Somewhere Out There (21 page)

Gina reached out a hand toward her, and Brooke pulled back. She didn’t want the other woman to touch her. The pity in Gina’s eyes only made Brooke feel worse. “That’s not how it works,” Gina said. “I have to take you back to Hillcrest. You need to pack your things.”

Brooke shook her head, pressing her lips together as hard as she could. She balled her fingers into tight fists, trying to fight off the wave of sadness that rushed over her.
No,
she thought.
No, no, no.
She couldn’t leave. Claire was the only person who ever understood her. She was the only one Brooke needed. Brooke would write silver lining lists for them both and then stand next to Claire’s hospital bed, reading them to her until she woke up.

“Come on, honey,” Gina said, reaching out for her again, and this time, feeling defeated, Brooke didn’t pull away. She knew it was pointless to resist. She let Gina put an arm around her, stand her up from the couch, and lead her to her room, where her social worker put as many clothes as she could in a black plastic bag, because Brooke still didn’t have a suitcase. Brooke stood by, numbly watching, tears rolling down her cheeks.

“Can I at least go see her?” Brooke asked after they’d grabbed her backpack along with her clothes and left the apartment. Her eyes stung and were swollen.

“I’m sorry,” Gina said again. “But no.”

As they drove away from the place Brooke had thought she’d forever call home, something closed down inside her. A heavy door slammed shut. Her tears ebbed, and she felt hollow and numb. And the only thing Brooke knew for sure was that she would never put her heart at risk like that again.

Twenty-six years later, Brooke thought about that moment in Gina’s car the morning Ryan called her and she hung up on him. She reminded herself that emotional neediness was not a quality she wanted to possess. No matter what Ryan thought, she had decided to have this baby, and letting herself fall victim to pregnancy hormones and god-knew-whatever else that was causing her to feel weak toward him was the absolute last thing she wanted. Opening herself up, allowing someone else to see her messy insides, was just not something she did.

She was done with silver linings; she had learned to live with the clouds.

I turned twenty-seven in March of 1987, almost six years after my first meeting with Randy in the community room. In that amount of time, despite my initial doubt about participating in the program, I managed to earn my GED, as well as my certification as a dog trainer, for both basic obedience and service animals. The previous spring, I’d begun an online program for prisoners sponsored by a local vocational college, and combining that with my work experience at Randy’s clinic, I now had an associate’s degree as a veterinary technician. I was just over four years away from being released. With good behavior, it might be sooner. I had a parole hearing coming up in August, and this time, if I was let out early, I swore I wouldn’t screw it up. This time, I promised myself I’d have a plan—a place to live and a job—so I wouldn’t end up right back behind bars.

Unlike during the first year I’d spent in prison, my days were full, but no matter how much I kept myself busy working and studying, my girls were constantly on my mind. Brooke would be eleven soon, and Natalie would turn seven. The ache I felt for them was a wound that wouldn’t heal—if I allowed my thoughts to pick at its edges too much, it began to bleed.

Still, I wrote to them, gradually filling up the pages of five spiral notebooks that I kept on the shelf next to my bunk. They were nothing profound, just thoughts I had about them, things I wanted them to know about me. They were too young, yet, for me to write about the things that mattered, the things I really needed to say.

I wonder what your favorite subject is,
I wrote to Brooke.
Which you love more, words or numbers. If you are finished playing with dolls or if you still hide one or two of them in your closet, the same way I did when I was ten years old, bringing them out, hoping I didn’t get caught, unsure if I was ready to let go of that little girl part of me. Do you fight with your sister, or do you still take care of her, the way you always did when she was a baby? I wonder if you’d recognize me if you saw me on the street, with our same black hair and violet eyes. Do you look in the mirror and see me, the same way I see you?

You have my lips,
I told Natalie.
The top one a bit thinner than the bottom. I’d hold you in my arms, feeding you a bottle because from the moment you were born you refused to nurse, and you’d rest one of your soft, perfect hands on my chest, on top of my heart. When you looked up and smiled, I saw in your round, brown eyes the kind of mother I wanted to be.

On their birthdays every year, I wrote each of them a longer letter, filling it with as many memories of my own childhood as I could.
I fell down the cement stairs at school in the first grade,
I’d written Natalie last year, when she turned six.
I broke my arm and I knocked out my two front teeth. Have you lost any teeth yet? I hope you believe in the Tooth Fairy . . . and in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I hope you believe in magic. And that the people who are taking care of you love you as much as I do. I hope you love reading as much as I did when I was your age. I hope you have lots of friends and a room full of toys. I hope you have everything I couldn’t give you.

I tried not to think about the fact that it was doubtful they’d ever have the chance to read any of what I wrote them. On a warm, sunny morning in May, four months away from my parole hearing, I climbed into the back of the gray prison van and reminded myself that I was writing the letters more for me than for them. I wrote them to help ease my own pain.

“Ready?” Mendez asked, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. A broadly built, stoic guard from the Dominican Republic, Mendez accompanied me into town three times a week for my participation in work release at Randy’s clinic. He was required to be in the same room with me while I worked, or at least very nearby.

“Yep,” I said. Most of our conversations went like this, monosyllabic statements and replies. I was anxious to get to work that day. After two weeks of intravenous antibiotics for a systemic infection, Winston, one of the dogs I’d been helping care for, was still struggling. I wanted to see if the new round of meds Randy had prescribed had taken effect. I put on my seat belt and settled in for the thirty-minute ride.

As we drove along the back roads from the prison into town, I eyed the landscape that had become so familiar to me during this commute. At its heart, most of Skagit County was farm country, and over the past couple of weeks, the plowed fields had begun to sprout green with the promise of bountiful summer crops. Ancient houses alongside red, rickety barns were scattered across the hillsides. The Mt. Vernon Animal Clinic was located just on the edge of downtown. Not quite the city, but not the country, either. It was a sprawling, one-story building with lots of large, square windows and an enormous fenced area that we used for exercising and training the dogs. There was an indoor-outdoor kennel in the back of the building as well, and that was where I spent the majority of my time.

Mendez pulled into the driveway, taking the van to the farthest spot in the corner of the parking lot, near the doors where we typically entered. The scrubs I wore for work were similar to the ones I wore on the inside—they were blue, and lacked only the large block lettering announcing I was an inmate at the Department of Corrections. Here, I got to wear white sneakers instead of plastic, slip-on sandals; I kept them in my cellblock and always put them on during the drive. Both Mendez and I climbed out of the van and walked in through the double glass doors that led to the office within the kennel.

“Hey, Jenny,” Chandi, the office manager, said as we entered. Only here was I referred to as Jenny or Jennifer; the rest of the time, I was like any other inmate, known by my last name alone. There were two reception areas in the clinic, one out front for veterinary patients, and this one, in the back, for animals being groomed and/or boarded in the kennel. Since I’d completed my certification, Randy had decided to offer a monthlong, intensive, in-house obedience training program for owners who had dogs but didn’t necessarily have the time to attend weekly classes. Part of my job was to spend several hours during my shift with each of these dogs, working with them on basic instructions and tasks; the other part was to keep the kennels clean and assist with whatever additional duties Randy required. Sometimes that included helping conduct an exam, and others it put me cleaning out kennels, or on the floor with a terminally ill animal, holding it close, scratching its head as Randy gently put it to sleep.

“Hey,” I said to Chandi, who was an East Indian woman about my age. She had thick, black hair and flawless light brown skin. Under different circumstances, we might have been the kinds of friends who went to parties together or shopped at the mall. Instead, we were the kinds of friends who only saw each other when a prison guard escorted me through the door. “Busy morning?” I asked.

“Not really. But Randy asked to see you when you got in,” she said, nodding in the direction of the hallway that led to the main building.

“Oh,” I said. “Okay, thanks.” I glanced at Mendez, who barely bobbed his head and then followed me to my employer’s office. When we got there, I peeked around the doorjamb and lightly rapped my knuckles on the wall. “Morning,” I said.

Randy looked up from the pile of papers on his desk and smiled. He wore his white doctor’s coat and a lime-green polo with the collar turned up, channeling a chubby Don Johnson. As usual, his thick shock of red hair was a mess and his cheeks were pink—from exertion or excitement, I couldn’t decipher.

“Jenny! Good morning!” he said.
Excitement it was, then,
I thought as he gestured for me to enter. “Have a seat.”

Mendez dropped into a wooden bench outside Randy’s door as I complied, setting my elbows on the arms of the chair and linking my fingers together in front of me. “What’s up?”

“Good news! Myer approved my request for you to bring a dog into the facility.” Randy never called where I lived a “prison,” which at first I thought was ridiculous but now appreciated as a kind, humanizing gesture. He treated me with as much respect as he did any of his employees, and required those around him to do the same. I was incredibly grateful not only for his willingness to teach me but for the chance doing this kind of work gave me to feel like a normal, decent person again.

“No way,” I said. Randy had been trying for the past year to get Myer to allow me to keep a service-dog-in-training with me at all times. This was how other service animals were effectively conditioned—living with their trainers for up to two years after they’d been properly socialized and had mastered all other basic obedience commands, working with them tirelessly to learn to ignore their natural instincts in favor of giving their masters what they needed. Until now, I’d only been able to work with a dog when I was at the clinic.

“Way,” Randy said with a grin. “It took some doing, but he agreed to it, as long as I’m willing to sign a waiver for any damage the dog might do to the facility or the other residents.”

I smiled, too. Despite his doctorate and almost two decades as an esteemed professional in the veterinary field, I’d come to understand that, in many ways, Randy was still just a little boy who’d grown up on a local farm, loving animals. His passion and enthusiasm for his work had proved impossible for me to resist. “Do you have a dog in mind?”

“Actually, I do,” he said, handing me a piece of paper. “It won’t be a service animal.”

“What?” I asked, taking the paper from him, but not looking at what it said. “Why not?” Training service animals was what I’d studied so hard to do. I loved the idea of a dog changing the life of a person with special needs. I loved the thought—after everything I’d done wrong, all the damage I’d done—of contributing something so pure and good to the world. It was the one tiny spot of brightness that shone inside me, a living amends for my sin of taking that child in the park from her mother. For the decision I made to give away my girls.

“Well, you know I’ve been working with a local no-kill shelter, trying to help find homes for strays,” Randy said, snapping me out of my thoughts. I nodded and waited for him to go on. He shifted forward at his desk and leaned toward me as he spoke again. “One of our biggest obstacles has been behavioral issues with the animals. Most of them have had no training, or they’ve been mistreated or violently abused, so they’re exceptionally difficult to work with.”

“Right.” I already knew all of this. I drummed my fingers on the tops of my thighs, anxious for him to get to the point.

“So, what I’m thinking is that you could take these unskilled and wounded animals and teach them how to behave so they’ll have a much better chance of finding a home. You’d be providing an amazing service.”

“But what about the service dogs I’m working with? What happens to them?” There were currently two dogs living with Randy and his wife that he brought in to the clinic on the days I worked so I could further their training to be guide dogs. I’d just finished teaching them obstacle avoidance, the most important safety skill dogs must learn in order to lead their masters along the safest route. Over the next several months, I needed to reinforce this skill in them by using repetition and reward. I wasn’t sure I could do this and work with a dog from the shelter.

“You’ll continue with their training when you’re here. Myer also approved you to come to the clinic four days a week instead of three.” Randy grinned, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Not too shabby, huh?”

I shook my head, wondering how the other inmates would react not only to my having a dog with me at all times but to my getting the freedom to leave the prison four days a week. There were other work-release programs in which the women took part—things like highway cleanup and grounds maintenance—but I was the only prisoner who worked for Randy. He’d tried to add another inmate to the program but decided that was too demanding for him and asked that Myer allow me to be the single participant for the term of my incarceration. And because Randy offered to pay for the cost of transporting me to and from the clinic, Myer agreed, as long as I didn’t cause either of the men any problems.