Never to Hope

by Aimie Grey

  Fuck. Should I tell Alissa my entire history with Max? Maybe I could just omit facts, so I wouldn’t have to outright lie to her face, and hope she never finds out. The truth might hurt her, and it also might make her take the final step through the door. On the other hand, maybe it wasn’t a big deal, since it was so long ago and there was absolutely no reason for Alissa to worry. All I knew was I couldn’t risk losing her.

  “Yes, we’re old friends.”

  “That’s good,” she said and then snuggled into my side.

  “Hopefully I’ll still be able to find time to spend with you.” I turned back to my computer; if I wanted to make that happen, I couldn’t stop anytime soon.

  “I’m glad,” she said. “Now take off your pants.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me,” she said as she pulled her shirt over her head. “If you aren’t going to be around much for the next two weeks, I want to play.”

  *

  Monday morning, like every other Monday morning we’d had over the past couple of months, Alissa made breakfast while I got ready for work. The only difference was that on this Monday, I’d woken up with her in my arms. She still wanted to wait for our test results before going all the way, but we had found some extremely creative ways to enjoy each other.

  “Mornin’, babe,” I said, stepping into the kitchen and pulling her in for a long kiss. “I had fun last night.”

  “Me too,” she said against my lips. “Maybe we can have more fun tonight?”

  “We’ll see what time I get home. I have a couple of hearings today and need to review a contract for one of my clients. Max and I may be at the office pretty late putting together a game plan for this budget.”

  With a playful, exaggerated sigh, she took a seat at the table, and I followed suit. While eating a piece of toast, her mood darkened slightly. “I got a call yesterday afternoon,” she said. “I was a little distracted and forgot to mention it last night.”

  With the coffee mug halfway to my lips, I asked, “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, I think so. It was my mom calling collect from prison. Apparently she’s completed their in-house version of rehab and is feeling better. She asked if I would visit her on Saturday.”

  “How did she sound?”

  “I don’t want to get my hopes up, but she sounded well. It was kind of like listening to a distant memory.”

  “Do you want to go?” On one hand, I wanted her to see her family; then on the other, I didn’t want to risk her being hurt any more than she had been already.

  “Yes and no. She doesn’t deserve my forgiveness, but at the same time, forgiving her might give me some closure. You know, I always hear about how it helps the forgiver more than the forgiven. I have an appointment with Dr. Wyles this afternoon. I’ll talk to her about it and see what she thinks.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  “Carter?” she asked tentatively.

  “Yeah?”

  “If I end up going, do you think you’d be able to go with me?”

  “Of course I will,” I said without a moment of hesitation.

  “But what if you’re busy with work?” Her uncertainty cut right through me.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll make the time. You are more important to me than anything.”

  *

  Alissa’s anxiety level was high when we got ready to leave early Saturday morning. Max insisted on sleeping in, so I decided Alissa and I should get to the prison as soon as visiting hours began so I could have the rest of the day to work with Max. At the time, I hadn’t thought about the reality of waking up at five in the morning so we could get there by six thirty. Up until the fucking alarm went off, I had been both surprised and grateful to find out we could visit so early in the morning.

  Thankfully, Alissa’s nerves calmed when we got in the car and began our trip. Knowing we had quite a few freeway miles ahead of us, I kept my left hand on the steering wheel and reached over to her with my right. As soon as my hand was on her side of the center console, she threaded her fingers through mine and squeezed.

  “This is nice,” she said. I took my eyes off the road just long enough to see her watching me with a small smile on her face. “I’ve missed you.”

  “Me too,” I replied and brought our joined hands to my lips so I could kiss the backs of her fingers. “You know I love you, right?”

  “I know,” she replied and then raised our hands to her lips so she could mimic my actions.

  There had been a time, right before she found out I was a cop, when she’d almost said it back. I’d give anything to hear those words from her, but she kept them to herself, playing it safe. Given the information I was currently withholding from her about Max, she was right in doing so, even though she didn’t know it.

  “Tell me a story?” she asked as we settled in for what was sure to be the boring part of the drive.

  “What story would you like to hear?” I asked. “The Three Little Pigs?”

  She laughed a little at my lame attempt at humor. “Tell me about what happened with Jill the waitress. You know, the scratch marks and following her home.”

  That used to be a very sore spot for her, and I was glad to see it was healing. “So, one night I was on freeway patrol and bored out of my mind. There wasn’t much traffic, so I pulled into one of the emergency turnaround spots in the median on I-65 and parked to spend the last hour of my shift watching for people stupid enough to drink and drive.” That night felt like a lifetime ago.

  “I wasn’t paying much attention because all I could think about was you curled up in my bed waiting for me. But then this car went flying by me so fast it pulled me out of my thoughts of what I was going to do to you when I got home.”

  “What were you planning to do to me?” she asked, her voice noticeably huskier.

  “Do you want to talk about that on our way to prison to see your mother, or would you rather I finish my story?”

  “Dammit, you’re right, but we will be talking about that other thing soon.”

  “Anyway, I turned on my lights and siren and pursued. A few miles later, I finally got the car to pull over and called it in. After dispatch ran the plate, I got out of my cruiser like I would have for any other stop. When I shined my flashlight into the open window, guess who was in the driver’s seat?”

  “Jill?” Alissa asked, already knowing the answer.

  “Yup, of all my bad luck, it was the skank from the diner. I ordered her to get out of the car; she offered to suck me off instead. She finally complied after the third time and nearly fell on her fucking face when she tried to walk in a straight line. She blew under the legal limit, so I wrote her a ticket for reckless driving. When I handed it to her, she grabbed at me, trying to kiss me, and this time, offered to give me head to get out of the ticket, but I dodged, and she ended up catching me with her razor-like fingernails. The scratch marks were from me trying to get away from her.”

  “I’m gonna find her and beat her ass,” Alissa mumbled. I loved the possessive side of her she rarely let show.

  “I should have hauled her ass in, but I didn’t want to deal with her shit anymore, and my shift was almost over. I let her go and followed her home to make sure she didn’t kill anyone. As soon as she pulled into her driveway, I kept right on going, didn’t even stop.”

  “Why are people so stupid?” Alissa asked as I parked the car at the prison.

  “I have no fucking clue.” Although I was incredibly stupid myself.

  Upon entering the building, we passed through a metal detector and then checked in with the guard behind the window near the entrance. We showed him our driver’s licenses and signed a visitors’ log next to where we were listed as approved guests on the day’s schedule.

  Our phones and keys, along with Alissa’s purse and my wallet, were placed in clear plastic bags, which we were informed would stay in the cage with the guard for the duration of our visit.

  A buzzer sounded as the g
uard released the lock on the door leading into the facility. We were met on the other side by two additional guards, one male and the other female, and were patted down from head to toe.

  Once they were satisfied we weren’t trying to smuggle anything into the prison, both guards led us to a room with a dozen or so round tables and told us to take a seat. “Doesn’t this remind you of a cafeteria or maybe a break room you’d see in an outdated office building?” Alissa asked in a hushed tone.

  “You’re right; it does,” I replied as I followed her to the table she had her eye on. “I wonder if the floor is this disgusting in those break rooms,” I muttered as I basically had to peel the soles of my shoes from the floor with each step.

  Once we were settled at a table, Alissa drummed her fingertips on the surface.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, already knowing she wasn’t.

  “I’ll be fine. I just don’t know what to expect.” Restless, she looked around the empty room, waiting to find out what would come next. “What if she’s back to the way she was when I was little? What if she’s worse sober than she was high? What if she only wanted me to come so she could ask for money for her commissary account?”

  “I think we’re about to find out,” I whispered as the side door to the room opened and a small woman walked through.

  “My baby,” her mom said when she saw Alissa.

  “I’m not your baby,” Alissa stated, her voice almost void of emotion. “I haven’t been your baby in nearly two decades.”

  “You’re right; I’m sorry. It just feels like I’m really seeing you for the first time in sixteen years,” Alissa’s mother said as she took one of the two empty chairs across from us.

  “You look better than the last time I saw you. You’ve put on some weight,” Alissa said matter-of-factly. The woman sitting across from us was thin. If she had put on weight, she must have been a skeleton before.

  “They told me that would happen…something about my metabolism.” Alissa’s mom looked over to me and asked, “Are you going to introduce me to your friend?”

  “Oh, Mom, this is my boyfriend Carter. Carter, this is my mother.”

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Ross,” I said, even though I didn’t really mean it.

  “Don’t give me any of that Mrs. Ross shit; call me Deb.” Deb turned her attention back to Alissa. “Have you heard anything from your daddy?” she asked. Alissa’s father was serving his time at a different prison, so she couldn’t even try to bribe the guards to pass messages between the cell blocks.

  Alissa’s spine straightened, and her grip on my hand tightened a little bit. “No, I haven’t. Do they not allow prison-to-prison phone calls?”

  “With so many inmates and only a few payphones, it’s impossible to set up a call at the same time. Even if we could, we don’t have calling cards.” Deb reached her hand toward Alissa’s, and Alissa quickly jerked away.

  “I see,” Alissa said. “Carter, would you excuse me for a minute? I need to use the restroom.”

  “Are you okay?” I didn’t think she’d leave me alone with her mother if she just had to pee, especially since we were told we would be frisked before and after using the restroom.

  “Yeah, I’ll be back in a minute.”

  I stood and helped her to her feet. She shook a little as she made her way to the door on the other side of the room. The female guard patted Alissa down and then unlocked the ladies’ room door for her.

  As soon as Alissa was out of sight, Deb leaned in close to me. “My baby is a good girl and has been through more shit in her twenty-four years than even the most depraved person deserves in a lifetime.” Her words came out in a quiet, menacing tone, which was nothing like she’d sounded when Alissa was in the room. “I have connections on the outside. If you do anything, and I mean anything, to hurt my little girl, I will make sure you don’t live to see another sunrise.”

  “You’re threatening me? She went through that hell because of you, and you are threatening me?”

  “Yes, I am threatening you. I have a lot to make up for, and I will not let her get hurt again—by anybody.”

  I wasn’t sure if I should be offended or glad she was trying to defend her daughter. Deciding to focus on the latter, with a bit of skepticism, I said, “Not that it’s any of your business, but I’m going to marry Alissa one day. Just as soon as she’s ready.”

  Before Deb could respond, Alissa exited the restroom and was frisked once again. “Carter, I’m not feeling so well after all. Can we go home?” she asked loudly from her spot by the bathroom door.

  “Yes, I think that’s a good idea.” Without another word, I stood from the table and went over to my woman.

  The guards patted us both down after we were out of the visitation room and then lead us back to the front where we retrieved our belongings.

  Alissa was so quiet that I began to worry. “Are you okay?” I asked as we settled into the car. “Do you need to see a doctor?”

  “I’m fine…physically, anyway. I just can’t believe she’s still so completely selfish; I thought for sure it was a byproduct of the drugs. Maybe she was always that way and I was just too young to realize it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I read between the lines. The only reason she asked me to visit was to try to con me into buying her phone cards and coordinating calls with Phil, or maybe pass messages back and forth.”

  “Phil’s your father?” I asked.

  “Yeah, after today, calling them Mom and Dad just doesn’t feel right anymore. I always wondered if they loved me somewhere deep inside underneath all of the meth, and now, I know they don’t.”

  Taking her hand in mine, I brought it to my lips for a gentle kiss. “Remember that I love you no matter what.” As I started the car, I thought about her mother’s threat. “I don’t know if you should write Deb off just yet, she’s only been clean for three months, and meth really fucks with people’s brains. Especially with long-term abuse. If you give her some time, I think she might surprise you.”

  “Well, I’m done with the whole thing for now. I appreciate you taking the time to come with me, but I feel like it was a waste.”

  “Any time I spend with you is never a waste.”

  “Can we just go home?” she asked.

  “Your wish is my command.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Alissa

  Yesterday’s visit to see my mother was hard on me, but having Carter with me made it bearable. The time we spent together during the car ride there and back was the happiest I’d been all week simply because we were together. I’d fallen asleep before he got home, and since I didn’t feel comfortable being in his bed without him, I spent the night in my room.

  Determined to keep some semblance of the closeness I felt between us the day before, I made plans for us to spend some time together on Sunday, too; he just didn’t know it yet. I woke up around seven, took a shower, and, wrapped only in a towel, tiptoed to Carter’s room, expecting to find him asleep. Instead, I found him fully dressed, already working on his laptop, and surrounded by stacks of files.

  Upon clearing my throat, he finally looked over at me. Just as he registered my presence, I let the towel fall to the floor, exposing my entire body to his gaze. We hadn’t gotten our test results back yet, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t continue to fool around.

  “I don’t have time for this, Alissa,” he said with a sigh. I had a little hope he would change his mind when I caught his deep brown eyes lingering on my bare breasts, but that hope quickly dissipated. “I’m going to go into the office for a while.”

  “But I thought we could to spend the morning together, or at least part of it.”

  “Sorry, babe. You know my deadline is in eight days, and I can’t miss it. I’ll be home in time for dinner.” He shoved all of the files and his laptop into his messenger bag and then pulled on his shoes. Barely looking at me, he planted a chaste kiss on my cheek and left the room.

  On h
is way to the front door, I heard him say, “Hey Max, ready to get busy? Yep, usual place.”

  Feeling defeated, and with nothing else to do, I decided to head down to Saint Jerome’s to hang out with the girls for a while. I took my time getting ready and then headed to visit with the kids I had come to think of as my own.

  My full-time employment was officially approved, but it didn’t start for another few weeks. Since I was still a volunteer, I didn’t have a key to the front door, so I pressed the doorbell when I arrived. Someone must have seen me on the closed-circuit security monitor, because I was buzzed in before my finger left the button.

  Once inside the building, I popped my head around the corner of the office and found Desiree hunched over a pile of papers. The sight reminded me of how I had found Carter an hour or so earlier. “What are you doing here on a Sunday?” I asked.

  “Working on a grant proposal for the resource center.” She and I discussed the center often, but it always felt like an impossibility. That never stopped her from trying, though. “There is so little money out there that if I get this grant, it will probably expire before I get enough additional funding to actually do something. These agencies want to see more than ‘obtained a permit’ on the list of deliverables.”

  “Why aren’t you working on it at home?” I asked.

  “All of my stuff is here… Besides, when I’m home, Sheila won’t leave me alone so I can concentrate. I need to write as many proposals as I can and then go through the business plan for the center and find ways to cut back on the startup costs.”

  The comment she made about her girlfriend was another thing that reminded me of my brief interaction with Carter. Maybe I was too clingy. Maybe I needed something to keep me as busy as he was to help get through the next week. “I’ll help you,” I offered. “I can do research or fill out forms or anything else you think I could handle.”

  “You really want to help me with paperwork?” The skepticism in her voice matched the look of disbelief on her face. “It’s a lot of boring, time consuming work.”