by Cassie Beebe
Jacob’s face fell. “Um… I don’t…,” he began, looking around the room, unsure of how to respond to such a request.
The man peeked up at him over the top of his glasses. “She didn’t give you a cup for a urine sample?” he asked bluntly.
“Uh, no,” Jacob shook his head.
The man let out an exasperated sigh. He shut the file on his desk, tossed his glasses on top of it, and hoisted himself from his seat. He walked straight past Jacob into the hallway, closing the door behind him without a word.
Jacob stood uncomfortably in the empty room, his confidence extinguished by the awkward first impression. He shoved his hands in his pockets and tapped his foot on the brown, industrial carpet. He looked around the room while he waited, appraising the dust-laden bookshelves and the stacks of loose papers spread across the desk, some covered in coffee stains and others crumpled into a pile.
A few minutes later, the door opened abruptly, making Jacob jump at the sudden movement. The grey-haired man returned, tugging his pants up by his seemingly ineffective belt as he returned to his seat. He replaced his glasses on his nose and sifted through the files on his desk top, pulling one out and opening it to the first page. He licked his thumb and sifted through the pages for a minute before looking up at Jacob over the rim of his spectacles, narrowing his eyes at the way he stood by the door, anxiously shifting his feet.
“Have a seat,” he directed.
“Oh, sorry,” Jacob replied, quickly following the order and taking the seat opposite the officer. He cleared his dry throat, rubbing his palms together. They were beginning to sweat, reminding him of his nerves, so he wiped them on his pant legs and set them at his sides, forcing himself to sit up straight and feign some semblance of poise.
“She’ll give you the test on your way out,” the officer assured him. “Now, let’s take a look-see here,” he said, turning his attention back to the file in his hands. He took a sip of his coffee, spilling a few drops on some nearby paperwork when he set his cup down.
Jacob sat in silence as the officer read through his file. He scanned the words on the page as if it was his first time seeing them, muttering to himself as he read. Jacob couldn’t stop himself from tapping his fingers on his knees as he waited for the man’s response to his story. The dim, yellowish light mixed with the smell of old books and the uncomfortable anticipation in his gut reminded him of the many times he sat across from the principal of his high school. He always felt that same sense of dread until the principal informed him of the reason he had been called into her office, which was always something to do with his sister’s behavior, never his own.
After a few minutes of silence, the officer raised his eyebrows at the page in front of him and peeked at Jacob over his glasses.
“Well, that’s quite the rap sheet you’ve got there, Mister…,” he paused, flipping back to the first page of the file to recall his name, “Perry.” He closed the file and tossed it on the desk, leaning back in his chair and taking another swig of his coffee. “How’d you manage to land yourself here?” he asked with obvious distrust in his voice.
“Um,” Jacob began, clearing his throat and sitting tall. “Well, I did some time at Bellevue. Eight years,” he continued, the officer nodding along as he casually flipped through the file again, corroborating the events. “And, uh, I guess they thought I was responding well to therapy and medication, so my doctor recommended I be released early on parole.”
“Hm,” he muttered with a scowl that said he disagreed with that recommendation. “Still taking that medication?”
“Yes, sir,” Jacob nodded.
“And still doing that therapy?”
“Yes,” he answered. “I just had my first meeting with my new therapist today, and it went really well.”
“Hm,” he grumbled again. He closed the file again and tossed up his hands. “Well, alright, then,” he said with a shrug, unconvinced. He gulped down the last of his coffee, then frowned at the empty mug. He rose from his squeaky chair with a grunt. “Let’s go over expectations, shall we?” he asked, refilling his cup from the pot on the table in the corner of the room.
“Sure,” Jacob agreed.
The man gave him a look as he turned around, sipping his fresh cup.
“I mean, yes, sir,” he corrected himself.
He returned to his seat. “We’re scheduled for weekly meetings, Saturdays at 11 o’clock,” he began, perusing a handwritten list beside Jacob’s file. “I expect you to be on time. If, for any reason, you have a problem with being on time, I expect a phone call. But you won’t have a problem being on time, will you, Mr. Perry?” he smiled for the first time, revealing a threatening set of coffee-stained teeth.
Jacob had to stop himself from cringing at the unpleasant sight. “Uh, no, sir,” he answered.
“Good,” he replied, his smile falling as he turned back to his list. “No drugs. No alcohol. And you’ll have weekly tests to keep you accountable, so best to not waste our time with fabrications.”
He looked up again, and Jacob nodded solemnly.
The officer leaned back again, his chair wailing under his hefty weight. “And, of course, failure to attend these meetings, your weekly therapy sessions, take your prescribed medications, or adhere to any of these rules will result in a write-up, which, given the extremity of your crimes,” he raised his eyebrows for emphasis, gesturing to the file in front of him, “could easily land you in prison.” He paused, meeting Jacob’s gaze with icy intensity. “Not back to the hospital, you understand. Real prison.”
Jacob took in a discreet breath.
“Understood?” he asked.
Jacob clamped his jaw tightly shut, fighting back the frustration that was building beneath the surface of his cool exterior. “Yes, sir.”
The officer smiled his wide, unappealing grin again. “Great! Any questions for me before I send you on your way?”
“That’s it?” Jacob asked, taken aback by the abrupt ending to the short meeting.
“I’m a busy man, Mr. Perry,” he replied with a heavy sigh, tossing Jacob’s file on top of a hefty stack to the right of him and pulling another from the top of the pile on the left.
Jacob remained seated as the man thumbed through his new file, awaiting a more formal goodbye.
After a moment, the man peeked up at him. “Don’t forget to take that drug test on your way out,” he said, turning back to his file, and Jacob realized that was as good of a farewell as he was going to get.
He hesitated on his way out the door, turning back to give some sort of thank-you or final greeting, but the officer didn’t look up from his paperwork. With a frustrated sigh, Jacob closed the door behind him and made his way back to the lobby.
“Oh! Just a second,” the receptionist held up a finger to him when he approached the desk. She tucked her phone between her ear and her shoulder as she frantically dug through a low drawer, pulling out a small plastic cup. “I’m sorry, sir, could I put you on a brief hold?” she asked into the phone. Jacob could hear the loud, irritated response from where he stood, and the young woman flinched at its volume. “Okay… um…,” she hesitated with her finger over a button on the phone base as the shouting on the other line continued. “I’m sorry,” she quickly muttered, pressing the button and setting down the receiver.
She held her hands out above it for a moment, as if expecting it to jump back at her. With a deep breath, she collected herself and turned her attention to Jacob with a weary, politely fake smile. “Sorry about that,” she began, shaking her head and handing over the cup. “That’s the third time this week that I’ve forgotten that.”
The blush of her cheeks nearly matched the frizzy, orange braid falling over her shoulder, and Jacob pitied her position. “Oh, no, that’s fine,” he replied as he accepted the cup. “You’re doing a great job,” he reassured her with an encouraging grin.
Her plastic smile faded and she let out a sigh. “Thanks,” she blushed again. She pulled out a
bin from under her desk and held it out to him. “Empty your pockets, please.”
He did as he was told.
“The bathroom’s over there,” she pointed toward the left side of the lobby. “You can leave your sample here when you’re done.”
“Thank you,” he said. She gave him a nod and took another deep breath, putting her phony grin back on as she picked up the phone again.
“So sorry for that wait, sir,” she chimed in a cheerful voice. “What can I do for you?”
Jacob followed the instructions on the sample cup, using the black marker on the small table in the bathroom to write his name and birth date on the provided lines before depositing his sample. The poor girl behind the front desk was frantically tapping away at her keyboard and making apologies to the booming voice on the other end of the line when Jacob returned from the bathroom, so he simply set his sample on the desk, grabbed his wallet and keys from the bin, and ducked out of the office quietly.
He checked the clock on the lobby wall on his way out, surprised by the early hour. He had given himself nearly an hour more than he needed to get back to his bus stop, and he hoped there would be an earlier route so he wouldn’t have to wait around in the frigid weather. He got lucky when he arrived at the bus stop and found one pulling up beside him.
Settling into a seat near the back, he spent the majority of the ride back to campus reflecting on how uncomfortable his first parole meeting had been. He had been told by his doctor and other patients at the hospital who had experience with parole that your P.O. is supposed to act as your guide as you transition back into the land of the free. He heard so many stories, ranging from funny to profoundly heartwarming, about the important relationship between the officers and their parolees, and he had almost been looking forward to that relationship more than meeting his new therapist.
He went through the motions of homework at the library, setting up an email account and sending off a quick message to Doctor Summers from one of the public computers there, but by the time Jacob was trudging down the campus path to the dorms, he was feeling more than a little discouraged about his future.
He tried to focus his attention on the positive things, like his first meeting with Doctor Summers and the nice classmates he had already met, but the image of the cantankerous Officer Millburn persisted in his mind. The officer’s surly attitude was contagious, and upon returning to his dorm room, Jacob found himself collapsing into bed with a gruff sigh.
Officially wallowing in his own self-pity now, he opened the drawer of the bedside table and pulled out his sister’s diary. The cover was worn and the binding was falling apart from extensive use. He had read the whole thing, cover to cover, countless times over, and every time he finished, he would flip back to the beginning and start over again, keeping a scrap of paper as a makeshift bookmark.
He was just nearing the point in Maggie’s story in which things began to get dark. For most of their lives together after their mother died, Jacob thought that he was handling things with their father. He thought he had it under control, that if he took the brunt of the beatings, maybe his sister could have a halfway normal life. She buried her emotions and put on a plastic smile, not unlike the redheaded receptionist he had met earlier that day, and he believed it all too easily. It wasn’t until after she was killed, when he read her journal for the first time, that he realized just how fake that smile really was, how often she dreamed of running away and how much it broke her spirit to see her brother bloodied and beaten.
March 9th 2004
It makes me sick to see him like this. I don’t understand why he thinks he’s protecting me. As if having to watch my brother spit blood into the sink or try to cover up the bruises on his arms with a sweater in 80 degree summer is some kind of gift to me.
I know he’s doing the best he can, so I let him think it’s working. I let him believe that I’m happy here, that my stomach doesn’t lurch every time I look at his face and see a fat lip or a black eye. I know he’s doing it all for me, and that makes me feel so damn guilty I want to scream.
Something has to change. Soon.
I don’t know how much longer I can do this. I don’t know what other options I have, but I have to find one before it’s too late for him. But I guess for now, I’ll just smile, tell him how much I love him, and keep pretending.
By the time Jacob stuffed the old book back in his drawer and completed his bedtime routine, the mind-numbing effect of his nighttime medication was a welcome gift. He lay back on his bed, staring unseeingly at the ceiling, grateful for the first time that night when the pills began to take effect, pulling him under into a dull, dreamless sleep.
HE STILL REMEMBERED THE last conversation he ever had with her.
It was a typical Wednesday night. Maggie waited her usual thirty minutes before tip-toeing down from the top bunk and snuggling in beside him on the tiny bottom mattress. It was a habit she had picked up on those long nights of listening to their parents fight through the thin walls between the two bedrooms, and despite the years that had passed since their mother’s death, the ritual remained a semi-regular practice. Jacob always pretended to be asleep, allowing her the privacy of the vulnerable moment.
On this particular night, Maggie snuggled in beside him, trying to squeeze her way onto the small space available without waking him. He took in a deep breath and pretended to rouse in his sleep, effectively scooting over to make more room for her.
They lay still for a long while, long enough for Jacob’s consciousness to fade in and out as he listened to the rush of traffic outside their window and the football game blaring loudly from the television speakers in the living room where their father had passed out on the couch. The steady, even rhythm of her breath on his cheek lulled him, drowning out the other sounds.
“Hey, Jake?” Maggie whispered, pulling him from the edge of slumber.
“Hmm?” he muttered back, unmoving.
“Do you think…,” she paused. “Do you think you’d ever leave this place? Like… go to college or start a new life, or something?”
Jacob took in a deep breath, willing himself the energy to open his eyes and look at his sister. “Mags, we’ve talked about this. I’m not going anywhere,” he reassured her with firm resolve.
She searched his expression with worry in her eyes. She sighed. “But what if, like... I wasn’t here, or you were an only child? Would you go then?” she asked, awaiting his answer with a level of intensity he didn’t think was warranted for such a silly, hypothetical question.
He opened his mouth to speak but closed it when he thought honestly about his answer. He knew as well as she did that if it were only him he had to worry about, he would have been out the door the night his mother was gone. Maybe even sooner, if he could have convinced her to leave with him.
“That doesn’t matter,” he responded instead, “because you are here. And I’m not gonna leave you.”
It wasn’t the first time they had discussed this, and he knew what she would say next. She would suggest that they run away together, and he would tell her that he doesn’t have the means to take care of her on his own. He would tell her that she has a life here, friends she would miss and a promising future if she finished high school strong. They had this argument countless times, but he always stood firm in his decision. He knew how to handle their father, how to deflect his anger onto himself and keep Maggie out of the line of fire. There was no need to uproot her life just a few years before she would graduate and go off to college. He could make it a few more years, if it meant giving his sister a chance at the normal life she deserved.
But this time, to Jacob’s surprise, she didn’t retort with her usual counter-offer. Instead, she simply let out a breath. Her expression faded from worry, to acceptance, and finally settled on resolve. She turned onto her back and stared at the bottom of the mattress above them. She nodded to herself. “Okay, Jake,” she said.
He stared at her for a minute, assessing her unrec
ognizably severe gaze. She was awake, alert, like his words had convinced her. She was done arguing; she accepted his decision, and that seemed to light a fire in her that left her cold, calculating. And it left him with a sinking feeling of dreadful anticipation in his gut that he wouldn’t recognize as such until days later. Maggie was never one to back down from a fight, scrappy as she was, and her uncharacteristically peaceful resignation was unnerving.
“Jake, you know I love you, right?” she asked suddenly, still staring ahead, her face smooth and emotionless.
Unnerving.
“Of course, Mags,” he answered.
She nodded. “No matter what.” She looked back at him, studying his face as tears welled in her eyes. Meeting his gaze, she gave him a brief smile. “Goodnight,” she kissed the confused crease on his forehead, making him feel like a child as she slid off of his bed and climbed up the ladder to her own.
Her bed was empty the following morning, and there was a note left on his dresser.
Felt like walking to school today, so I left early. See you there.
Love you.
Mags
But he didn’t see her at school that day. He sent her several text messages to see if she was taking the bus home, messages he would later read and re-read on the barely-functioning, shattered screen of the cell phone he would find in the apartment of Troy Baker. He walked by her locker throughout the day, hoping to catch her between classes, but she was never there. When she didn’t come home that night, he called her best friend, and she hadn’t seen her either.
“She probably just ditched,” she said, unconcerned.
“Yeah,” Jacob replied, his gut twisting, already anticipating the truth he wouldn’t accept until two uniformed officers with grave faces stood on his porch later that night. “Probably.”
The Biology room was rearranged, the tables that had previously been aligned in straight rows now clustered into four-person squares with two chairs and a set of dissecting tools on each side. He glanced around at the empty spots scattered through the room, and his gaze landed on the square where his new friends sat, in the far corner of the room. In the midst of their chatting, Angela looked up toward the front of the room as she wrapped her long, tight braids into a bun, catching Jacob’s eye. She waved him over, and Callie looked over her shoulder at him. Jacob gave her a small wave as he made his way to the table, and she returned his grin, turning back to her notebook and tucking her glossy hair behind her ears.