world changed when she was taken from it. It’s unsettling.”
Jack let out a long breath of air. “All right. So what do we do to make this entire day more pleasant?”
She had done it. Not with emotion, or even logic. Objective facts were the only thing that had worked. He’d told her that in the baby store when they’d bought the crib, but she hadn’t fully grasped the extent of it.
Louisa knew that if she wanted to get to his heart, not for herself, of course, but for Ella, she would have to first loosen him up using the language that he spoke: Science and statistics.
She told him about her idea for picking up a rotisserie chicken and side dishes at a little local shop along the route and then moving on to the main picnic area of the State Park. There they would take some pictures with him and Ella. That way, when she was older, she would understand that he had taken her to see her mother, and what her life had been like as a newborn.
When at last they sat at a weathered wooden table on the edge of the hiking trails, Louisa could see her plan was working. Jack ate his chicken with great gusto, patiently replacing the baby’s pacifier every time she spit it out. A bird landed on their table, startling Ella so completely she flung out her arms, her little mouth in the shape of an O, eyes wide.
Louisa snatched up her phone to click the shot. Another little story to tell her later. They were building memories. A life. A family story.
Mission accomplished.
Chapter 13
There was no way Jack could completely ignore the flood of emotions evoked by carrying a baby carrier into a women’s prison.
Without the armor of his officer uniform, he felt stripped of his authority and pride. He was just another family with a delinquent member.
It didn’t help that when he checked in, he learned his sister had refused to approve Louisa for her list. He would have to take the baby back to visitation alone.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t handle Ella by himself. He did it all the time. But having an extra set of hands had proven useful in virtually every appointment they’d ever had. He wasn’t looking forward to doing this one solo.
He returned from the desk to where Louisa sat jiggling Ella on her lap. Something about the situation wasn’t sitting well with the baby, and she had been howling since the moment they walked in the door.
“How did it go?” Louisa asked.
“She wouldn’t put you on the list, so you’ll have to wait out here. What do you think is getting Ella so upset?”
“I don’t know. She’s off schedule. Everything is new. She probably senses the anxiety in the room.”
Jack glanced around. The dingy waiting area with scratched beige walls was lined with gray plastic chairs, all filled with people who would rather be anywhere else. A few old ladies were knitting while talking in hushed, angry whispers. A couple of young men played video consoles with the sound off, their arms jerking as if they could pummel their situation away. A few women wrangled wiggling children, looking exhausted and defeated.
No one was smiling. It might as well have been one of the “No” signs on the wall. No cell phones. No cameras. No food or drink. No smiling, laughing, or pretending this horrible situation doesn’t exist.
“I’m anxious. I’ll own it.” Jack leaned back in his chair. “Do you think she’ll eat some more?”
“I wanted to save the bottle option for you if I could,” Louisa said.
“Probably a good idea.” Jack glanced around the room, practically daring any of the people to say something about Ella’s cries.
He grimaced at the wall sign that read Do not change diapers in the waiting room. Obviously, it was a problem.
“I could take her to the bathroom for a little while,” Louisa said. “Give you a break from the sound.”
“I can handle it,” he said.
“You look like you’re about to murder everyone with your laser eyes.”
Now that made him chuckle, something he thought impossible under the circumstances. “I would if I could.”
Louisa adjusted the baby, trying to fit a pacifier in her mouth. Ella was having none of it, spitting it out the moment it went in.
Jack reached for the baby. “Let me try. If she falls asleep, we don’t want to have to transfer her anyway.”
The baby cried with renewed fervor when Jack took her, but the intensity of his glare at the other occupants of the room kept anyone from speaking up, or even glancing his way for more than the briefest moment.
“What’s the matter, Ella?” Jack whispered. “Are you back in this terrible place?”
He didn’t miss Louisa’s sharp glance in his direction. He knew she felt strongly about the importance of these visits. He wasn’t as convinced.
He jiggled. He walked. He carried the baby high on his shoulder. They finally broke down and fed her a bottle. One thing was certain—nobody working there cared one bit about anyone’s schedule. It took almost a full hour for them to fetch Jenica, then come to the door and call his name.
Louisa passed him the diaper bag and the blanket. “I think I should hold on to the carrier,” she said. “It will be awkward to carry it all, and I don’t think you’ll get to use it.”
He nodded, standing up with the baby and shouldering the bag. “I think she only gets twenty minutes, so I won’t be long.”
“Take as long as you need,” Louisa said.
He’d actually be surprised if they lasted twenty minutes. One wrong move by Jenica and he was done. He didn’t want this visit anyway, and if she did anything to make him mad, he was out of there.
The guard at the door wore a lethal expression that didn’t match the puff-balls of hair on either side of her head, or the fact that she looked barely twenty-five. “No bags,” she said with a bark.
“It’s for the baby,” he said, taking another step.
“I don’t care if it’s for the Queen of England,” she said. “No bags.”
“I’m a police officer,” he added, his annoyance starting to spike.
“I don’t care if you’re the Queen of England. No bags.”
Jack drew in a deep breath. He didn’t know why he was arguing with her. If he’d used his head for two seconds, he would have known this was a rule.
Louisa was already at his side.
“Can he take a blanket?” she asked.
“Yes,” the woman said.
“A bottle?”
“Just one.”
“Diapers okay?”
“Just one.”
Louisa rapidly extracted the bare necessities and bundled them inside the blanket. She took the bag and passed him the bundle. “Good luck,” she said.
Jack followed the woman down the hall.
They approached a broad, thick glass window that revealed a room full of small tables and chairs.
“This is the visitor center. There’s a snack machine, and you may provide the inmate change in order to get a snack. You may not give the inmate anything else to keep, not that baby bottle, not the blanket, or anything on the baby, particularly the diaper. Everything comes back with you.”
Once again, he wondered what the heck people did with babies in here. Contraband in a diaper? That was desperation.
“You’re not to touch in any way, other than one brief hug when you arrive, and another when you leave.”
Jack simply nodded, not wanting to admit that Jenica was his sister. It was natural for people to assume that she was the mother of this baby and he was the father. It didn’t matter.
She paused by the man standing guard outside the door, and he unlocked the bolt. Another male guard stood just inside, and two others, plus two women, stood at intervals along the walls.
The room was noisy, unlike the quiet of the waiting area, and for some reason, this settled Ella right down. She accepted the pacifier, and sucked with great intensity, her eyes taking in the ceiling as they walked inside.
Jenica sat at a table to the far right. She stood up when she saw them.
Jack hadn’t seen his sister in over a year. She looked better, not as skinny and off-color as she’d been then. Prison life, and more likely, being drug-free, was good for her.
The brown hair that she’d always dyed blonde had grown out to her ears, leaving just a few inches of yellow on the ends. Despite the duotone hair, her eyes seemed alert, although she didn’t smile at him as he approached.
Prisoners inside the grounds didn’t wear orange like they did in public, but whatever subdued colors the campus decided was easiest to wash and maintain. Here, the women all wore slate-blue scrubs, in some ways looking like a room full of nurses or physician’s assistants.
When he’d wound his way through the other families to her table, Jenica held out her arms for the baby.
“There she is!” she said. “My sweet baby girl.”
Jack hesitated. He did not want to turn the baby over to his sister. Not at all. But keeping the baby away would cause a scene and defeat the purpose of coming here. So he let Jenica take Ella into her arms.
“Oh my little baby. My little baby girl.” Jenica stood with Ella and looked around the room. She waved at some of the other inmates sitting nearby. “This is my little baby. Isn’t she precious?”
“Sit down,” barked one of the male guards.
Jenica tossed him a dirty look, but she sat down in her chair with the baby.
Jack’s disgust with his sister was hitting the red level. He sat down in the chair opposite of her, firmly clasping his hands together on the cold metal tabletop. It was really rich for her to be acting as though this baby somehow was a credit to her when she hadn’t done a blessed thing but push her out of her body.
“Is that some of her things?” Jenica asked, pointing at the bundle in Jack’s lap.
He pulled it out. “A bottle and a diaper. They don’t let you bring a lot of things into a prison.” He emphasized the last word pointedly.
Jenica sailed right past it. “Well, hand it over. I’d love to feed her.”
“She just ate.”
“Then she can eat more. She’s a growing baby.”
Jenica shifted Ella in her arms, somehow knowing how to hold her. Jack shoved the blanket and its contents across the table to her.
A guard walked up to them. “Are those things approved?”
“It’s just a baby bottle and a diaper,” Jenica said. “I’m not going to take them.”
Still, the guard picked up the bottle and examined it, then crushed the diaper between his palms to make sure nothing had been hidden inside.
“See? My brother’s a police officer. He’s not going to sneak anything in here.”
The man turned his attention to Jack with a nod. “Where?”
“Southern Missouri,” Jack said. “Near Branson.”
Jenica rolled her eyes. “He’s too embarrassed to say that he’s a small-town cop. He puts on airs about being some sort of big shot.”
The guard looked down at her. “I think I would be a bit nicer to the man who brought your baby to see you. In jail.”
Exactly. “Thank you,” Jack said to the guard. The man walked off with another sharp nod.
“You’re delightful as always,” Jack said.
“I’m not going to listen to a word you say,” Jenica said. “I only have twenty minutes with my baby, and I want it to be the best twenty minutes it can.” She gazed down at her baby. “Right, Ella?”
Jack wasn’t going to argue with that. After all, that’s what they were there for.
“I wish I had a picture of her.” Jenica looked up with pleading in her eyes. “Would you send me a picture of her, Jack? You can’t take selfies in here, but you can send me a printed picture for my wall.”
“All right.”
“What can you tell me about her? Is she still spitting up all the time?” She touched a finger to the baby’s nose. “You spit up so much when you were here.”
“We figured out a different brand of formula for her,” Jack said. “It took a few tries to find one that didn’t make her spit up, but we did.”
Jenica glanced up at him. “Who’s we?”
“Louisa. I’m sure you remember her. A grade above you.”
“Oh, right. You tried to get me to approve visitation for her. Uggh. You hated her. Why is she helping you?”
“I hired her as the nanny.”
Jenica sat up straighter. “Why do you have a nanny? You’re supposed to be taking care of her!”
“I have a job,” Jack said evenly, but his tone had a warning note in it. “Unlike some of you, who exist by mooching off others, I put in my hours to get a paycheck, to support your baby.”
Jenica settled back in her chair. “Don’t get all preachy. I’m just surprised, is all. You couldn’t stand her. Is she good to the baby?”
“If she wasn’t, you couldn’t do anything about it.”
Now Jenica’s face shifted into a snarl, a look he was more than familiar with during the years they had lived under the same roof. “Don’t you be ugly to me. I’ll tell them you hurt her and then you won’t have her anymore.”
Jack was unshaken by her threats. “And how will that help you? Someone else might not bother to come o
ut here.”
“They would. They have to. I’ve been assured that the judge will look favorably upon how these visits go. I might even get my sentence reduced.”
“We’ll see about that,” Jack said.
“Yes, we will,” Jenica said hotly. “I have plans for Ella and me. I do. Nobody’s ever had any faith in me. Not mom or dad. Or you. But she will. She has to. She’s mine.”
Jack bit back another angry retort. There was no sense backing her into a corner. She could think whatever she wanted about how her future would look with Ella. That didn’t mean it would happen.
He would bring the baby here on whatever schedule the court gave him to ensure that he did what was required.
But in his line of work, he saw a lot of tigers. And it would take more than twenty minutes a month with a baby for his sister to change her stripes.
Chapter 14
Louisa knew Jack was not in a great mood when he stormed back into the waiting room with Ella.
At least the baby was sleeping peacefully.
No words were needed as they carefully transferred Ella to the carrier in hopes of keeping her asleep for the ride home.
Louisa held the pacifier in the baby’s mouth while Jack clipped the straps together.
Only when they had successfully locked the carrier in Jack’s truck did Louisa finally venture to ask, “How did it go?”
“She’s trying to be mother of the year,” Jack answered, jerking his own seatbelt in place.
“How so? I mean I’m assuming she was happy to see her.”
“Oh, yes, she was trying to show her off until the guard told her to sit down. She was full of talk about how she’s going to get her life together for the baby when she gets out.”
“That’s good, right? It’s what we want—your sister to be healthy and a mother to this baby.”
“I think that’s a pipe dream for everyone involved,” Jack said. He started the truck with a roar.
“Why? I mean, I don’t know much about addiction or how people pull out of it, or if they ever completely do. But it seems to me that with a little structure, and the support of you—and maybe even me—as she transitions, maybe she could pull this off.”