by Julia Keller
She answered the questions posed by the board members in a voice so frail and quavering that she was often asked to repeat herself. Yes, she felt remorse. Yes, she planned to get a job.
By unanimous vote, parole was granted to Shirley Abigail Dolan, prisoner number 3476213. She would be released in ten days.
Bell had less than a minute to talk to her, before her sister was led away again. There was so much Bell wanted to say, so many questions she wanted to ask, so much she wanted to tell her. But they would have time for all of that later. For now, she settled for the first thing that came into her head.
‘Shirley,’ Bell said, ‘it’s going to be okay now.’
On the morning of Shirley’s release, Bell wanted to get an early start on the drive to Lakin. She was nervous, apprehensive, but also excited. She’d called Dot Burdette and asked her to come keep Carla company, and when Dot arrived she asked Bell if she and Carla could bake a cake to mark the day. Have it ready for their return.
At first Bell said no – she didn’t want any fuss, she didn’t want anything that might make Shirley self-conscious – but then she thought about it and said, Sure. Okay.
As long as it’s chocolate.
Bell headed out to the interstate and then on to West Virginia Route 62, driving down through Ripley and Mason, past the redbud trees, now just skinny bundles of sticks dreaming of spring. The road clung to the Ohio River, like two friends linking arms on a long, long walk. At the big curve just above Point Pleasant was Lakin Correctional Center. A series of single-story square buildings of pale yellow brick, with scribbles of barbed wire arranged across the top of the fences. Behind the prison, the black mountain kept a close watch on it.
‘I’m here for Shirley Dolan.’
The woman at the reception desk shuffled through papers, exchanging one clipboard for another.
‘Well,’ she said.
‘What is it?’
‘She’s gone. She left about an hour and a half ago.’
‘No, no, there’s been a mistake,’ Bell said patiently. ‘Can you check again, please? Shirley Dolan. D-O-L-A-N.’
The woman looked down at her clipboard again, raising the bottom corner of the first sheet to look at the sheet beneath it, then looking at the first one again, frowning, concentrating, but the gestures were clearly just for show, just to make the news more palatable.
‘No mistake,’ she said. ‘Shirley Dolan left this morning.’
‘Where did she go?’
‘I don’t know.’
Bell’s voice rose. ‘You don’t know? You don’t—’
‘She’s free to go wherever she wants to go, ma’am.’
‘And there’s no note, no message, nothing like that? I’m her sister – she knows I’m coming to pick her up today and—’
‘No, ma’am. No message.’
Running. It was what everyone did when they were confused and overwhelmed. Bell had done it herself. Many, many times. That was why she’d joined the track teams in high school and college: It made the impulse to run – and keep running – seem healthy, seem like part of a plan. Not like animal panic. Not like endless dread.
How could she ever find Shirley again? Where would she start?
Back in the parking lot, Bell stood by the Explorer, hand cupped around the door handle. The metal was still cold. The sun had finally groped its way through the dirty gray rags of clouds, but it had taken all morning for it to do so.
She lifted her eyes to the mountain. If you looked at it long enough and hard enough, you could almost believe that anything was possible. You could almost believe that the mountain itself might move one day, like a ragged black triangle of coal heaped on a barge, a barge that rides the river’s brushed-nickel back on its way to who knows where.