“You want some tea?” Hope called out over her shoulder.
Hazel, who had been following in her sister’s wake, picking up the objects Hope had dropped along the journey from the front door—an issue of Life magazine, several valentines from the seventies, some neon-colored swizzle sticks, and a ball of red-and-white-striped twine—put everything down on the counter next to the box.
“What I want is a glass of wine,” Hazel said, opening the refrigerator and examining the contents. “And a snack. What’s Rick been baking lately?”
“Not much.” Hope took two wineglasses out of the cabinet. “He’s been pretty busy with the new job. Also, we’re both trying to cut down on the carbs. Rick’s even started running again; he’s looking very trim these days. He said he’d pick up some steaks for the grill on his way home from work. In the meantime . . .” She opened the pantry, pulled out a yellow package, and held it out so her sister could see. “How about some cheese and gluten-free crackers?”
“Cheese, yes. Gluten-free crackers, no. I’d just as soon eat cardboard. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’d be the same thing. How about this pear?” Hazel asked, turning away from the refrigerator. “You got plans for it?”
“That’s fine,” Hope said as she uncorked a bottle of Pinot Grigio. “Slice it up and we’ll have it with the cheese.”
After the glasses were filled, the pear and a chunk of smoked Gouda sliced and plated, Hope and Hazel clinked their wineglasses together.
“Thanks for coming up,” Hope said. “It’s been a really fun day.”
“No problem. What are sisters for if not to help cheer you up when you hit a rough patch? Although how this is supposed to help cheer you up I have no idea.” Hazel plucked a very worn, circa-1950s copy of a Hardy Boys mystery from the box on the counter.
“I told you,” Hope said. “I’m making junk journals—little notebooks or scrapbooks made with recycled or vintage paper. You can use magazines, books, old photos, postcards, scrap paper, or just about anything for the journals. Then you can embellish them however you want. I was thinking I’d dig into my button box to decorate some of these. And maybe sew some rickrack on the edges. It’d be a good way to use up some of the stuff in my stash.”
“Yeah. And you only had to buy an entire box of stuff that nobody else wants so you can use up that handful of buttons and yard of rickrack. Junk journals.” Hazel shook her head. “Well, at least the name makes sense. You know that this book is missing half the pages, right?”
“That’s why I was able to get it so cheap. But the cover is perfect. I’ll use it and a few of the interior pages to make a journal for Rory—he was always crazy about the Hardy Boys. Those old movie posters and the popcorn boxes are for Liam’s journal. And this,” Hope said, picking up the copy of Life magazine, “I’m going to use it in McKenzie’s journal. It was printed the same week she was born.”
“Very nice. And these?” Hazel took a mason jar filled with neon-hued swizzle sticks out of the box. “Are we planning on opening a tiki bar?”
“No,” Hope said, frowning in response to Hazel’s sarcastic tone. “I just liked them, okay? I’ll figure out something to do with them. I know! I’ll use them as plant markers for my herbs!”
Hazel took a sip of her wine and shook her head. “Wow. You are so bored you hardly know what to do with yourself, aren’t you? Sis, you have got to find another job.”
“Believe me, I’m looking,” Hope said. “I mean, even with Rick working part-time, I can keep busy. I’ve been working on my sewing backlog and doing some of the deep cleaning I’d put off. I reorganized the spice drawer on Thursday. And these junk journals really are going to be adorable. I’m going to give everybody one for Christmas.” Hope frowned. “Though I guess I shouldn’t have told you that.”
“I swear I’ll act surprised,” Hazel said, holding her hand out flat.
“The thing is,” Hope continued, “being busy isn’t enough anymore. And I don’t think a job would be either, not a job kind of job.” Hope sighed and took a deep draught from her wineglass. “Working at the prison may have wrecked me for regular life, which is pretty funny considering how miserable those women made my life for that first month. But after that, I don’t know. . . . They changed me. Every day I spent with them felt like an important one, a day when I was really making a difference.”
“I know,” Hazel said, nodding sympathetically. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t make a difference someplace else. Maybe you should start applying at some nonprofits.”
Hope picked up a pear slice and layered a piece of cheese on top.
“I already have. There’s an opening at a food bank, another at the Boys and Girls Club. I sent my résumé yesterday.”
“Do you think you’ll get an interview?”
Hope bit into her pear and cheese stack. “Maybe. Having the prison job on my résumé should help. Assuming David doesn’t slam me if they call for a recommendation.”
“He won’t,” Hazel said quietly.
Hope frowned and swallowed her cheese. “How do you know? Are you two seeing each other?”
Hazel shook her head. “We text sometimes. If we lived closer, I think that I would see him. Maybe. Even if you do hate his guts.”
“I don’t hate David’s guts,” Hope said. “How could you even think that? Am I happy he fired me? No. I still think he made the wrong decision, but I never thought he was being malicious. The two of us are oil and water, personality wise. But whatever he does, he does because he thinks it’s the best thing for the inmates.”
“Well, good,” Hazel said. “He doesn’t hate your guts either, you know. The things you said about him? He said basically the same thing about you. And he felt terrible about having to end the quilting program. It took a while for him to get on board, but in the end, he saw how the women were responding. He said it was a terrific program and that you were a terrific teacher. He’ll give you a good recommendation, Hope. I’m sure of it.”
Hope sipped her wine.
Given the number and depth of insights that Hazel seemed to have into David’s thoughts, it was hard to believe they were only texting, “sometimes.” Hazel had cycled through more than her share of heartthrobs and heartbreakers over the years, but Hope had never heard her sister speak of a man in quite that way, with a sort of wistful longing in her voice.
“If you did want to start seeing David, I’d be okay with it. You know that, right?”
Hazel pressed her lips together momentarily. “But you don’t like him.”
“That’s not true.” Hope clucked her tongue with exasperation. “I was just saying nice things about him.”
“What you said was that you didn’t hate his guts.”
“And I don’t.” Hazel’s brows arched to a skeptical angle. “Okay, sure. Would I pick him for myself? No. David’s too by-the-book for my taste, too much of a rule follower. But he’s different around you. I’ve seen it. For one thing, he actually seems to display signs that he has a sense of humor when he’s with you. Not a great sense of humor, mind you, but at least it’s something. When I talk to him, it’s like trying to have a conversation with Rain Man. He’s so literal. But with you . . .
“Anyway,” Hope said, giving her hand a dismissive flap, “all I’m trying to say is: If you really like him and want to see him, don’t let me stand in the way.”
“Even though he fired you?”
“Yes. Even though he fired me. David’s okay. I’m not saying I’m going to make him a junk journal or anything—”
“Sure. Let’s not go crazy.” Hazel grinned. “Thanks. I really do appreciate that. I do like David. But the distance thing, our jobs, our personalities . . . I don’t think it would work.”
Hope didn’t think it would work either. But stranger things had happened. Look at her and Rick. Plenty of people had doubts about the two of them.
Hope remembered that night, sitting on the edge of her mother’s bed as the two of them hemmed her wedding go
wn, meeting in the middle. Though her mother never came right out and said so, it was obvious she had doubts about the match. At one point, she had gone so far as to remind Hope that marriage was forever and that a woman—“a woman,” she said casually, as if she were talking about any member of the sex and not Hope specifically—would do better to call things off, even at the last minute, than to go through with the ceremony if she wasn’t 100 percent sure.
“I’m sure,” Hope replied.
It was the only time Hope could recall being truly angry with her mother.
Because she wasn’t sure, not 100 percent. She had been only a few minutes before, but then the mother Hope idolized, the oracle she had thought infallible, had spoken and the seeds were planted.
Her great-aunt Marilyn’s tactics had been less subtle. She sent Hope and Rick a glass fruit bowl as a wedding present and left a receipt inside along with a note saying that the bowl could be returned within ninety days. According to Aunt Marilyn, this was about thirty days longer than she expected the marriage to last.
It was an ugly bowl, an amber color with bubbles in the glass and tan swirls like burnt crème brûlée near the bottom. Hope hated that bowl, but she had kept it on the kitchen counter ever since, right next to the stand mixer, as a symbolic “so there” to her cranky old aunt. Rick thought it was funny. Every year for as long as she lived, Rick insisted on writing a personal note in Aunt Marilyn’s Christmas card, thanking her yet again for the fruit bowl.
Hope thought it was funny too, now.
She had forgiven her mother many years before, not long after the twins were born. That was when she realized that her mother was not a saint after all, just a woman, as human and fallible as Hope was herself and just as prone to snap judgments. And wrong ones.
“Maybe it won’t work,” Hope said to her sister. “But you never really know until you try. That’s how you figure out what matters to you, and how much you’re willing to sacrifice for it.”
Hope picked up the bottle and refilled Hazel’s glass. “Not that anybody’s opinion matters in this except yours, but I do like David. And now that I think about it, under certain circumstances I actually could see myself making a junk journal for him.”
“Yeah?” Hazel asked.
“Yeah,” Hope said.
“Well, then. I shall take that under advisement.”
As the sisters lifted their glasses to their lips, noises started to come from the front foyer, the jingling of keys and opening of doors and clomping of heavy feet.
“Rick?” Hope called out. “If you’ve been at the jobsite take off your boots, okay? I washed the floors this morning. Rick?”
“Already did,” he said, entering the kitchen in his stocking feet and setting down his bag of groceries before giving Hope a peck on the lips. “Hey, Hazel. What’s all this?” he said, nodding toward the overflowing box.
“Treasures,” Hazel said.
“Oh, good,” he said, and took the last piece of cheese. “Because we were almost out.”
“Funny.” Hope peeked into the grocery bag. “Did you get the steaks?”
“Yup. Three T-bones. And some stuff for salad. And some local strawberries too, first of the season. Oh, and there’s a package in there too. I picked up the mail on the way in. Looks like it came from the prison.”
“The prison?”
Hope reached into the bag and fished out a padded manila envelope, addressed to her. She ripped open the top, reached inside, and felt the soft kiss of cotton brush her fingertips. At the first glimpse of purple, gray, and periwinkle, Hope knew what it was and why it had come to her.
“Oh no,” she murmured.
“What is it?” Rick asked.
“Mandy’s quilt top.”
“Her quilt top? Why would she send it to you?”
Hope didn’t answer; she barely heard him. She pulled the fabric from the envelope, unfolded the quilt, and spread it out on the counter. As she did, another smaller envelope fell out.
“Wow. This is beautiful,” Hazel said, running her hand across the patches of plum, lilac, heather, and teal and then leaning down to examine the tight and even seams, the perfectly met points. “I thought you said she was a beginner.”
“She is,” Hope said, unfolding the letter she had taken out of the smaller envelope. “A very talented beginner. And a very motivated one. Until now.”
As she read the letter, the scrawled and anguished words, splotched and smeared with the tears of the writer, Hope’s heart clutched with shared anguish. She pressed her hand against her lips and shook her head. Rick moved close, put his arm over her shoulder, and read along with her. Halfway down the page, the muscles in his neck twitched as he clenched his jaw.
“That’s just not right,” he murmured. “It’s her word against that other lady. How can they know for sure who’s telling the truth?”
“What’s it say?” Hazel asked. “Why did she send you the quilt? I thought she was making it for her kid.”
“She was,” Hope said, eyes still scanning the letter. “But now, since that fight with Nita, they’re delaying her release. Not by a lot, but still . . .” Hope sighed heavily. “David and his stupid policies. Didn’t he realize what would happen next?”
“What’s David got to do with it?” Hazel asked, looking uncomfortable.
“It’s a policy that when inmates are involved in fights they can have some of their time off for good behavior rescinded,” Hope said. “Two weeks would be the minimum in this sort of case, which tells me that David was trying his best to be lenient. But the problem is, now Mandy’s dad is using this as ammunition in his court battle to deny Mandy’s parental rights. He’s trying to paint her as violent, unstable, and unreformed.”
“That’s terrible,” Hazel said. “But can’t her lawyer just fight back? That’s what they do in court, right?”
“Mandy doesn’t have a lawyer. She’s got to fight this all on her own and from inside a prison. And, honestly, I’m not sure she’s got any fight left in her. That’s why she sent the quilt, because she says she’ll probably never get to see Talia again and so she’s sending it to me so I can finish it for McKenzie’s baby.”
Rick, who was still holding the letter, read the final lines aloud.
“ ‘In a month I’ll walk through the gate. They say I’ll be free, but it’s not true. No matter what I do in the future or how hard I try, I know I can’t be free of the past. People never let you forget, not ever.
“ ‘Anyway, I hope your granddaughter will like the quilt. It’s nice to think that some little girl can use it, even if she’s not mine.’”
Rick stopped reading.
“She sounds terrible. All that stuff about her father? How can her father claim she hasn’t changed if he never even went to visit her? I don’t care what my kid did,” Rick said, shaking his head. “No way would I let them rot in jail for five years without ever going to see them. How does this jerk think he’s a fit parent anyway?”
“That’s what I say,” Hope replied, her sorrow swallowed up by the anger and indignation she shared with her husband. “Mandy may have given in, but I won’t. She’s paid the price for her crimes and worked hard to turn her life around. She deserves a chance to be with her daughter.”
“But how can you help?” Hazel asked. “You’re just her teacher.”
“Not anymore,” Hope corrected. “Which could turn out to be a good thing. As an employee of the prison, I couldn’t have any personal contact with Mandy. But now, as her friend . . .” Hope walked across the room and started rummaging through her purse. “Hazel, next time you text David, tell him I said, ‘Thank you for firing me.’ ”
Hope took her phone out of her bag and started dialing.
“Who are you calling?” Hazel asked.
“Kate. She’s lived here her whole life, worked at the capitol, knows everybody. If there’s a lawyer in town who’d be willing to take Mandy’s case, Kate will know how to find them.”
Ri
ck grinned. “Hey, Hazel. Why don’t you and I cook up these steaks and toss some salad while Hope gets busy avenging injustice?”
“I’m on it,” Hazel said, putting down her wineglass and pulling a head of lettuce from the grocery bag. “You know, I almost feel sorry for Mandy’s dad. He doesn’t know it yet, but making my sister mad? That was a big mistake.”
Chapter 39
Kate did know an attorney, Diane Waverly. She wasn’t very encouraging.
“It’s always a crapshoot in these situations. So much comes down to the judge. It’s good that you’re willing to testify to Mandy’s character,” Diane said, looking at Hope and Kate in turn, “but I don’t know how much of a difference it will make. I’ll be honest with you: The fact that Mandy was involved in a fight involving weapons so soon before a judge will be ruling on her case is not good.”
“But Mandy didn’t start the fight,” Hope protested. “Nita did. There is no way she would have stolen a blade from the supply cabinet, not in a million years. I’m sure of it.”
“I know you’re sure,” Diane said. “And it’s possible that you’re right. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in twenty-three years of legal practice, it’s that people are capable of all kinds of things that people who care about them think they could never have done in a million years. Every judge in the county has learned the same thing. And if the mother has displayed suicidal tendencies—”
“Mandy is not suicidal,” Hope said. “She was depressed when she first came to prison, but who wouldn’t be? When you’re twenty-one years old, a five-year sentence might as well be life without parole. Plus, she was still under the influence of drugs. She’s been clean for more than four years. She goes to meetings every week.”
“Well, it’s good that she’s still been clean for so long. Maybe she could volunteer to undergo random drug testing for a specified period of time. But when it comes to the fight, who started it, and who had possession of the weapon, a judge can’t just take your word on it. You’re going to need proof.
“Do you have any? And if not, can you get any?”
Hope on the Inside Page 28