Victim Of Circumstance

by Freya Barker

  Victim Of Circumstance

  Freya Barker

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Also By Freya Barker

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Victim of Circumstance

  Copyright © 2020 Freya Barker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or by other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author or publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in used critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses as permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, mentioning in the subject line:

  "Reproduction Request” at the address below:

  freyabarker.writes@gmail.com

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, any event, occurrence, or incident is purely coincidental. The characters and story lines are created and thought up from the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  ISBN: 978 1 988733 463

  Cover Design: Lauren Dawes

  Editing: Karen Hrdlicka

  Proofreading: Joanne Thompson

  Prologue

  Fresh air.

  I stop when I hear the harsh clank of the gate closing behind me and suck in a deep, desperate breath. It’s like my lungs are able to expand fully for the first time in eighteen years. The full hit of oxygen makes me instantly lightheaded.

  It’s all between my ears, I realize that, but there’s no denying the physical impact breathing actual free air after so many years has on me. I force myself not to bend over and gasp, like my body wants to. Instead I raise my eyes to a mostly cloudless sky, giving my senses a moment to adjust.

  The shrill honk of a car horn interrupts my efforts to calibrate my senses and my eyes automatically dart to the end of the wide drive into Rockwood Penitentiary, where I’ve spent almost two decades in Cell Block C. My cab is waiting for me and I slowly start walking toward it, almost expecting a harsh voice to call me back.

  All I have is a paper bag with the few meager, and by now meaningless, belongings I had on me when I was brought here. My clothes feel weird and unfamiliar, taken from a supply closet with stacks of unclaimed street clothes for people like me who have no one on the outside to send them some. I don’t know where the clothes I was wearing back then disappeared to. Maybe some other guy wore those home.

  Home. A weird concept, even before I ended up here it was an undefined place. At that time I had a tiny, rented studio apartment, but for two decades home had been a six-by-eight prison cell. Small, but it was mine. I didn’t have much to fill it with except for the books given to me through Books to Prisoners, one of the many organizations trying to make life behind bars more livable.

  I have eighteen books, one for each year I spent inside. Books I read over and over and over again. There’d been more, some borrowed from the prison library, but these eighteen came to mean something to me. They were representative of every year I spent inside. The ones that allowed me to disappear, even just for the time it took me to read them. They’d been my true sanctuary, my peaceful haven in an oppressive, sound-filled environment.

  They’re all in my paper bag, making it heavy as fuck to carry. Also in there are my toothbrush, my soap, and a leather wristband I forgot I had until it was handed to me earlier. My leather jacket, the only item of my own clothing remaining, is hot on my back in the midday sun. The wad of cash, both the hundred and fifteen dollars I had on me when I was arrested, and the gate money—a few weeks’ worth of living expenses I’m supposed to pay back in a few months—are burning a hole in my pocket.

  “Where are you heading?” the old man standing beside the taxi asks when I approach.

  Isn’t that the million-dollar question? One I don’t have an answer for right away—it’s been so long since I’ve had to make any decisions—so I buy myself some time by answering, “The closest bus station.”

  Clutching my paper bag, I climb in the back seat and immediately open the window, wanting to feel the air move on my face.

  “Is that okay?” I ask politely.

  “Sure,” he says, climbing behind the wheel. “You’re not the only one who does that.”

  I don’t talk much. Never have, and certainly not while I was inside. I kept mostly to myself. I’m relieved when the driver doesn’t make an effort to engage in small talk.

  I look out the window, letting the landscape roll by as I consider where I might want to go. Big cities where I can disappear anonymously pass my mind’s eye, but during the twenty-minute ride, the one place that keeps coming to the forefront is my hometown of Beaverton.

  It seems crazy to go back to a small town where most people will remember what you did, but somehow I find myself compelled to ask for a ticket there when I walk up to the window at the bus station.

  Chapter One

  Gray

  “This is too much.”

  I look at the stack of bills stuffed in the envelope Jimmy shoves in my hand, which was just supposed to hold my earnings for the past two weeks.

  Jimmy Olson was still in Beaverton when I arrived last month. We’d been best friends since elementary school and he’d even visited me in jail twice, until I finally refused to see him. My head had been fucked up—hell, it likely still is—and watching Jimmy walk out of there twice had almost done me in. I was sad, I was scared, and I struggled finding my equilibrium inside. As much as seeing him gave me a brief moment of reprieve, seeing that door close behind him would leave me raw.

  Hope becomes a hot searing pain that scars your soul when it has nowhere to go.

  It was easier to live without, move through my days in a tedious repetition of the last. No highs, no particular lows, just a narrow existence within the walls of my prison.

  But hope flared when he was the first person I saw, getting off the bus in Beaverton last month. Jimmy fucking Olson, coming out of a diner with a coffee in his hand and walking up to a red tow truck, Olson’s Automotive printed on the side.

  I might’ve avoided him, but he saw me. How he recognized me I don’t know. I’ve gotten old. My former dark hair has gone completely gray inside. I used to be bigger than I am now, after discovering the prison gym is not a place you want to be without a posse at your back. I never had one. My body is much leaner now; the only exercise what I managed to do in my own cell.

  Still he took one look at me and that boyish grin I remember so well spread wide over his face. He hadn’t changed much at all and apparently had no hard feelings about me blowing him off, because he came tearing across the street, wrapping me in a bone-crushing hug.

  I almost fucking cried right there in front of the bus station.

  An hour later I was moved into the small apartment over his business. It used to be Old Man Stephenson’s garage when
both Jimmy and I worked there, but apparently he’s dead and Jimmy bought the place. I was floored when Jimmy said he’d known I was released—had been keeping track—and was hoping I’d be smart enough to come home.

  He gave me a week to settle in; a week I mostly spent in isolation in the small apartment he had stocked with food so I didn’t have to go out. After that week, he barged in at seven in the morning, ordering me to get my ass downstairs, and give him a hand. I’ve been doing long days in the shop since.

  “Fuck no, it’s not. You had me sell off your shit, remember? I’ve had it sitting in a savings account all this time, gathering dust.”

  “You’re shitting me? This is at least ten grand, my stuff wouldn’t have made more than a couple of hundred.”

  “Seventeen thousand three hundred and twenty-five dollars to be exact,” he says and my jaw hits the floor. “Most of it for your old Mustang.”

  “That was a pile of rust. I hadn’t even started working on it,” I point out, remembering the 1965 Mustang I hauled out of a field near Coleman for the measly two hundred bucks the farmer wanted for it. That was supposed to be my next project before everything went to shit.

  “I know. It got done,” Jimmy says with a shrug, and I feel my throat close. “Anyway, you may wanna open up a bank account, unless you’re gonna walk around with that kinda cash.”

  Opening up an account would require going into the bank, a public building, something I’m not sure I’m ready to do. Even these past few weeks working in the shop, I would duck out of sight whenever a customer walked in. Jimmy seemed to understand, at least he hadn’t commented on it. Not yet.

  “I know. I will eventually. And Jimmy…thanks, man.”

  He shrugs again and dives under the pickup truck we have up on the car lift.

  “Just don’t go spending it all at once,” he mumbles from under there.

  “Only spending I’ll be doing is buying a ticket to New York,” I tell him offhand, as I shove the envelope in my pocket and duck under the hood of the Charger brought in this morning.

  “You’re going?” Jimmy asks.

  “I need to. Never got to say goodbye to Reagan.”

  “Who’s Reagan?” Kyle, the apprentice working with us this morning wants to know.

  I can’t even bring myself to explain, but Jimmy answers for me.

  “His sister, dipstick. She died.”

  I glance over at the young kid, who looks miserable.

  “Long time ago, kid,” I assure him. He nods, looking only moderately better as he turns to focus on the tires he’s checking for leaks. He doesn’t need to know I haven’t even begun to deal with that loss.

  It’s almost six thirty when Jimmy calls it a day.

  “Wanna go grab a bite to eat?”

  I know he’s trying to get me outside of this place, but just like the bank, the diner seems like too public a place. Chances are big I’d bump into people who remember me, and I’m not ready to face them yet. Besides, I’ve gotten used to my own company and it’s enough for now.

  “I think I’ll just stay here. Got a book to finish,” I tell him.

  It’s a lame excuse and I know it, but the thought of walking into a crowded diner fills me with anxiety.

  “How are you gonna go to New York if you can’t even manage to cross the street?”

  I guess it’s a valid question, but there’s a simple and clear answer.

  “Nobody knows me there.”

  Robin

  I like my nights to myself.

  The first year after Paige left for college, I was desperate to fill any alone time with activity to cover the hole she left behind, but these days I’m perfectly content with just a book, or a good show on TV, and my own company.

  We call a couple of times a week just to touch base, and see each other on half a dozen or so occasions throughout the year. Since my daughter left home, our relationship has gone through a transition and I have to say I really enjoy the connection we share now. We’re equals. I don’t carry the heavy, sole responsibility over someone else’s life and welfare anymore; she does that herself, and does it well.

  Paige is twenty-three and just graduated this May with a bachelor’s degree in nursing from Rutgers University in New Jersey. Her late father’s alma mater, except he studied accounting. It was also mine, but that was years later. I met him by chance when I volunteered at an alumni event and less than a year later dropped out when I got pregnant with her. New Jersey is where she was born and where we lived until I moved us back to Michigan when she was still young.

  She’d had her sights set on Rutgers, and when my daughter wants something, she’ll move heaven and earth to get it. Despite my mixed bag of emotions on it, I supported her decision. Ironically she loves it so much there, she decided to stick around and look for work this summer. Ended up with a fabulous job at a medical clinic. She loves it and though I don’t love her living halfway across the country, I’m glad she’s happy there.

  I’m happy here, where I’m not too far from my mother, who needs me more now than my daughter does. Mom has struggled a bit since Dad died three years ago at only sixty-six, quite unexpectedly. They’ve always lived in Lansing where Dad worked for GM, at the assembly plant, for almost forty years before he retired at sixty-five. Less than two years later he passed in his sleep from a massive heart attack. They’d just finished planning what was supposed to have been their bucket list trip.

  Life sucks sometimes.

  Almost by rote I grab my phone and dial my mother.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Sweetie, how are you?”

  “Good. Just thinking about you.”

  “How come?”

  “No particular reason. I talked to Paige earlier today and we made plans for me to head down there for a week next month, and I was just thinking, maybe you want to come?”

  I’ve asked Mom to join me before when I go to visit my daughter but she always declined, which is why I’m surprised when she suddenly seems to consider it.

  “I might. It depends.”

  “That would be amazing. Paige would be tickled. Let me know when you make up your mind, Mom. I can book you a flight.”

  The rest of the conversation we chat about her latest checkup, my aunt, Ditty, who apparently has a new beau—again—and the dirt on a cousin going through a nasty divorce. Half an hour later, I’m more up-to-date with family than I care to be.

  I’ve always been the listener, never the talker, which is why my family knows little of my years in New Jersey. Something I’m grateful for since it wouldn’t have served any purpose. Fortunately Paige remembers little of that time, so the only one with bad memories is me, and I’ve got ways to deal with those.

  I feel better having talked to the two most important people in my life and settle into my evening with a book and a glass of wine. I’ve become good at counting my blessings and ignoring the small pangs of longing for things out of my reach.

  “Shirley called in sick.”

  I’m donning my apron when Kim sticks her head into the small office where we leave our personal stuff when on shift.

  I’ve been working at Over Easy for well over ten years now. When I started out I was just doing Kim’s books part time, along with several other bookkeeping clients, but with Paige getting older and being home less, I craved some human interaction. One of Kim’s waitresses left on maternity leave and she was in a bind, so I offered to help. That turned into a full-time job, while still doing the diner’s books on the side. I’ve since dropped my other clients so I work at Over Easy exclusively.

  My parents as well as Paige had a hard time understanding why I would take on a menial job that didn’t pay all that well. Despite what they think they know, the truth is I don’t need much. I own my small home outright and the cost of living here is relatively low.

  There was a time I had it all—the big house, fancy car, designer threads, platinum credit cards—but nothing about that made me happy. My life now does
, and that includes working at the diner.

  “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She says the flu.” I see the skepticism on Kim’s face.

  “But…”

  “But I’m not buying it. I could hear Mike yelling in the background.”

  Shirley’s marriage is not a happy one. At least not anymore.

  Two years ago, her husband Mike was laid off from the same GM plant where my father worked most of his life, and he hadn’t been able to find anything new. At fifty-two, that’s a hard pill to swallow—I get it—but Mike’s idea of coping is hitting the bottle hard and taking his frustration out on Shirley, mostly.

  Kim and I have talked about our concern for her, especially these past few months. She’s called in sick a few times and looks like she’s aged a decade. Drawn and pale, her normal exuberant smile now only a shadow. One of their boys is in college and the other works in the oilfields up in Canada, so it’s just Shirley and Mike at home.

  “I’ll try and give her a call later,” I volunteer.

  Shirley and I aren’t besties necessarily—I think we both have too much to hide for that—but I consider us friends and we’ve worked this shift together for years.

  “Okay. I called Debra and she’ll come in a few hours, and Jason has the kitchen so I can run the counter and cash register.”

  “Sounds good. We’ve got this.”

  This isn’t the first time we’ve had just three of us here, but rarely on a Saturday morning.