The bright colors of the exterior of The Wild Iris—even through the last days of November’s gray filter—reflected in Hope’s wide eyes. Bougie stood inside the front window, on tiptoe, splayed like an intentional belly flop. Spray bottle of a clear liquid in one hand and rag in the other, she wiped as high and wide as she could reach. Her outfit du jour was one Emmalyn had seen before—fuchsia tights, knee-length princess dress in the palest blue, and a gray heathered ankle-length open cardigan.
“Is that the cleaning lady?” Hope asked under her breath.
“She’s the owner,” Emmalyn said, surprised her voice held a hint of pride. “She’s going to love you.” She nudged Hope forward with a hand to her back and held the door for her. A faint scent of vinegar greeted them.
“Ooh!” Bougie dropped her cleaning supplies and vaulted off the raised ledge under the window. Her skirts billowed around her like an open umbrella devoid of spokes. “You’re here!” She skipped the introduction part and went straight to hugs. “Hope, you’re as beautiful as M said!” Then a hug for Emmalyn. “You’re so blessed.”
“Hope, this is Bougie Unfortunate. My boss.”
“And friend,” Bougie said.
Friends. Not the safest topic at the moment, Bougie. “Can I show her around a little before clocking in?”
“Sure. I need to finish this window first before we can get started.”
Within minutes, Hope was settled into one of the wing chairs by the fireplace, which Bougie lit just for her. Emmalyn thought back to the night she arrived on the island and Bougie’s exceptional kindness at the start of her own Madeline Island journey. God, make this the kind of haven for Hope that it’s been for me.
Bougie had made her decadent hot chocolate for the three of them. “Whipped cream, Hope?”
“Yes, please.”
“A please will get you a double portion,” Bougie said, squirting from a stainless steel whipped cream dispenser. She looked at Emmalyn.
“Please?”
The three celebrated the joy of a simple pleasure, then Bougie and Emmalyn took their mugs, file folders, and both of their electronic tablets to the front window where they could spread out their ideas.
Hope opened one of the library books and stuck ear buds in her ears, the long white cord attached to her phone.
“So, how’s it going now?” Bougie asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Emmalyn matched her tone. “Wonderful and terrible. It depends on the time of day, the phases of the moon, and whatever topic we happen to trip over. She’s delightful and in pain, but bearing it more gracefully than I bear mine sometimes.”
“Good to know. But I meant how’s your relationship with Max?”
“You make it sound as if we had a blind date and you want to know if we’ll go out again.” Emmalyn opened her tablet and scrolled through to the menu spreadsheet she’d created.
“So, will you? You’ve been blind dating for most of these five years, but neither one of you has showed up.”
Emmalyn crossed her arms and leaned back. The first pinch of a headache nagged at her temples.
Bougie’s mouth formed a tall oval cavern. “I have no idea”—she said, pointing to the ceiling—“where that thought came from!” An “I love you but you know I’m telling the truth” look engulfed her face. Chin tilted down, she looked at Emmalyn like an elderly woman would peer over reading glasses.
Emmalyn turned in Hope’s direction. The girl rehearsed dance steps with her feet while poring over the book before her on the table. It was either a book about odd nature trivia or how to survive as the child of an addict. Whatever the book choice, it held her captive.
“Max and I need to see each other face-to-face,” Emmalyn said.
“Hence the Thanksgiving gift.”
“But I can’t go right now. I can’t leave Hope so soon. And . . . this . . . first time, I can’t take her with me if Max and I are going to have the kind of conversation that’s long overdue.”
Bougie shuffled some papers, pulled out the one she’d apparently been looking for, and slid it toward Emmalyn. A new graphic design for the Wild Iris logo. The set of Bougie’s mouth told Emmalyn graphic design was not at the forefront of her mind.
“I’ll go. I will,” Emmalyn assured her. “I can’t right now. We’ll have to limp along the best we can until we have an uninterrupted conversation that lasts longer than five minutes.” Emmalyn turned her attention to the mug of cocoa.
Bougie pulled out a calendar. “Let’s set a date.”
“For . . . ?”
“For your trip to visit Max. It’ll give you both something to look forward to.”
Emmalyn rubbed the sore spots at her temples. “I thought I might have to use that money for Hope’s needs.”
“You think God can provide only one or the other? He budgets a lot better than that.” Bougie extended her pen and the calendar to Emmalyn. “Two dates. One for your visit. One for Hope’s.”
Emmalyn slowly flipped through to the months of the new year. February, March . . . Bougie took the pages and flipped them back to the month of December.
“Christmas will be a busy time at the prison.” Even Emmalyn knew that sounded lame.
Bougie choked on her mouthful of cocoa. She swallowed, coughed, and dabbed at her lips with a tissue from her sweater pocket. “Even if that were true, all the more reason to book something sooner than the holiday weekend.”
“I’m not sure Hope will be ready for me to leave her by then.”
“Seriously? She strikes me as being more independent than you give her credit for.”
A surge of anticipation rode a wave of apprehension through her nerve endings. She could see Max face-to-face. Soon. If it went poorly, it could mean the end of everything, including her connection with Hope.
22
Did you want to see Dad’s blog?”
Hope stood halfway down the stairs, balancing her open laptop in her arms.
Emmalyn blew out the match she’d used to light the candle on the mantel. “I do.” I do? Let’s not get sappy, Emmalyn. It’s a blog about prison life, for Pete’s sake. “Yes, I’d like to see it. Want me to come upstairs?” She’d been waiting for this invitation for days. She could have—maybe should have—searched until she found it online. Private blog. Closed group, she assumed from what Hope hinted. A wave of shivers skittered down her arms. What if she didn’t like what she saw in it? What if the discoveries she made in his blog sealed their futures in separate relational hemispheres?
“I’ll come to you,” Hope said, descending. “Nice music.”
“It felt like a music kind of night. Is it going to be distracting?”
Hope settled onto the couch. “You’re talking to a twelve-year-old, almost thirteen. Music is like wallpaper. It’s not distracting unless it’s loud and painful.”
Emmalyn reached to turn it down a few decibels anyway before planting herself beside Hope on the couch. Comfort hopped up to join them. “What kinds of things does he write about?”
“A bunch of stuff. This one’s not as funny as some of them.”
How long had it been since she’d thought of Max as funny? The humor drained out of their marriage the day of Emmalyn’s first miscarriage. Devastating as it was, she’d rebounded better than she had after the second and third.
“Here. I’ll show you how you can find it on your own computer. I have to send an invitation, then approve you for the group.”
“So, there’s a limited audience?”
Hope flew through several keystrokes. “Oh, there you are. You’re not on social media much, are you?”
“Does that make me prehistoric?”
“Technically, in one sense, nothing’s truly prehistoric, since we have the biblical record. By strict definition, prehistoric means before recorded history. But—”
Emmalyn laid a hand on Hope’s. “You hereby have an A in your ancient history assignment for today. I’m not prehistoric, apparently. I’m me
rely anti-social.”
The girl’s smile competed with the candle flame in brilliance. “You are officially invited to participate in the group,” she announced.
“I can leave replies?”
“Sure. Dad won’t see them. I do. But I can tell him about them when we email through the prison link.”
Emmalyn looked over Hope’s shoulder at the screen. “Could I email him, too?”
Hope said yes, then shook her head. “You two need counseling.”
“No argument there.”
“He has to send a special invitation through the correctional facility email-only system, and the recipient agrees to the terms and all that.” Hope turned the screen so Emmalyn could follow better. “Then the prisoner has a certain amount of time he can spend emailing those people. I don’t know how many are on Dad’s list besides me and my mom. Probably his lawyer.”
Her mom. Claire. It made sense. They had to discuss child-raising issues. That’s what people with children between them do.
“Didn’t you already get an invitation? Like, two years ago?” Hope’s expression changed. “Hey, it might have gone into your spam folder. Things like that happen all the time.” She returned her attention to the keyboard. “But I bet Dad wondered why you didn’t accept. Here,” Hope said, pointing to a line of print. “This is where the invitation would have come from. Do you remember getting one like that?”
“I don’t think so.” Two years? Max and Hope had been emailing for two years?
“I’ll get on his case. He’ll send you another one.”
“Maybe he’d rather not communicate through that method with me.”
“That’s crazy talk.” Hope pushed herself deeper into the couch and propped her feet on the coffee table. Her face scrunched. “No offense. You’re either together or you’re not. And if you are—committed, I mean—then one of you is going to have to start doing the hard thing. If you ask me. Not that you did. And I’ll go mind my own business now.”
Emmalyn bristled. Her porcupine quills lay flat when she considered the wisdom coming out of the mouth of the babe. “Why would I have to pay for a counselor when I have you?” She nudged Hope with her shoulder. “But just for the record, we do have to keep this on an adult/child basis.”
“Got it.” Hope nodded. The screen color changed. Dark gray. Light gray. And a beautiful, fresh, new leaf green. “He calls his blog ‘Living Free Behind Bars.’ ”
“Irony.”
“Actually, I think they’re steel.”
Had Hope been this adorable when she was four? Emmalyn had been looking at Max’s child through waxed paper back then.
“You know what?” Hope said, handing the laptop to Emmalyn. “I need to run to the bathroom. I’ll let you read it for yourself.”
The sound of her footsteps paused after three beats. Emmalyn glanced her way. With her hand on the banister and one foot on the step above, Hope looked as if she wanted to say something, but didn’t. She disappeared upstairs and left Emmalyn alone with her husband’s thoughts.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m telling my story to an empty room. Maybe I’m the only one listening. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be.
Could she do this? Could she bear to read about what prison had done to him? How he’d changed? The Max she’d married, the one she committed to, amazed her every day with his kindness, his patience with her, his tender touch. She missed being cherished.
I walk on eggshells. My cellmate says it’s like that for everyone who gets within a year of their release. They’re afraid to sneeze too loud for fear of winding up in the shu on a noise violation. Six months in the shu a year after I got here brought me as close to insanity as I ever want to be.
It shamed her that Hope would know what a “shu” was in this context, even though Emmalyn didn’t. A year after he was incarcerated? When his letters stopped. When he stopped replying to hers. Right before she gave up trying.
But I can’t shake the peace, no matter what shakes me.
That sounded like Bougie. She reread the line. It said the same thing it had the first time.
“Did you get to the tattoo part yet?”
“Not yet.” Emmalyn blinked to clear her vision. “Hope, what’s the shu he’s talking about?”
She sat on the couch again, moving slowly this time. She put a thin arm around Emmalyn’s shoulders and said, “Hang on. It isn’t pretty. Did you ever watch Shawshank Redemption? A shu is the Special Housing Unit. Like solitary confinement, but worse.”
“Your mother let you watch that movie?” She’d promised herself she wouldn’t bad-mouth Claire in front of her daughter. Her growl stayed too deep to hear.
“Parts of it. She thought it would be a good education about what Daddy was going through.”
“The setting of Shawshank was a long time ago. In the 1940s, wasn’t it? It’s not like that in the prison systems anymore. Nothing like that.”
Hope raised her eyebrows.
Tell me it’s nothing like that. “Why did they put him in the shu? Six months?”
“He doesn’t tell me everything. I was eight.”
“Oh, yeah. I keep forgetting you’re not older than I am.” Emmalyn pressed out a smile.
“You’ll have to talk to him about it. All I know is it was a small room, a tiny window, no contact.”
“It sounds more like a concentration camp than a correctional facility.” She cringed. What kind of childcare provider talks with a pre-teen about concentration camps? No more slips, Emmalyn.
“One thing we know.”
“What’s that, Hope?”
The girl sat on her hands, her neck disappearing into her shoulders. “He lived through it. There’s a lot to be said for living through something.” She turned her face away from Emmalyn.
The candle sputtered, then settled back into a steady flame. Emmalyn stared at its light, bright flame in the middle, a halo of softer light radiating from its center. Silence stretched wide and long. Deep and far beyond the walls of the cottage. Echoing off the islands miles to the north, more remote, uninhabited, the islands as dark as the night in which they slept.
“Do you think my mom will call me?” Hope’s question hung too long in the air.
“I don’t know much about rehab, Hope.”
“She usually calls.”
They’d been through it before. Oh, child. Emmalyn put both arms around the girl and rested her chin on the shiny chestnut hair. “I’m sure she will if she can.”
A wolf call sounded beyond the windows. It would have made Emmalyn flinch, but a child depended on her to be strong. She tightened her hug. Hope let her.
Comfort found a way to squeeze between them.
* * *
Anyone can hold a baby. Emmalyn held a child.
Until it became disheartening three years into the process of trying, Emmalyn had begged to hold the babies. Anyone’s baby. She believed every forehead she stroked, every infant she lullabied was a hint of the joy ahead for her. Other women in their Empty Arms support group couldn’t do it. They couldn’t bring themselves to feel the weight of a little one in their arms and have to give it up a few minutes or a long nap later. Emmalyn became one of those women.
She’d had a child in her home two weeks in the summer, every other Thanksgiving, a few days at Christmas since Hope was a toddler. But Emmalyn had stiff-armed that gift—stiff-armed the God who gave gifts—and held out for a baby.
That longing might never go away. But as she brushed stray hairs from Hope’s twelve-year-old face, that beautiful face, she felt something tentative within her find its moorings. The baby stage had consumed her. Beyond it lay so much more.
Until a person is whole, she can’t see clearly. She can’t hear well. She can’t love right.
* * *
Three weeks until the shortest day of the year. The longest night. That’s what the calendar said. This year, it came three weeks early.
Hope had gone to bed hours ago. Emmalyn heard the
floor squeak too often. The girl couldn’t sleep either.
The blue light from Hope’s aging laptop tugged at Emmalyn. She couldn’t finish reading. Not yet. She’d gotten through a half dozen of the most recent blog posts—usually dated a week or two apart. She’d found the tattoo reference. Few in his cell block were tattoo-free. He’d taken flack for being “uninked.” He silenced the ribbing by claiming he had two. Branded as property of his Creator, with his wife’s name tattooed on his heart.
Both statements left her breathless. After all this, after her absence—her long, hollow absence—he would say such a thing? As if he’d forgiven her, and found forgiveness, but had forgotten to tell her.
If he’d gone from faith-neutral to faith-filled, as he hinted in one blog post after another, why hadn’t he made the move to contact her? Isn’t that what God would have wanted? When she was thinking more clearly, she’d search for an unopened invitation from the correctional system email program. She wouldn’t have trashed it accidentally, would she?
He could have tried again.
She could have tried.
She’d changed, too. Far more recently than he had. She hardly admitted it to herself, much less announced it to Max or anyone else.
What was her excuse?
Maybe it was too late for them to consider their marriage anything more than a memory. From here on out, if they shared anything besides concern for Hope, they’d do so as two people with a common past, a history of mutual mistakes, and an unspoken gratitude for grace that kept them upright.
No.
Not enough. The daddy Hope knew was the husband she longed to know.
Whatever it took.
* * *
A light shone under Hope’s door when Emmalyn finally climbed the stairs after midnight. She rapped on the wood and whispered, “Are you still awake?”
“You can come in. I’m reading.” She lay on her side with her back to the wall, a book propped in her bent arm.
Emmalyn sat lightly on the edge of her bed. Hope kept reading. “It’s a good thing we can sleep in tomorrow. Today.”
“Uh huh. I’ll stop reading soon.”
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