With Love from the Inside (22 page)

Ben drove ahead of Sophie on the way to Lakeland, slowing down through every intersection. He wanted to make sure Sophie didn't get stranded behind a red light.
I know the way to the prison,
she finally texted him when they were stopped behind an accident. He texted her back a thumbs-up emoticon.

Sophie dialed Thomas's cell phone as soon as she realized the cleanup for this four-car pileup might take a while. She pushed speakerphone on the steering wheel, just in case, since multitasking with her hormonal brain was no longer a safe option.

“Leave a message,” Thomas's voicemail said after the third ring.

“Call me” was all she could get out. He must be really hurt. She pushed the Bluetooth button again and started to say “Call Margaret Logan,” but her phone beeped before she could.

“Sophie?” Mindy said.

“Hi, Mindy. Merry Christmas.” She tried to sound natural.

“Where are you? Thomas is worried sick about you.”

“I needed to get away for a few days, you know, clear my head.”

“On Christmas?”

“I know it's weird, but I needed to take care of a few things.”

Mindy didn't respond, but Sophie could hear one of the twins whining for waffles in the background, so she knew she hadn't hung up.

“I'm worried about you, Sophie. People don't disappear on Christmas without something major going on.” Mindy's voice was lowered, but she sounded sincere.

Something major is going on. I'm on my way to
see my mother, who's about to die from a lethal
injection. I've done nothing over the years to help her
because I didn't believe in her. I didn't trust her.
If she dies, it'll be my fault. All my fault.

“I'll tell you everything when I get back,” Sophie finally said. As much as she wanted to confide in her, she couldn't tell Mindy before she confessed everything to Thomas.

“Okay,” Mindy reluctantly agreed, after another awkward pause.

“How's my boy?” Sophie asked, trying to change the subject.

“I didn't work today, but the nurse before my last shift said his mom came to visit. Hasn't missed a day.”

“Is that a good thing?” Sophie didn't know how to feel.

“Not for us to decide, unfortunately.”

Sophie started to tell her the people who do decide those things suck, and that they don't gather all the facts before handing down permanent decisions, and that those well-intended evaluations screw up innocent children's lives, but she didn't. “Tell Max his Sosie sure misses him.”

“Will do,” Mindy promised.

“Thanks for checking on me.”

“You're welcome,” Mindy said. “Promise me you'll come home soon.”

Sophie decided not to call the Logan house after she stopped talking to Mindy. She didn't want to answer any more questions.

The only conversation she needed to concentrate on was the one long overdue. The conversation she was about to have with her mother.

—

B
EN ROLLED DOWN HIS WINDOW
and flashed a badge to gain entrance into Lakeland State Penitentiary. Sophie had to step out of her vehicle and
let the officer visually search her front and back seats. After she showed the uniformed officer her driver's license, he waved her through.

The enormity of this place still intimidated her. She used to have dreams about standing on one side of the tall chain-link fence with her mom on the other, bleeding from cuts inflicted by the circles upon circles of sharp wire. “I can't find the Band-Aids,” Sophie remembered crying out in her sleep.

Ben met her at her car and walked with her to the door that read
VISITORS' ENTRANCE
. A long line of women and small children stood outside the door designated for the men's section of Lakeland. Sophie watched a young mom shove a bottle into her crying baby's mouth while ordering her toddler to “hold on to my leg.” She handed the child an open box of Cheez-Its.

The processing time was what took the longest. In the past, Sophie had stood for more than an hour in the freezing rain while waiting to get inside the door, when she didn't have her dad around to remind her to wear her gloves and take an umbrella.

“Bring back memories?” Ben asked when he noticed her looking around.

“Too many.”

“The visitor line always this long?” He flashed her his laminated attorney's badge that read
SPECIAL ACCESS
in bold letters across the bottom. “I normally walk right in with this, but who'd believe an attorney was working on Christmas Day?”

“On holidays, my dad and I would get up before the sun came out to make sure we'd be the first in line. My dad bribed me with a Peanut Buster Parfait from Dairy Queen when I tried to roll over and go back to sleep. ‘C'mon,' he'd tell me. ‘Your mommy's waiting on us.'”

A man wearing faded blue jeans and a black jacket stood in front of them. He turned around several times and started to speak, but didn't.
Sophie knew by the way he kept rubbing his palms on the front of his jeans that this must be his first visit to Lakeland.

“I guess we should've gotten here earlier,” Sophie said to Ben. “One-forty-five p.m. on Christmas Day puts you at the back of the line.”

“Better late than never. Don't think your mom's going anywhere.”

Not yet, anyway.

“You here to visit your mom?” the man in front of her asked.

Sophie nodded. She hated sharing personal information, but this guy seemed to need a friend. “Your first time?”

“Very first,” he answered. “That obvious, huh?”

“A little.”

He held out his hand and with callused fingers shook Ben's hand, then hers.

“Carl,” he said. “I drove all the way from Alabama to get here, and I had to close down my gas station—first time in twenty-seven years.”

The line stopped moving. The three of them stood in a tight circle as the wind picked up.

“I'm here to see my daughter,” he said. “The drive about killed my back.” Years of pumping gas in the hot sun made his leathery skin look older than he probably was.

“I'm sure she'll appreciate the effort,” Ben replied.

“I lost touch with her several years ago.” He put his hand in his jeans pocket and pulled out a pack of gum. “Her mom got messed up real bad with drugs and took her away from me, out of the state.” The deep lines around his eyes curled. “She changed her last name and said she wasn't my kid. I could never track her down.”

He offered Sophie and Ben a piece of Juicy Fruit.

“No, thanks,” they both said.

“After the TV news media grabbed on to the story, people started talking. I knew I had to find out the truth.”

“Make sure you have all identifying paperwork out and ready,” a female voice said over a loudspeaker. The line started moving forward again.

“She's mine.” Carl reached in his back pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. “I have her birth certificate. Veronica Mae Cooper. Born on July thirteenth, 1993.”

He beamed like he'd found a precious treasure.

“She goes by Roni now.”

—

T
WO HOURS LATER
, the red digital numbers at the front of the visitors' area said 312. Sophie had 314. “Getting close,” she said to Ben.

He put down the newspaper he was reading. “You look pale. Are you feeling okay?”

Sophie glanced at the time on her phone. “I probably need to eat. It's after two.”

Ben pulled out some change from his pants pocket. “May I buy me lady a candy bar?” His bad British accent broke the monotony.

“Is that the best you can do?” Sophie teased.

Ben scoped out the vending-machine selections in the corner of the room. One machine claimed to have “Fresh Deli Meat” sandwiches, but Ben said he didn't trust that. He came back with a Snickers bar and a Sun Drop.

Number 313 flashed across the screen.

Mr. Cooper shouted, “That's me,” and darted to the window.

Sophie unwrapped her candy bar while she stood to stretch. Her lower back started to cramp and she contemplated using the restroom. Three women, two with small children, stood in line for the one-stall facility.

“What do you mean my daughter has been transported to another facility?” Carl Cooper's already slouched posture sunk even more. “She sent me letters from this facility.”

Sophie couldn't hear what the woman behind the glass window was saying to him. “I can't come back. I need answers now.”

Someone in a brown uniform came out from behind the closed door and escorted him out of the visiting room. “Let's talk in here.” The officer pointed to a desk behind the check-in window.

Sophie watched Carl walk away, his small eyes glossed over.

Number 314 flashed across the display. Sophie picked her purse up off the chair and threw it over her shoulder. She waved the slip in the air to Ben, who was holding a cup under the water dispenser over by the bathrooms.

Sophie walked up to the window and slid her driver's license through the slit.

“Inmate's name,” the intake officer said through the glass. She typed without looking up.

“Grace Bradshaw.”

“Date of birth?”

“Mine or my mother's?” She felt like a scared little girl again. The cramps in her back started to intensify.

“The inmate's,” the lady behind the glass replied, making Sophie guess the question should've been self-evident.

“October twenty-first, 1960-something,” Sophie said. “She's forty-nine.”

The intake officer looked over her black-rimmed reading glasses. “Grace Margaret Bradshaw.”

“Yes, that's her.”

The officer continued to type, then picked up the phone beside her computer.

After a few “that's what it says” and “that's what I thought,” she put down the phone and said, “Prisoner 44607 has already had a visitor today. No more allowed.”

Sophie put both hands on top of the shelf jutting out from the window. The room felt stuffy and hot.

Ben pushed his attorney badge up against the glass. “I'm her lawyer. It's imperative that we see Mrs. Bradshaw today.”

Sophie squinted and tried to look at what was behind the window. Carl was bent over a table while an older woman with arthritic fingers rubbed his back and squatted down beside him. He didn't move as the officer spoke.

Her vision started to blur as she watched Ben argue with the intake officer. She squinted again at Carl. Something on her legs felt warm.

“Sophie, are you all right?” Ben said. She felt his arm around her back as she started to slide down to the floor.

“Call an ambulance,” he shouted.

The little girl holding on to her mom's leg said, “Look, Mommy. That lady is bleeding.”

I MET THOMAS TODAY!

Sophie, I met your husband. My son-in-law. I felt like embracing everyone I came in contact with when I shuffled back to death row. The shackles on my arms and feet couldn't even hold me down.

“Thank you, God. Thank you, God,” I kept repeating. The officer must've thought I was crazy.

You could imagine how surprised I was when he sat down. He looked mad at first. Most people meet their in-laws over a grilled steak and baked potato, so I totally understood his initial reaction.

I could tell by the look on his face he was sizing me up. Could I be as evil as the papers called me? How could you have been loved by someone like me?

I let him ask me anything he wanted. All the whys and the what-ifs. The floor was his. I answered his questions the only way I knew how—with the truth.

He didn't know, but I was doing the same thing to him. Sizing up this handsome man who holds your heart. I like him. I really like him.

I don't care that he's a doctor; he could pick up trash off the streets, but what matters to me is the tenderness he gets in his eyes
when he says your name. At first he was reluctant to talk about you—“I'll let Sophie tell you what she wants you to know”—but after a while when he realized he didn't need to protect you from me, he opened up.

“Just tell me if she's happy?” I asked him before he had to leave. That's all I wanted to know. That when you lay your head down on your pillow at night, next to his, you feel peace.

Thomas said he thinks you are, but he doesn't really know. Sometimes, when he looks at you, you smile, but you're not always there. Your body is, but your laugh is not complete, like your joy is held back.

He did tell me the closest you are to
total happiness is when you are holding a little boy
named Max who doesn't have a family. He told me
about the fund-raiser and how hard you've been working on
it.

I am so proud of the woman you've grown up to be. My heart feels like it's about to BLOW UP.

I can live my final days in peace because I know without a doubt you have someone who will carry you through. I love you, my daughter. And I know without question Thomas does, too.

xoxoxo

“Publishers Clearing House find you today or something?” Carmen asked me later.

“Something better. I found my daughter.” My lips stretched. I hadn't smiled this big since I've been here.

Jada didn't say anything. She picked up her magazine and walked back to her cell.

“Bet your visit wasn't as good as mine,” Carmen said. “My hunk of a man hired me a new attorney. He says I'll be out of here by Easter.”

“I'm happy for you.” I didn't expect anyone in here to be happy for me or to understand. I didn't care. Ms. Liz would be back soon. She'd be happy.

As soon as I entered my room and my shackles were off, I did something I haven't done in seventeen years. I danced.