Sidetracked-Kobo

by Brandilyn Collins

  Laura bristled. “Maybe because she’s your life now. Mom’s gone, I’m in here rotting away. And you just go on with your new, happy existence.”

  He swallowed. “It’s not all happy, Laura.”

  Well, cry me a river. “It should be miserable! You shouldn’t be sleeping at all, thinking about me in here for some horrible thing I didn’t do. You should be working day and night to get me out of here! Instead it’s like you’re … somebody else. You don’t even know me anymore.” The injustice built in Laura, higher and higher until she could stand it no more. She pushed to her feet. “You know what—I don’t want to see you in here again. I can’t. It hurts too much, and there’s nothing left to say.”

  Laura turned away and headed for the door. Sobs clogged her throat.

  She whirled back. Tears prismed her vision. “Tell you what.” She jabbed a finger toward her father. “Come see me in CYA—when you know I’m innocent.”

  She flung open the door and stumbled to the desk where Tats waited.

  As she was escorted down the long hall to her room, Laura sobbed aloud. She wanted to scream. Wanted to run back and tell her father she hadn’t meant it. Instead she hung her head, watching the scuffed floor slide beneath her plodding feet. In her room she flopped down on her cot, her back to her roommate, and stared at the wall. Her heart tremored, ready to burst from her chest.

  Laura knew her father would never come see her in CYA.

  Chapter 23

  On November fifteenth Laura was transported to Ventura County in Southern California, the only CYA that accepted girls. As Laura began the intake process at the facility part of her was still scared past comprehension. Another part didn’t care. If somebody here—a real killer—wanted to knife her, so what? Death didn’t matter much when you had nothing to live for.

  She was put in a tiny room with brick walls. A small, hard cot—like she’d had in juvey. A little desk. A white toilet and sink. At least she was by herself, no roommate. The day room was a large area where she and other inmates could go when let out of their cells. There was a family visiting room—not that she’d have any visitors. And a pay phone in the day room to call family. Not that she’d be using it.

  “Don’t look like a victim,” inmates at juvey had warned her. They were the ones with brothers and sisters and cousins in CYA, who filled her ears with tales of the horrible place. But how to not “look like a victim” when you’re not tough and had never been in trouble with the police in your entire life—until they decided you’d killed your mother?

  Laura tried to keep to herself, which lasted about an hour the first time she was let out of her cell into the day room. A huge girl with frizzy blonde hair sidled up to Laura, her eyes slitted. “I heard you killed your mama.” She spoke with a Southern accent. How she’d ended up in California, Laura had no clue and didn’t want to ask.

  “They said I did. But I didn’t.”

  The girl rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right. Nobody in here’s guilty.”

  Laura protested. Made no difference. The girl looked at her like she was scum. “I can understand killin’ somebody else, but your own mama?”

  Word soon spread. No one liked Laura. After a month it started to get to her. Stuck in here was bad enough. Couldn’t she have one friend? After the second month she quit telling people she was innocent. No one listened. And she may not have had friends, but no one bothered her either. Apparently she was considered quiet but dangerous. If she’d killed her own mother, who knew what she was capable of?

  They went to school in the days, for what it was worth. If anybody got out of control, if a fight erupted, they were all sent back to their rooms. On non-school days she was in that tiny cell by herself for twenty-three hours a day. Laura thought she would climb the walls.

  How could she do this for eight and a half years?

  Laura missed her mom more than ever. And her dad. Was he married by now? Did he ever think about her?

  She felt herself slipping away to some remote, alien place. Sometimes she couldn’t feel anything. In group counseling sessions she never said a word, no matter how hard the counselor tried to draw her out. They all saw her as a murderer. What was there for her to say?

  “Hold on to you—the real you,” she told herself over and over. Some day eons from now she’d be out. She’d be twenty-five with no family (that cared anyway), no job, and no money. She’d have to make it on her own, build her own family. She’d find a man who loved her. She would be a mother some day. But she couldn’t do that if she was all hardness and cold. She needed to keep the ability to love in her heart. Somehow.

  God was no help. He didn’t do prison.

  The first year dragged by …

  …

  …

  …

  And the second …

  …

  …

  Laura earned her high school degree.

  Now what to do with herself within those four walls? There were some vocational classes, but she wasn’t interested in any of them.

  Girls came and went. Few were in for as long as she. By the time she got out she’d be older than any of them. Twenty-five. Sounded ancient. Women were married by twenty-five. Had kids and careers. She’d have nothing.

  She turned nineteen in March 1998. On her birthday she sat on her cot, trying to remember the sound of her mother’s voice. The memory was gone.

  Her twentieth birthday was spent in the infirmary, weak-limbed and high-fevered with flu. She dreamed (hallucinated?) that her mother was in the room, calling to her. Promising Laura that one day the real murderer would be caught and brought to justice. Laura awoke chilled and sweaty. Wishing she could return to the dream. In real life, as far as the System was concerned, her mother’s “murderer” had been caught. The case would never be reopened.

  When Laura was finally well, she returned to her little room with her head full of thoughts about Roger Weiner. She’d not allowed herself to dwell on him before—too frustrating. Now she couldn’t help herself, thanks to the dream. Where was Weiner now? When she got out, could she find him? Somehow make him confess?

  Laura began to fantasize about seeing the evil man on trial. Watching police lead him away in cuffs to prison. Hearing her own name exonerated.

  The new millennium dawned. New for everyone else. Around the world people were partying. Living it up. Laura was asleep before midnight.

  Her twenty-first birthday was spent in her room, in lockdown. A fight had broken out, and three girls had been beaten. When something like that happened, everyone paid.

  Happy birthday, Laura.

  A tiny piece of her had wished for at least a letter or card from her father. But—nothing.

  November 2000 skulked around, and her fifth year was done. Laura could barely remember what it was like to live on the outside. Wake up when she wanted to. Get into a car and ride down the street. Go to a movie. The mall. Wear her own clothes.

  By her twenty-second birthday Laura felt like she’d lived a lifetime in CYA. Few girls there were older than she. Laura watched them argue in the day room, cuss each other out. Carry their anger on their sleeves. For what?

  Maybe they knew something she didn’t. Maybe it was better to live an angry life than to not feel at all.

  Three more years to go.

  Dreams of catching Roger Weiner, sending him to jail, had faded. What was the use? The police hadn’t believed her when it mattered most. Now they never would.

  After Laura’s twenty-third birthday something shifted inside her. She had only two years left. And fear of getting out began to set in. CYA was hellish. But it was a hell she knew. What would happen when she was free? She didn’t know how to fend for herself. Couldn’t remember how to make her own decisions.

  A new fantasy overtook Laura—reconciling with her father. Maybe he’d contact her before she was released, offer to let her stay with him until she got on her feet. He’d throw his arms around h
er and tell her how sorry he was. That he now knew she was innocent. Anything he could do for her, anything at all … And if his new wife (surely he’d married her by now) didn’t want Laura around, he’d put his beloved daughter up in an apartment somewhere. By then all her high school friends would be long scattered, busy with their families and careers. The media would have forgotten the murder case. There wouldn’t be so much as a peep when she returned to the Bay Area.

  But there remained one huge problem. She would have a felony—for murder—on her record for the rest of her life. How could she possibly get a job? Who would ever hire her?

  Over the next few months Laura began to dream again of bringing her mother’s killer to justice. Roger Weiner did matter. In proving he was the real culprit, she would also free herself.

  No more fantasizing—she had to convince her father of her innocence. She couldn’t do this alone. And maybe she could even convince his cop wife. (Somehow Laura would have to stomach being around the woman.) With Tina on her side, investigating with the mind of an officer, they’d get somewhere.

  On her twenty-fourth birthday, with just one year left, Laura wrote her dad a letter.

  Chapter 24

  One month after Laura wrote her father, she received a reply.

  She sat on her familiar hard cot, holding the envelope. It had been slit open, the letter resting inside. CYA staff read all incoming and outgoing mail. Laura turned the envelope over and over, afraid to take out the piece of paper. So much in her life had gone wrong. She’d long ago given up on God. Now she was asking Him to help her just this once. In desperation, Laura had gone so far as to make a pact with God. If He would just bring her father back to her, she’d believe in Him again.

  She took a deep breath and slid out the piece of paper that could change her life.

  Dearest Laura,

  I can’t tell you how happy I was to see your letter. I’ve read it over and over, and still carry it in my pocket.

  There is so much to tell you. So much to talk about. I just can’t begin to cover it on paper. Years ago you told me not to come see you unless I believed in your innocence. Now I’m coming to see you. I’ve been in contact with CYA and learned about the visitation process. In two weeks I’ve got a few vacation days coming, and I’m using it to drive down there. I’ll see you then—and we’ll talk about everything.

  All my love,

  Dad

  Laura read the last word and froze. She stared at the letter, trying to process. Trying to feel. Years had passed without good news, years in which she’d stuffed her emotions deep inside. Now, reading this incredible letter, she wanted to experience happiness. She wanted to jump and shout, but all she could do was sit there.

  Maybe she’d read the letter wrong.

  She went over it again.

  Hard breaths came first. A sense of her chest bursting. Tears came next, flooding her eyes and smearing her face. Then it came, an old feeling she could barely remember. Happiness. Insane joy zigzagged down her nerves, sparked out from her fingers. Laura pushed off the cot on wobbly knees and tipped her head toward the ceiling. At first the words wouldn’t come. They caught in her throat, thick and jumbled. Then, in an instant they broke free.

  “Thank You, God, Thank You, God, thank You, thank You, thank You …”

  She snatched up the letter and spread her arms. Turned in circles. Then clutched the blessed piece of paper to her chest.

  “Thank You, thank You, thank You …”

  In the next two weeks she talked to God often. She still didn’t know why He’d allowed her mom to be killed. Why He’d allowed her to go to jail. But now, finally, He was going to fix it. Her life was going to go on. She even asked for a Bible and began to read, starting with the New Testament. The words soothed her. Filled in the hard-edged cracks. She began to sense a change in herself. A softening, a reawakening of feeling. Not a night-and-day difference by any means, but … something.

  The first weekend, when visitation took place, crept by. For the first time Laura did not sit in her room. She took a seat in the corner of the day room, watching her fellow inmates and their families talk and laugh. Hug one another. One more week, and that would be her.

  The next Sunday she stood in the day room awaiting her father, palms sweaty and heart fluttering. When the doors opened for families to come in, he was the first to enter.

  They caught one another’s eye across the room. He looked older, with grayer hair. Laura couldn’t move.

  Her father closed the distance in long strides. He pulled her into his arms and held on tight. Laura buried her face in his chest, taking in his once-familiar smell, the years of absence melting away. She sobbed, and he held her tighter. For a long moment they stood, ignoring the chatter all around them, the scrape of chairs. When they finally pulled away, she saw his eyes were filled with tears too.

  “It’s so good to see you.” His voice was raw.

  She swallowed hard. “Good to see you.”

  They found two seats as far from everyone else as possible. Sat facing each other, holding hands. Laura had a million things to ask but couldn’t speak another word. She saw new lines cut into her dad’s face. Crinkles around the eyes. Deeper ones around his mouth. He would be … what? Forty-nine now?

  Her father squeezed her fingers. “You look so different. Shorter hair. Much more mature.”

  Laura could only nod.

  “You’re still so pretty. Like your mom.”

  Another sob threatened to crack from her throat. Laura forced it down. “Are you … still working at the same place?”

  “Yeah. I’m a VP now.”

  “Oh. That’s great.”

  He lifted a shoulder.

  They sat awkwardly, searching for words across the years.

  Her dad rubbed her hands. “I’m sorry I doubted you. I’m so, so, sorry …” His voice caught and he shut his eyes, unable to continue. Laura watched remorse and pain seize his face.

  After a shuddering breath, he pushed on. “I didn’t believe it at first. But the more I heard from the prosecutor … He insisted you did it. That you’d lied to him from the beginning. I felt my world crashing in. I’d lost my wife in the most horrible way. Now I was losing my daughter. Meanwhile Tina was there, soothing me. Giving me support. My life was a nightmare. All I could do was throw my attention on her. Just to save myself. But at least I was living a free life. There you were, in jail. Being accused. You had nothing, no one else to focus on. Except your trial and an acquittal. And I just … left you there.”

  He broke down again. Laura’s pulse surged. She gripped his hands and cried with him. “It’s okay, Dad. It’s okay.”

  It was some time before he could pull himself together. Laura got up and fetched them both some tissues. Thrust one into his hand, still hardly believing he was sitting in front of her. It all seemed so surreal. “Did Tina tell you I was guilty?”

  “She knew you were. She tried to get me to see it through objective eyes, she said. Not through my loving father’s eyes. She said the sooner I dealt with it, the sooner I could heal.”

  Of course she would say that. “And after awhile you believed her.”

  Laura’s father worked his jaw back and forth.

  “Is she still a cop?”

  “Worse. She’s made detective.”

  Worse? “You still with her?”

  He looked at the floor. “It’s not going well.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.” No she wasn’t. “What’s happening?” Other than the fact he was realizing the horrible woman had managed to separate him from his daughter …

  Her father shook his head. “We got married a few months after you came here. I thought she was everything I needed. But after a couple years she started to change.” He shrugged. “Maybe it wasn’t change. Maybe I was just seeing the real Tina. She became demanding and caustic. Always wanting to spend more and more money. Impress her friends, the neighbors. Twice we’ve
separated. Both times she convinced me to take her back. I’ve tried all these years. But I just can’t … And now in less than a year you’re getting out. You’ll need a place to live. I want you to come home, Laura.”

  The words filtered through Laura’s head, stunning and warm.

  “Do you want to come home?”

  “Yes.” She could barely talk.

  He smiled. “Tina will never accept it. That’s why she has to go.”

  Laura stared at him. “You going to divorce her?”

  Her father nodded. “We’ll be a whole lot better off without her, you and I.”

  She leaned across his legs and hugged him.

  “Does she know you’re here visiting me?”

  “She knows.”

  “Guess she’s not happy about that.”

  “No.”

  Laura rubbed a finger over her pants. “Does she know you think I’m innocent?”

  “Yes. I was so overwhelmed when I realized … I couldn’t keep it from her. She hasn’t let up about it since. Just harps and harps, like she’s obsessed. Honestly, sometimes I wonder if she’s coming unhinged. I finally just told her I’m not talking about it anymore.”

  So many questions. “Why do you believe I didn’t do it now?”

  Her father stared across the room. When he looked back at her, he seemed to gather himself. “Your bedroom—I hadn’t touched it in all these years. Everything’s still there. Your clothes, pictures on the wall. Everything.”

  Her room was still like it had been? Laura couldn’t imagine it. To see that room again, just like she’d left it. Sleep in the same bed, under the same covers. Even in her wildest fantasies of going home, she hadn’t pictured that.

  “The door has been closed. I never went in there. I couldn’t. And then one day after Tina and I’d had a huge fight, I just … did. I stood near the doorway, gazing around the room. Remembering. And then—out of nowhere—a memory hit me. A memory I’d never had until that moment.” Her father stopped, rubbed both palms against his jeans. “I saw you, the day your mom was killed. You were leaving the house in the morning, carrying your backpack. You’d apologized to me for arguing with your mom. And there you were, walking out the door into the bright day. I remembered the sky, how blue it was. And how it matched your shoes.”