After

by Amy Efaw

  The common area is growing noisy. The girls are stumbling out of their cells now, rubbing their eyes.

  Devon looks around the room, scans the faces. Karma isn’t out there. At least, not yet.

  Devon takes a deep breath, lets it out. And goes to join the girls retrieving their toiletries from the box beside the control desk.

  This morning, Ms. Coughran moves the class out to the common area. A woman is already there, waiting for them in a wheelchair.

  Ms. Coughran directs the girls to form a semicircle on the floor before her.

  Devon chooses a spot in the back, behind everyone. Like being in the goal with the view of the entire field in front of her, the ball’s erratic movement and the player reactions. She wants everything clearly laid out in front of her now.

  Someone drops down right beside her. Exasperated, Devon turns to see who it is.

  Karma.

  Devon sighs. Well, at least she’s recovered enough to attend class again. And be annoying.

  Karma gives Devon a jab with her elbow, leans in. “Miss me?”

  Devon feels anger then, feels it rise inside of her fast. It’s like nothing’s changed. Like the Lockdown and blood smears and ambulance stretcher and broken spork didn’t even happen.

  Devon jabs Karma back, hard. Turns to her, eyes narrowed. Whispers, “Why did you do it?”

  “Do what?” Karma lets a smile slowly crawl across her lips.

  “You know. I should’ve told the staff about my spork. I was an idiot not to.”

  “Oh! You mean . . .” Karma unhooks her thumbs from the holes in her cuffs, yanks up a sleeve. “. . . this?” She reveals a forearm, wound with a gauzy bandage. Moves like she’s going to unwrap it.

  Devon turns her face away. “Don’t bother.”

  “So you care?” Karma laughs. “I had no idea, Devil. I am so touched.” She pulls her sleeve down again. “Like I already told you, I wear my scars on the outside.”

  “Aren’t you special,” Devon mumbles.

  “Yeah, I am. Thanks for noticing! And here’s some insight from my personal friend Anonymous: ‘No pain, no gain.’ Ever hear that? You should try it sometime—embrace the pain, Devil.”

  “Yeah, well, you should just get over yourself, Karma, and grow up. You know, everybody in this place doesn’t need to be always dragged along for the ride every single time you’re dealing with your own personal drama.”

  “Yeah?” Karma jabs Devon with her elbow again, harder. “Well, um, I don’t remember asking you for advice. At least I express myself. At least I don’t hide my scars where nobody can ever see them and pretend that I’m oh so perfect, like you do. So keep your advice”—she jabs Devon once more—“to yourself.”

  Devon closes her eyes. She should just ignore Karma, let this pass.

  But she feels her head turn to Karma. Feels herself look Karma right in the eye. Hears her voice say, “Do Not. Do That. Again. Did you hear me? ’Cause I mean it, Karma.”

  Devon holds Karma’s eyes for a long moment.

  Then Karma laughs. “Oh, I’m so afraid, Devil. Maybe I was wrong about you. Maybe you do express yourself, after all.” But then she quickly lowers her eyes down to her hands. Hooks and rehooks her thumb through the hole in her sleeve.

  “Okay, ladies!” Ms. Coughran shouts over the noise in the room. “Turn down the volume!” Once it dies down, she continues, “I’d like to introduce Paula. She’s going to talk to us today. She’s a neat lady, so please give her your undivided attention.” She gives Paula a pat on the shoulder. “Paula, the floor is yours.”

  Paula tells the room all about herself, how she came to live in a wheelchair. She wasn’t always like this, she says. She’d once been just like them, had friends, a boyfriend, limbs that worked. Paula has a storyteller’s voice. It doesn’t take too long before the girls get pulled in.

  “But I made some really bad choices,” Paula says. “Two specifically. The first was to drink at a party, and the second was to dive into a swimming pool at that party. Unfortunately for me, that pool was only four feet deep. I broke my neck.”

  “Damn,” Devon hears Karma whisper to herself. “Shoulda ‘looked before you leapt,’ lady.”

  “Thinking back on that day,” Paula says, “if I had been sober, my mind would’ve been clear and I would’ve, as they say, looked before I leapt.” She laughs then.

  Karma and Devon glance at each other, find each other’s eyes. Karma raises an eyebrow at Devon, smiles slyly. Then quickly turns away.

  “Those two choices, the drinking and the diving, they changed my life forever. I broke three vertebrae and became a paraplegic, paralyzed from the waist down. I was seventeen at the time.”

  Devon watches as the girls in front of her look at one another.

  “She was drinking underage,” Macee whispers loudly to the girl beside her, the one with the white spider-silk hair.

  “Thanks for that brilliant observation,” Karma mutters under her breath. “‘A fool empties his head every time he opens his mouth.’”

  “So,” Paula continues, “I’ve got a question for you all. When you initially saw me here today, what was the first thing that you noticed?”

  “Your wheelchair,” Jenevra says immediately. She’s sitting right up front.

  Paula nods. “Not my hair color, or the color of my eyes. Or the shape of my body, or my age, or what I happen to be wearing. No, that’s exactly right. People see this”—she taps the arm of her wheelchair with her fingertips—“and that’s who I become to them—a wheelchair. And most of the time, they can’t ever get past that to see the person who’s actually sitting in it.”

  Devon looks closely at Paula then. She sees Paula’s skinny, atrophied legs lying inside a pair of black warm-up pants. Her feet in a pair of Nike running shoes, her ankles twisting inward, each foot sitting lightly on a metal footrest. A black strap around her waist holding her into the chair. Devon looks up at Paula’s face. She’s probably about her mom’s age, Devon guesses. Short brown hair cut in a bob. Brown eyes, light blue eye shadow swiped over the lids. Tiny silver hoop earrings. Smile lines around her eyes, her mouth. Now that Devon really looks at her, she realizes that Paula’s actually pretty, in a very pleasant, even happy, sort of way.

  “I may be physically handicapped. I may not be able to walk anymore. I may have trouble dressing myself. I may be forced to pee through a tube for the rest of my life. But that doesn’t have to define who I am.”

  Paula smiles, looks around the semicircle slowly. “I have a life sentence,” she says simply. “For the rest of my life, until the day I die, I’m more or less a prisoner in this chair. And I have that life sentence because I made some really stupid choices when I was young. I can’t really blame anyone else for my predicament, can I? Because at the end of the day, it’s me and the choices I’ve made. Now, most of you guys made some stupid choices, too. Haven’t you? That’s probably why you’re sitting here today. But unlike me, you don’t have life sentences. You’re going to get out of here at some point with the chance to change the course you’re on at this moment. Second chances are rare in life; I know this from personal experience. Please do not let your past choices handicap you like mine have. Don’t let them define who you are going to become.”

  The room is silent.

  Paula laughs self-consciously then. “Enough preaching for today, huh? Okay.” She leans sideways, pulls up a duffel bag from off the floor beside her wheelchair, places it on her lap. She takes out a plastic model of a spinal cord and passes it around, handing it to Jenevra first. Paula talks specifically about her injury, shows exactly where her spine broke. What it feels like to be paralyzed. How long it took for her to recuperate, the painful physical therapy. She answers the girls’ questions.

  Macee asks Paula if she can move her arms.

  “God!” Karma whispers to herself. “Does she even have a brain? The chick’s only been using her arms all morning!” She pauses. “Here’s the advice I have for you,
Macee: ‘Never miss a good chance to shut up.’”

  Devon laughs despite herself. She glances over at Karma again. She’s still looking down at her hands, but she’s got a slight smile on her face.

  Tension is still there between them, but . . . Devon leans toward Karma, whispers to her, “Yeah, but then she’d only remind you that we’re not supposed to say ‘shut up’!”

  Karma gives Devon a shove, whispers back, “Hey! Ridiculing others is not allowed in this facility. Let’s just get that straight right now.”

  “Fine, and neither is you pushing me,” Devon says, shoving Karma back. “Remember?”

  “Oh, I won’t forget it, Devil. Not me.”

  They turn their attention back to Paula, then. She’s talking about all the road races she’s won in her wheelchair. She tells them of her current challenge, how she’s now been training for the Portland Marathon, her first. That she’s going to do it this October.

  After Paula wraps up her presentation, Ms. Coughran herds the girls back into the classroom. She asks Destiny to give a sheet of paper to each person, Sam to count the pencils and hand them out.

  The classroom is quiet. The girls seem unusually thoughtful.

  “Now,” Ms. Coughran says, “time to write about a bad decision you’ve made. It doesn’t have to be the bad decision that landed you in here. All right? It doesn’t have to be a ‘big’ bad decision. It can be something small. So, one paragraph on that. For the second paragraph, I want you to describe the consequences that followed this bad decision. Consequences for you, but also for any other people it may have affected. Because, remember, the choices you make don’t just hurt you. People don’t live in glass bubbles. Any questions?”

  Ms. Coughran looks around the room. Nobody says anything.

  “Let’s attempt to learn something with this exercise. Really stretch ourselves. Think about Paula and all the wisdom she’s gained through her unfortunate experience. When we’re all done, those who want to share with the class may do so. All right? Hit it, people!”

  Devon stares at her blank paper. She thinks about what Paula had said about having a life sentence. Paula hadn’t done anything wrong, anything criminal at least, but still her life was ruined. Devon thinks about what Dom had said that first time the two of them had met in the conference room, how she had explained that Devon could get a life sentence if she were to be tried in adult court. Then Devon thinks about the hearing tomorrow, remembers how much is riding on it, feels a sharp jolt of panic in her gut. She shuts off the thought, forces herself to breathe evenly and slowly. The roiling in her stomach starts to subside.

  The familiar sound of pencils scratching across paper surrounds her.

  Devon glances up. Karma is there, sitting at the next table over, in a chair facing Devon. But she’s staring intently down at her own blank paper, her hands in her lap. Devon wonders about this. No scrawled anarchy symbols? No smirk? No acting like she’s asleep and bored?

  Then Devon looks back down at her own paper. What should she write? Random memories flicker in her mind.

  A soccer ball slipping between Devon’s hands before the jarring thump of her body hitting the ground, the ball whipping into the net behind her as the roar of the parents rises from the sidelines. State Cup last year; in the final minutes of the game her split second of hesitation had caused a goal and, thereby, the loss of the championship game.

  Or her mom smiling, holding what was then Devon’s little-girl hand. The two of them, strolling together through the Metropolitan Market, Tacoma’s most upscale grocery store, off of Proctor and 24th and across the street from the Safeway where she worked. Her mom had been in a happy mood then, pointing to the vegetables gloriously displayed and asking Devon to name them. But later, Devon had thrown up in the corridor right in front of the bathrooms. Her mom had been furious. “Couldn’t you even make it into the bathroom? Now someone has to come with a mop and clean up your mess! Do you know how embarrassing this is for me?” Another bad decision and a day ruined. If only she’d told her mom earlier that her stomach hurt. If only she’d run a little faster to the bathroom.

  Or playing floor hockey at the Boys and Girls Club, sticks slashing, the hard puck sailing. A boy had bullied Devon into playing goalie so he could be a forward and score. Moments later, the puck connected with her face, leaving a black eye. “You should’ve stood up for yourself!” her mom had yelled at her later. “Now look at you, going to school tomorrow all ugly with that eye. What kind of mother will they think I am? Huh? Your teachers will think I hit you or something. They might even call Child Protective Services!”

  Or Karma grabbing the spork from Devon’s tray, breaking off its end. And Devon not saying a word about it. Not telling the staff. Not snatching it out of Karma’s hand. And Karma ended up with blood-soaked sleeves because of it.

  Devon could write about any of those things. They’d be acceptable. The assignment complete.

  But Ms. Coughran had told them to stretch themselves, to learn something. Other than the Karma incident, which still stings, the others would just be too easy.

  Devon thinks about this morning, about what her mind was pushing her to examine, the thoughts so unsettling that they drove her to kick off her blankets and leave her bed to look out the window of her cell.

  Being all alone. Why had she chosen it? Because it had been a choice, hadn’t it? Yes. That choice had been hers. Every step of the way. She could have answered her cell, returned the texts. She could have joined her classmates at the coffee shop to study, even though more laughing and gossiping and checking out of guys would’ve happened than actual studying. She could have run with Kait and Lucy those afternoons, could have spoken to her coach instead of avoiding him. Could have talked to Kait or written her back instead of crumpling up that letter and tossing it in the trash. Could have waited up for her mom to come home from work instead of feigning sleep.

  And what would’ve happened then? If she’d stayed connected instead of pulling away? What had she been so afraid of? What had she been hiding from? Or—something that even Karma seemed to sense on some level—what had she been hiding?

  The past six months are a blur, one gray drizzly day blending into the indistinguishable next. Days of the TV blinking endlessly in the dim apartment, meals of cold cereal or SpaghettiOs eaten alone on the ratty couch. The English essays composed on the library computers, completed early. Timing her ascent up the monster hill on Carr Street. Lying in bed, not ready for sleep, instead staring up at the ceiling, watching the shadows lengthen until the room filled entirely with darkness. It had started slowly, the pulling away from everybody. And then her isolation became comfortable, then something she’d protected. She’d get annoyed, sometimes angry, if someone tried to interfere with it.

  But it hadn’t been a good thing, Devon knows this now. It’s never good to be alone.

  Devon picks up her pencil. Taps its pointed end on the paper, making a small gray dot on the whiteness.

  So. Choosing isolation had been her decision. And its consequence?

  She starts to write.

  chapter eighteen

  “You slept, I hope.”

  Dom doesn’t glance up when she says it. She’s got her BlackBerry grasped in her hands, her thumbs flicking over the keypad.

  Devon takes the seat across from Dom. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Good.” Dom raises an index finger, a wait-a-second signal. “Hold on.”

  They are inside a small conference room outside the courtroom, one of four situated across from the row of molded plastic seats that are against the wall. The same row of seats where Devon had sat that very first day here, waiting for her first court appearance. That day, Devon hadn’t even noticed the four olive-colored doors to these rooms.

  Devon scans the small space. Empty except for the table between herself and Dom. This time, instead of an attached stool, Devon sits in a folding chair, one of four around the table. But the walls are still cinder block, coated wit
h the white paint, and the floor is covered with that familiar gray carpet.

  She feels like she’s going to puke, her heart is pumping that jittery pregame adrenaline through her body and into her limbs. She feels sleepy, too. Such a strange dichotomy of emotions—stress and sleepiness.

  She watches Dom work. Today she’s wearing a tight French braid, a dark blue suit, and an off-white, crisp-collared blouse underneath. And when Dom lifts her face quickly to check her watch, Devon notes the tiny wire-framed glasses. Devon remembers the short discussion she’d had with Dom about appearances one of the first times they’d met: “You have to look like a winner to be a winner,” Dom had said. A definite “Karma” saying. And a comment that would’ve earned Dom a Henrietta Nod of Approval. Dom certainly looks like a winner today, Devon thinks. Looks like she’s ready to play tough, mix it up if necessary, and take her yellow card if called on it.

  Devon’s mind shifts to Henrietta, to what an odd person she is.

  Henrietta apparently had worked swing shift last night; she’d been present in the pod this morning to rouse Devon well before Wake Up. Had tossed Devon a clean jumpsuit, folded stiff like cardboard, a bleach-white undershirt, and socks. “Appearances are everything, okay?” she’d said after her customary bobble-head glance around the room. “Even judges judge the covers of books. Okay? Don’t think they don’t.” Then she launched into a speech about the necessity for Devon to groom carefully this morning, to look her very best. Later, she’d argued with the staff on duty while Devon stood before the control desk, Henrietta insisting that she be the staff designated to escort Devon through the maze of hallways to meet Dom here in the small conference room outside the courtroom. Walking side by side, she’d peppered Devon with random advice. “Sit up straight, okay? Look the judge right in the eyes when he speaks to you. You’re going to be nervous, don’t think that you’re not. Okay? Don’t chew on your fingers. Don’t fiddle with your hair, okay? It’s not a beauty contest in there.” Though she’d meant well, Henrietta only managed to increase Devon’s heart rate. Her comments, Devon realizes now with a small amount of amusement, were as similarly unhelpful as those her mom would make before Devon played in a “big” game, at least back when her mom used to come and watch consistently: “Don’t forget to squeeze the ball when you catch it, hon. Remember to do that thing—what’s it called? A dive?—when the ball is far off to the side. Don’t forget to jump.” She might as well have reminded Devon to breathe.