protest. She was a law-abiding citizen, the mother of a twelve-year-old honor student, the respected director of a maternal-health clinic in Asheville. But she could never quite silence the voices that reminded her that she, too, could have ended up here. Thirteen years ago if a judge had sentenced her to prison instead of community service, or if she hadn’t heeded the stern lecture he had administered as she stood trembling at the front of the courtroom, she might know firsthand what Cristy Haviland was going through right now.
She could never quite shake the fear that once she was inside the gates, someone would discover a mistake had been made, and she would be required to do hard time after all. Starting immediately.
She pulled to a stop at the appropriate doorway and turned off the engine. When the door opened and Cristy and one of the corrections officers came out, Sam got out and went around to open the passenger door.
She smiled at Cristy, who was sheltering a white plastic bag against her chest. “Let’s ditch this place.”
Cristy, hollow-eyed and unsmiling, gave a brief nod. She turned to the officer and nodded again. “Thank you.”
“Good luck to you.” The woman, bulky enough to be taken seriously, snapped her hand in the air, as if in salute, and stepped back as Cristy got in.
Sam returned to the driver’s seat and started the engine, making a U-turn in the lot to start back toward the gate.
“You can put the bag on the backseat if you’d like.”
Cristy didn’t speak, but she continued to clutch the bag the way a starving woman might clutch a loaf of bread. Samantha waited for the guard to release the gate again. Once it had slid completely open, she touched the gas pedal, and they were outside at last.
She glanced at Cristy. Her wheat-blond hair was a mass of natural curls scrunched on top of her head. Her skin was deathly pale, and her blue eyes were brimming with tears.
Samantha accelerated until they were out on the road and driving away.
“I know it’s hard to believe,” she said, once she was safely in the flow of traffic, “but that part of your life is finished now. You served your time. There’s no mistake.”
Cristy wiped away tears with the tip of her index finger. “No mistake?”
“You’re free. They aren’t going to change their minds.”
“But there was a mistake,” the girl said softly. She turned to look out at the pine-forested scenery, as if to hide more tears.
Samantha wasn’t sure what she meant. “Was there?”
“I just spent eight months in prison for a crime I didn’t commit. And I can never, never get them back again.”
* * *
Cristy was glad when Samantha Ferguson pulled into a McDonald’s parking lot and glided to a space near the door. An hour had passed and they’d said very little to each other. Of course she didn’t blame Samantha for not knowing what to say. What choices had Cristy left her? I’m sorry you were unfairly imprisoned and we’re going to make sure the real thief is caught and punished. Or worse? Unless you admit your guilt and say you want to make amends, I’m not going to be willing to help you after all.
“I’m not an advocate of fast food,” Samantha said, “but if I’d been locked away from it for eight months, I’m pretty sure I’d be yearning for a burger and fries.” She glanced at Cristy and seemed to read the doubt in her eyes. “And hey, I can use the break. It’s my treat.”
Cristy tried to remember the last time she had really felt hungry. Four or five months ago, at the end of the pregnancy, perhaps, when even the prison food had tasted good, and the baby growing inside her had needed calories. But once she had delivered, nothing had appealed to her, and she had rapidly lost not only the baby weight but extra pounds, too, because now the clothes she’d worn to prison hung from her thin frame like a scarecrow’s.
Samantha got out and Cristy knew that she had to, as well. She carefully set the plastic bag at her feet and joined Samantha outside. She was surprised at the burst of noise, at the way cars screeching in and out of the lot throbbed against her eardrums, how, once inside the restaurant, she was blasted with air-conditioning, even though the temperature outside was only in the sixties.
The restaurant had an indoor playground, and as they passed it, she averted her eyes so she wouldn’t have to watch toddlers enjoying themselves as their parents looked on.
“What would you like?” Samantha moved toward the front counter where lines had formed.
Cristy stared up at the menu on the wall, as if deciding. But the words swam in front of her.
“I don’t know,” she said quickly. “I...I’m not really hungry. You go ahead.”
“Why don’t you find us a place to sit then?”
Cristy began to panic. She was used to being told exactly where to go. Here some of the empty tables were littered with paper or trays containing half-eaten food that hadn’t been cleared away. If she sat at one, would employees come to clear it, or would they think the mess was hers and ignore it? Should she take a seat by the window, or would that make somebody angry because those seats were the best? Was it okay to take a table next to one that was occupied, or to avoid the appearance of eavesdropping, should she try to move off to the side, where the tables were smaller, less desirable and mostly empty?
“Try to get us one in the sunshine if you can,” Samantha said, when Cristy didn’t move. “It’s cold in here. How about that one?” She pointed.
Cristy moved in that direction, hoping nobody would beat her to the table. Would Samantha be disappointed if she failed? She had already embarrassed the woman by tearfully proclaiming her innocence. By the end of their trip, would Samantha be so disenchanted she would ask Cristy to find another place to live?
Then where would she go?
She got to the table and gratefully fell into a chair. Around her everyone was going about their business. No one knew her. To them she was a shabby, weary-eyed young blonde. No one knew she had just completed a prison term, or that she was the mother of a son she’d never held.
No one could tell by looking at her that she had fallen so deeply into a well of secrets and lies that she would never find her way out of it.
She could see Samantha placing an order, then stepping to one side to wait. She watched for just a moment. Samantha was a beautiful woman, probably a mixture of races or ethnicities, although Cristy had certainly never asked the particulars. She had a mane of curly, dark hair that fell past her shoulders, more-cream-than-coffee skin, and a narrow, delicately featured face that made Cristy think of the illustration of Pharaoh’s daughter in the Old Testament picture book she’d loved as a child. Samantha was tall, slender and graceful in faded jeans and a dark purple sweater, with a smile that could disarm any enemy at ten paces.
To Cristy she looked like someone who had never known a moment of sorrow in all the twenty-five or thirty years she had lived on earth.
By the time Samantha approached their table and set a tray in the middle, Cristy had turned away from a view of cars zooming through the parking lot to see a wealth of food.
Samantha sounded apologetic. “I have a daughter who just turned twelve, and she’s always hungry. I’m afraid I ordered like she was here with us. You’ll help me eat it?”
Cristy had become an expert at recognizing subtext, one of the things she was taking away from her months behind bars. Samantha had guessed she was hungry, guessed she wanted to eat and guessed that Cristy hadn’t known how to make that happen.
“You’ve already done so much for me,” she said.
“And what good will any of that be if you waste away? How much weight did you lose after the baby?”
Cristy shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“I