The Riches of Mercy (30 page)

Opening the Bible, she gazed again at the photographs. Her boys, posing for their yearly portrait at the mall, dressed for Easter, smiling in little suits. Her boys in the witch hats. A snapshot Natalie took in the car right before driving to the court house to drop her off for prison transport. Their last moments together. Natalie was grinning goofily. Meredith, behind her shoulder, was terrified.

For four months, Natalie brought the boys up every Saturday, and came up by herself every Wednesday. For the first month, Meredith would sit with Natalie at the picnic table outside, curled up in her arms, unmoving, not speaking, her eyes closed so she wouldn't see the guards. Natalie would always kiss her goodbye and the giddiness would last until Saturday.

The last night, the waiting, was always the hardest.

She carefully tucked the pictures back into the Bible pages. It hurt to see them. Her children marked the crease of Matthew 11. "John the Baptist, who was in prison…"

Guiltily, she closed the Book and put it beside her pillow. She picked up
The Black Stallion
.

#

Burdette stared disdainfully at Meredith's cereal. Meredith opened her milk carton without comment. Burdette had potato wedges and eggs on her plate and hard biscuits. Even the look of them made Meredith nauseous.

"That what your kids eat, Merry?" Burdette asked.

Every morning.

"I don't let them have the cereal. Just milk. They lap it like kittens."

Burdette's first smile of the day.

Meredith smiled back and began to eat her cereal.

Burdette stabbed a potato wedge with her plastic spork. It split into two. She scooped up a half. "Could use some ketchup."

Meredith glanced at the ketchup bottle two seats down. The rest of the table was empty. "Why don't we just sit there?"

Burdette stared at her as if she were crazy.

Meredith shrugged.

Burdette ate the other half and asked, her mouth full, "What's on the agenda for today?"

Meredith's morning would consist of lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the radio. The thought depressed her. Her afternoon was her shift at the infirmary. Then dinner, then staring at the ceiling.

Maybe she could call Natalie, but she felt weak, yearning to do that. If she felt weak, she should turn to the Lord, who was better suited. Natalie had so much on her plate. Meredith felt selfish for missing her.

Burdette waited patiently for her answer. She didn't have anything else to do.

"Better not to ask. You?"

Burdette slumped. "Group therapy. I hate that shit. Why aren't you going?"

"Infirmary shift."

Burdette scowled.

"Let me know what everyone says, okay?" Meredith asked, hoping to diffuse Burdette's jealousy, her anger at feeling so exposed, flayed open, day after day.

Burdette pushed at her food. The nausea set in. Meredith could see the greenish tint of her face. "I need a drink," Burdette said.

"Well, thank God you're here with me."

Burdette rolled her eyes and glanced away, at the other tables where sleepy women ate breakfast. But she stayed, patient and blank, as Meredith ate.

#

Meredith gazed at the ceiling and, for a lack of anything else to do, thought about Burdette. Burdette had no other friends. She was aggressive in group therapy, but the rest of the time she was passive. Limp. Unattentive. Meredith had no other friends either. People were happy to see her in the infirmary, but out on the grounds she kept to herself.

She wasn't a junkie like over half the women here. She hadn't been caught up in any crime with her boyfriend. She'd been willing, and she felt different, separate from them. She tried not to judge.

Burdette was, she reasoned, the most like her.

"What are you in for?" Burdette asked the first morning, in a calm, dead tone Meredith would eventually get used to.

"Voluntary manslaughter. Of my husband." She didn't know if she was supposed to lie, if she was supposed to claim to be a cop killer, or make sure no one thought of her as a molester. She didn't want to say shoplifting at Macy's. Not when it was Vincent's death.

Burdette nodded, dissected her breakfast burrito. "I shot my old man. While he was asleep."

Revulsion bubbled up in Meredith. She swallowed hard to keep it in her throat. And with it, shame. This was how people saw her.

Burdette saw her.

"I stabbed mine," she said.

"So we're murderers," Burdette said, and politely looked away while Meredith cried all over breakfast.

Burdette was an alcoholic, and absent alcohol in prison, she'd tried to take up smoking, but her hands shook too much and the smoke made her cough. So, a dry drunk, she waited. At her prison A.A. meetings, she regaled the potency of alcohol. Life was better on the other side, all else was meaningless.

Meredith attended a few meetings. She found them more painful than the regular group sessions. She couldn't really understand why Burdette felt nothing.

Mail call went out over the loudspeakers. Meredith rolled out of bed.

#

Meredith carried three envelopes on her tray as she settled in at lunch. Burdette carried no envelopes and eyed Meredith's with interest. Most people opened their mail at lunch, wanting camaraderie to protect them from the emotional turbulence of news. Dear John letters were common. As were pictures from kids and the occasional angry screed from a lover or a parent.

Meredith got a letter from her cousin Hank once a week and had received two cards from the hospital. The prison gave her stamps to write back. The depression would sink and she'd have half-formed thoughts on paper.

"Dear, Natalie, you're all I think about, and it terrifies me."

She knew Natalie was exercising similar caution. She saved her affection for when they were face to face, and let her letters be full of frivolity and business.

The children's letters, by contrast, nearly killed her.

"I'm afraid to open them," she told Burdette.

"Afraid one of the kids has lost a tooth?"

Meredith studied at her hands. Missing such an event would break her heart.

Burdette plucked the largest envelope, surely a square greeting card, from Meredith's pile. Then she glanced at Meredith.

Decorum mattered.

"Go ahead," Meredith said. She picked up her fork. The meatloaf stared up at her.

Burdette tore the envelope and pulled out a card with a puppy on it. "They never search your mail."

"I think they steam it."

Burdette snorted. She'd had a pen pal for a while, through the state program, but things got so racy she'd read the letters to the lunch crowds and the letters stopped coming. Burdette blamed the guards.

"Dear, Mommy," Burdette read. "So close to Merry. I can't believe that's your name. I would never let anyone call me Bernie."

Meredith tilted her head.

"Except my grandpa."

"Go on. You have responsibilities."

"Dear Merry. We went to grandma's yesterday."

Meredith pushed her plate away.

"The penmanship is astounding. And it's not even in crayon. Your girlfriend must have transcribed."

Not all of the children's letters came in childish scrawl. Natalie would work with them on important messages. Meredith imagined them at the kitchen table together. Her eyes stung.

The smell of meatloaf was becoming overpowering. She pushed her tray toward the empty seat beside her.

"We didn't want to leave. But Natalie made us. Can we live with grandma? She's nice. We're going to get school supplies soon. All together. Even Natalie."

Meredith covered her face with her hands.

"But not... Hollingsworth. He has to stay home." Burdette glanced up. "Hollingsworth? Really?"

As if the answer would change if she asked it enough times. As if there was some super secret, exotic story behind the cat's name only the privileged knew, and Meredith would someday let her in. Or slip up.

"It's Natalie's cat," Meredith said.

Satisfied with the standard response, Burdette read on. "Don't worry, I told Natalie it was better than nothing at our house, but I miss you. Prison sucks--You let your kid use 'sucks'?"

"Prison sucks."

Burdette glanced around the dining hall, shrugged, and finished reading. "Love, Beau Jameison. So formal, that kid."

"Natalie's a lawyer, remember?"

"Right. Anyway, the 'Love Beau Jameison' is in his handwriting." Burdette passed the letter back.

Meredith cradled it to her chest.

"Want me to read Merritt's? Maybe he's on Team Natalie."

Meredith shook her head. "Let me ride this one for a while. Otherwise I won't be able to eat."

"You and your feelings."

"I bet you're more fun when you're drunk."

Burdette smiled.

#

"Fuck you. Fuck you! Can't you see I'm in pain?"

The shouting echoed from the doctor's office into the main room of the infirmary, where Meredith was inventorying bandages, feeling useless. She couldn't see patient records, she couldn't inventory medications or syringes or haz-mat. She couldn't even order office supplies. She could only listen to the screaming, like clockwork, every Monday at 3:13 p.m.

Patricia strode into the main room after slamming Doctor Canard's door. She was trembling from head to toe, sweating, but she still caught herself up short when she saw Meredith.

"Sorry about the shouting."

"I know you're hurting."

"Canard says I'm not. How can he know? God, wouldn't I be a fucking model prisoner if I didn't feel this? All the goddamn time?"

"I know."

"Give me something, Merry."

"You know I don't have access."

"You have a key." Patricia glanced at the bolted door. Behind it, another bolted door, behind it, a combination safe. Inside the safe, nothing but adrenaline and insulin. The antipsychotics were in a different room.

Patricia wanted oxycontin.

"I don't have a key." Meredith held up her empty hands.

"Fuck."

"I'm a prisoner, just like you."

Patricia leaned against the counter holding Meredith's perfect line of gauze. Meredith met her gaze.

"I forget," Patricia said. "I mean, you don't look like a murderer. And I--I look like a junkie."

"Patricia--"

Patricia was serving three years for helping her boyfriend break into a CVS. The sentence was longer than Meredith's two year maximum, and she felt guilty.

Patricia pushed herself off the counter. "Remember, Merry... You help us... We'll share."

Meredith didn't say anything as Patricia left. Her bravado stolen by the knowledge there were more of them than her. Their need to dull the pain was so much stronger than her loyalty to an infirmary. No wonder Burdette was her only friend.

Canard pushed her to take a different job. He'd told her to study for her Physician’s Assistant license. Natalie agreed with him. Playing secretary when she should be working on restoring her Registered Nurse license was a waste of her time. But this was all she knew how to do. The infirmary was the only place in the hospital where she felt normal. The library or the prison wash or the cafeteria would only remind her of where she was.

"I'm taking her down to three ibuprofen every six hours. Only twelve pills a day." Canard said as he came out of his office.

"Why?"

"It's not helping."

"What would help?"

"Eating right. Exercising. Get some sunlight. She needs to change the way her body does things."

"She'd say it hurts too much."

Canard nodded. "I've got eight more patients. Two drug-seekers, heart palpitations, cancer follow-up..." He studied his chart. "Can you take the splinter, the boil, and a preliminary on the rash? I think it's going to be bug bites, but see if it's something we'll need prednisone on."

"I'll need--"

He tossed her the key.

#

Meredith passed Burdette the letter from Merritt at dinner.

"I can't believe these people write you every day."

"I'm lucky," she said.

"Blessed."

Meredith shook her head. She began to eat. Merritt's letters, she could handle. Beef and rice stew, she could devour.

"Hi, Mom!" Burdette showed her the card. "The kid wrote this one. Orange magic marker."

"He likes orange," Meredith said.

Burdette flipped the card and read on. "I don't want to go to school. Beau does and I hate him. We're going shopping for school supplies but you're not here. It's unfair. Why can't you be here for school?"

Meredith sighed.

"I'd like to point out every word is spelled correctly. Your girlfriend is a control freak."

"Maybe my kids are perfect."

Burdette grinned and read, "'I can't take Holly'--Okay, that's cheating, '--Either. GOSH.' All caps."

"And he's the sweet one," Meredith said.

"It says, 'We're going to read
The Black Stallion
. I love you so much I wish you were here. Your letters are not the same. My letters are not the same!' There's like, six exclamation points. And he loves you. But not as formally as Beau. He just says, 'Love Merry.' Does he mean you or him?"

"That's our joke," Meredith said.

Burdette tucked the letter back in the envelope. "These things are the only good thing happening around here."

"That's not true."

Burdette frowned.

"It's stew day. Don't speak ill of stew day."

"Right." Burdette pushed around some rice.

"Do you think we should invite Robin to sit with us?"

"Do you think we should--" A dangerous spark appeared in Burdette's eyes, a reminder Meredith was among prisoners, she wasn't discussing the office luncheon or her neighbor's surprise party.

Robin Turner sat two tables away, by herself, staring at her stew with the same disinterest as Burdette. Burdette followed her gaze. "You just want her stew."

Meredith grinned.

She didn't say she wanted intelligent conversation. A change of pace. She'd trade her
People
for a good talk or a newspaper. She knew she wasn't as smart as Natalie. Nursing school had been a struggle, had been concentration and study and memorization. Repeat, repeat, repeat.