Chapter 20 - A Warm Place to Sit
Dear whoever is brave enough to open this, Mina had written. I don't know if you will save me. I hope you save the next person.
I read it at Beth's kitchen table, with sunlight coming through the window and a cup of coffee cooling beneath my hands. Mina had written about wanting to return home to her little boy, about missing the sound of rain on the apartment roof, and about how easily people looked past suffering when it came packaged as paperwork.
She hadn't known my name when she began that letter. Jo had added my name later, after my arrival at East Briar made the old warning suddenly urgent. For one terrible moment I wished I could go back and tell Mina the truth: she had been right about the missing medicine, and someone had finally proved it. But there was no going back to her.
The investigations lasted months. Pike and Brant were charged in connection with obstruction and falsified records. Marr faced charges related to the scheme and witness intimidation. The warden's role remained under separate investigation, with prosecutors unwilling to announce conclusions before reviewing all the evidence. HalePoint lost its state contract, and an independent review began of every patient whose medication records had been altered.
Jo recovered enough to send me a letter written in shaky blue ink. She had a new room, a better doctor, and a little plant on the windowsill. Dee sent a drawing made by her son Eli: a woman standing between a little boy and an enormous gray wall. I wrote back and told her she had given him a story about courage that belonged to her, not to a prison officer.
On the first anniversary of my release, Beth drove me to a community center where volunteers were helping formerly incarcerated women apply for jobs and appeal incorrect records. I had accepted a position there reviewing contracts and teaching people how to ask for copies of their own files.
A young woman sat alone in a corner, clutching a thin coat around her shoulders.
I crossed the room, pulled a clean gray one from the cabinet, and handed it to her.
"You can keep this," I said.
She looked suspicious. "What's it going to cost me?"
"Nothing."
She touched the soft edge with her fingertips as though she'd forgotten that things could be offered without a threat behind them.
May you like
I thought of that prison courtyard, the camera swinging toward me, and Dee's voice demanding what little warmth I had. Back then, I believed surviving meant holding on. Now I understood it also meant making sure the next person didn't have to fight the same fight alone.
Outside, the afternoon sun warmed the steps. Beth waited beside the car, smiling. I folded Mina's letter carefully into my pocket and stepped into the light.
