“I’m not crying,” I answered, blinking back tears.
“Come on, then, help me move my bed,” she said, grabbing me by the arm and leading me back to our room. My room. As we pulled and shoved the mattress through the door and into the hallway, I knew that things would never be the same again. I watched as she arranged her school and athletic medals, trophies and ribbons around her new room and realized we were no longer anything alike. Allison was becoming more and more involved with her friends and extracurricular activities. She had been asked to join a very competitive traveling volleyball team. She spent nearly every free minute exercising, studying or reading. And all I wanted to do was be with Allison.
My parents had no sympathy for me. “Brynn,” my mother said. “Grow up. Of course Allison wants her own room. It would be strange if she didn’t.”
I always knew I was a little different from the other kids, but I never thought I was strange until my mother said this. I started looking at myself in the mirror to see if I could see the oddness that others saw in me. My brown curly hair, if not combed into surrender, would spring wildly around my head. What was left of my eyebrows formed short, thin commas above my brown eyes, giving me a constantly surprised expression. My nose was average—not too large, not too small. I knew that someday I would have very nice teeth, but when I was eleven they were imprisoned in braces, being forced into perfect alignment like straight-backed little soldiers lined up for duty. Except for my eyebrows, I didn’t think I looked very strange. I decided it must be what was inside of me that was so weird. I vowed to keep that part hidden. I stayed in the shadows, watching, never offering an opinion or an idea. Not that anyone ever asked. It was easy to fade into the background with Allison around.
That first night, sleeping by myself in our room, I cried. The room felt much too large for one person. It looked naked with my one small bookshelf and dresser, a few stuffed animals strewn around. I cried because the sister I loved didn’t seem to want me around anymore. She left me behind without a backward glance.
Until she was sixteen and finally needed me again.
I wasn’t even supposed to be at home that night. I was going to the movies with friends—until my mother found out that Nathan Canfield would be there, too. She would have none of that. He had gotten caught drinking or something and he wasn’t the kind of friend I should be associating with, she said. So I was forbidden to go out that night.
I often wonder how different my life would have been—all our lives would have been—if I had been sitting in some movie theater that night, eating popcorn with Nathan Canfield, instead of at home.
I don’t know what Allison looks like now. I imagine that life in prison isn’t helpful to keeping one’s good looks. Her once-high cheekbones could be hidden by mounds of fat, her long shiny hair could have turned frizzy and been cut short. I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen Allison since the police came to take her away.
I miss my sister, the one who held my hand as I cried all the way into the classroom on my first day of kindergarten, the one who would help me study my spelling words until I knew them inside and out, the one who used to try to teach me to kick a soccer ball. I miss that Allison. The other one…not at all. I could go the rest of my life not seeing my sister again and I would be just fine with that. I went through hell after she went to jail. Now I finally feel like I have a home at my grandmother’s house. I have my friends, my classes, my grandmother, my animals, and that’s enough for me.
I’m afraid to find out how five years in prison have changed Allison. She has always been so beautiful and sure of herself. What if she isn’t that same girl who could stare down Jimmy Warren, the neighborhood bully? What if she isn’t the same girl who could run eight miles and then do one hundred sit-ups without breathing hard?
Or worse yet, what if she is the same? What if she hasn’t changed at all?
Allison
I don’t even think my sister knows that I’m being released from prison. Two years into my sentence, after she graduated from high school, she left home and moved two and a half hours north of Linden Falls to New Amery, where our dad grew up. She lives with our grandma. Last I heard, she was attending a community college there, studying something called Companion Animal Science. Brynn’s always loved animals. I’m glad she chose something that suits her. If my parents had their way, she’d slide into the vacancy I created and be in law school.
Brynn still won’t answer my letters or talk to me on the phone when I call her at Grandma’s house. I mean, I get it. I understand why she wants nothing to do with me. If I were in her shoes, I probably would have done the same thing. But I don’t think I could have stayed away from her this long. For five whole years, she has ignored me. I know I took her for granted, but I was just a kid. For how smart I was, I knew absolutely nothing. I understand the mistakes I made; I just don’t know how to bring my sister back to me, how to make her forgive me.
During the drive to Linden Falls, Devin and I don’t talk much but that’s okay. Devin wasn’t all that much older than I was when my parents hired her to represent me. Fresh out of law school, she came to Linden Falls because her college sweetheart grew up there and they were going to get married and open a law practice together. They never ended up getting married. He left, she stayed. If it wasn’t for Devin, I could have been in jail for much, much longer. I owe her a lot.
“You have a start at a whole new life, Allison,” Devin tells me as she merges onto the highway that crosses the Druid River and leads into Linden Falls. I nod but don’t say anything. I want to be excited, but mostly I feel scared. Driving into the town where I was born and grew up makes me feel dizzy, and I clasp my hands together to keep them from shaking. Waves of memories wash over me as we drive past the church we attended every Sunday, past my elementary school and past the high school that I never graduated from. “You okay?” Devin asks me again.
“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly, and I lean my head against the cool glass of the window. We continue on in silence, past St. Anne’s College where I met Christopher for the first time, past the street where we would turn if we were going to the house I grew up in, past the soccer complex where my team won the city championship three years in a row. “Stop,” I say suddenly. “Please, pull in here.” Devin steers her car into the soccer complex and parks next to a field where a group of young teenage girls are booting a soccer ball around. I climb from the car and watch on the sidelines for a few minutes. The girls are completely engrossed in the game. Their faces are red from the heat and their ponytails are drenched with sweat.
“Can I play?” I say. It comes out softly, shyly. It doesn’t sound like me at all. The girls don’t even notice me and continue on with their game. “Can I play?” I say again, this time more forcefully, and a short, solid girl with her brown hair pulled back in a headband stops and looks me up and down skeptically. “Just for a minute,” I say.
“Sure,” she answers, and trots after the ball.
I step cautiously onto the field. The grass is a deep emerald-green and I bend down to touch it. It is soft and wet from the earlier rainstorm. I begin to run, slowly at first, then I pick up the pace. I’ve tried to stay in shape while in jail, running laps inside the fenced courtyard, doing push-ups and sit-ups in my cell. But the soccer field is at least one hundred yards long and very quickly I become winded and have to stop. I bend over, hands on my knees, my muscles already aching.
The girls head back my way, their skin tan and healthy in comparison to my own white skin that has seen so little of the sun. Someone passes me the ball and everything comes back, the familiar feel of the ball between my feet, the instinct of knowing which way to move. I dart between the girls, dribbling and passing the ball down the field. For a minute I can forget that I’m a twenty-one-year-old ex-con whose life has already passed her by. A girl chips the ball to me and I weave in and out of the crowd of players and break away. With no cleats, I slip slightly in my cheap tennis shoes but quick
ly regain my balance. The midfield defender is approaching and I feint left, leaving her behind, and send a square pass to the girl with the headband. She launches the ball over the shoulder of the goalie and into the goal, and the girls erupt in celebration. For a minute I can imagine that I’m a thirteen-year-old, playing a pickup game with my friends, and I’m smiling and laughing, wiping the sweat from my forehead.
Then I look over and see Devin waiting patiently for me on the sidelines, an amused expression on her face. I must look silly, a grown woman dressed in khaki pants and polo shirt, playing soccer with a bunch of kids.
“You’re a natural,” Devin says as we walk back to her car.
“Yeah, a lot of good that does me now,” I answer with embarrassment, glad that my face is already red from my workout.
“You never know,” Devin responds. “Come on, we have a little bit of time left before they’re expecting us at Gertrude House. Let’s get something to eat.”
As Devin pulls up in front of the halfway house where I will be staying for the next six months, it begins to rain again. It is a huge Victorian, with peeling white paint, black shutters and a porch lined with white spindles. “I didn’t think it would be so big,” I say, looking up at the house. It would be scary if it weren’t for the beautifully landscaped front yard.
“It has six bedrooms, with two or three women to a room,” Devin explains. “You’ll really like Olene. She started Gertrude House about fifteen years ago. Her own daughter died after getting out of prison. Olene felt that if Trudy had had a place to go to after she was released from jail, a court-mandated place, she would still be alive today. So she opened Gertrude House as a way to try and educate women on how to live successfully after prison.”
“How did she die?” I ask as we get out of the car and walk to the front door.
“Trudy refused to move back home with her mother. Instead, she moved in with the boyfriend who’d got her hooked on drugs in the first place. She overdosed three days after she got out of jail. Olene found her.”
I don’t know what to say to that, so we move out of the rain and onto the porch in silence. Devin knocks on the front door and a woman of about sixty, wearing a shapeless denim dress, appears. She is slim, with closely cropped silver hair, and has tanned, leathery skin. She looks like a withered orange carrot left too long in the crisper.
“Devin!” she exclaims, wrapping her in a tight hug, her silver bracelets clinking against one another on her thin wrists.
“Hi, Olene,” Devin says with a laugh. “It’s always good to see you, too.”
“You must be Allison.” Olene releases Devin and takes my hand in hers. It is warm and her grip is strong. “It’s so nice to meet you,” she says in a low, gravelly voice. A smoker’s voice. “Welcome to Gertrude House.” Her green eyes never leave my face.
“Nice to meet you,” I answer, trying to meet her gaze.
“Well, come on in. I’ll give you the grand tour.” Olene steps into the foyer. I look at Devin, a flurry of panic rising in my chest, and she gives me an encouraging nod.
“I’ve got to get back to my office, Allison. I’ll give you a call tomorrow, okay?” She sees the worry in my face and leans in to hug me. Even though I keep my body rigid and tense, I am grateful for the touch. “Bye, Olene, and thank you,” Devin calls. To me, she says, “You hang in there. Everything is going to be okay. Call me if you need anything.”
“I’m fine,” I say, more to assure myself than Devin. “I’ll be fine.” I watch as she walks quickly down the porch steps and back to her car, off to live her life. That could have been me, I think. I could be wearing the gray suit, driving clients around in my expensive car. Instead, I’m carrying a backpack filled with everything I own and moving into a house with people who, in my other life, I would never give the time of day. I turn back to Olene. She is examining me carefully, a look of something I can’t quite identify on her face. Pity? Sadness? Remembering her daughter? I don’t know.
She clears her throat, a raspy, wet sound, and continues the tour. “We currently have ten residents staying here—eleven, now that you’ve joined us. You’ll be sharing a room with Bea. Nice woman. This used to be a library.” Olene nods toward a large, square room to the left. “We use it as our meeting room. We gather here every evening at seven. This is the dining room. Dinner’s at six sharp. Breakfast and lunch, you’re on your own. The kitchen is just through there—I’ll take you in when we’re done with the tour. Like most homes, the kitchen is the heart of Gertrude House.”
Olene is moving more quickly now and I have to focus on keeping up with her instead of stopping and taking in each of the rooms individually. After my plain prison cell, Gertrude House is an overwhelming assault on the senses. There are brightly painted walls, paintings and photos, furniture and knickknacks everywhere. Music is playing in a far-off corner of the house and I think I hear a baby crying. At my questioning look, Olene explains. “Family members can visit. You hear Kasey’s baby crying. Kasey is leaving us next week. Going back home to be with her husband and children.”
“Why is she here?” I ask as Olene leads me to what appears to be a family room.
“At Gertrude House, we don’t focus on one another’s crimes. We try to zero in on what we can do to make everyone’s lives better and try to help the other residents reach their goals. That said—” Olene acknowledges with a shake of her head “—word travels quickly around here and you’ll get to know one another quite well.”
I’m suddenly very tired and wonder if Olene will take me to my room soon. I just want to crawl under the covers and sleep. We pass a short, heavy woman with waist-length black hair and several piercings in her nose and lip. “Allison, this is Tabatha. Tabatha, this is Allison Glenn. She’s bunking with Bea.”
“I know who you are.” Tabatha smirks, tossing her hair over her shoulder as she lifts a large bucket filled with cleaning supplies. I never really thought I could keep the reason I was sent to jail a secret, but I would much rather have been known as the girl who stole cars or snorted coke or even been the one to whack her abusive husband than who I really am.
“Nice to meet you,” I say, and Tabatha gives a snort so loud I expect the force will cause one of her nose piercings to fly out and hit me on the chest. I think of my friend Katie and almost laugh. When we were fourteen, she got her naval pierced without her parents’ knowledge. By the time she showed it to me, it was oozing and infected. I tried to help her, but she was ticklish and started to squirm every time I went near her stomach. Brynn walked in while I was helping her clean it up and we couldn’t stop laughing. Every time Brynn and I saw someone with unusual piercings, we’d get the giggles.
I decide to ignore Tabatha and turn to Olene. “Are we allowed to use the phone here? Can I call my sister?”
Brynn
I hear the ring of the phone and my grandma calls, “I’ve got it!” A minute later she comes into the kitchen, where I’m making a sandwich. I see the look on my grandma’s face and I know this has something to do with Allison. “It’s your sister,” she says. Already I’m shaking my head back and forth. “Brynn, I think you should talk to her.”
My grandma is trying to sound stern, but I know she’ll never force me to speak to her. “No,” I say, and go back to spreading peanut butter on my bread.
“You’re going to have to talk to her sooner or later,” she says patiently. “I think you’ll feel better.”
“I don’t want to talk to her,” I say firmly. I can’t get angry with my grandma. I know she’s caught in the middle. She wants what’s best for the both of us.
“Brynn, if you don’t talk to her on the phone, don’t answer her letters, Allison is going to find another way.”
All of a sudden, it’s clear. I see it in her old, kind blue eyes. Allison is getting out of jail. For all I know, she might be out already.
My hands begin to shake and a glob of peanut butter drops from my knife to the floor. I’m afraid she is going to sho
w up here unexpectedly. I’ll be in the backyard, training my German shepherd–chow mix, Milo, to walk past a treat without eating it and I’ll turn around and there she’ll be, looking at me. Waiting for the words that I know won’t come. What could I possibly have to say to her? What more could she say to me that she hasn’t already said in her letters? How many ways can someone say they’re sorry?
I bend down to wipe up the peanut butter with a paper towel, but Milo gets to it before I do. “I can’t talk to her.”
My grandmother presses her lips together and shakes her head in defeat. “Okay, I’ll go tell her. But, Brynn, you’re going to have to face her sometime.” I don’t answer, but follow her into the living room and watch as she picks up the phone.
“Allison?” My grandma’s voice trembles with emotion. “Brynn can’t come to the phone.” There’s a pause as she listens. “She’s doing great…just great…”
I can’t stand it anymore; I hurry back to the kitchen, grab my sandwich and leave out the back door to my car. Animals are so much easier to deal with than people. I learned that a long time ago. My parents never let me have a pet—too furry, too messy, too time-consuming. Every time I brought home strays, I would hope, pray, that they would let me keep them. Just once. I tried to spiff them up—I smoothed their tangled fur with an old comb, spritzed their fur with body spray, scrubbed their teeth with an old toothbrush. Ancient, arthritic mutts…one-eyed cats with notched ears. I would parade them in front of my parents. See how good he is? See how soft her fur is? See how tame, how sweet, how smart? See how lonely I am? Do you see? But no. No pets allowed. My dad would take me to drop the animal off at the shelter and every time I would cry and hold so tight to the animal that it would claw and scramble to get away from me.