“Yes, ma’am, I have. You’re one of the good ones. Got a feeling maybe no one’s told you that often enough, but if you don’t mind me saying, I think you need to hear it today.” His mouth curves warmly, and he reaches out to lightly pat my shoulder. “You’re a good person, Avery. You need to remember that, no matter what life hands you.”
I’m silent, taken aback. I don’t know what to say. Words clog my throat along with my breath, but it’s not because of the weight of his kindness.
It’s because he’s wrong.
I’m not one of the good ones.
If he knew anything about me—about my past, about where I’ve come from—he wouldn’t think so either.
It takes some effort to find my voice. When I finally do, it comes out quiet, a thready whisper. “Thank you for saying that, Manny.”
Before his tender gaze can see through me, I glance away from him. I stare straight ahead as we ride the rest of the way to the fifth floor. In the hammered steel of the elevator doors, my reflection stares back at me, a blurred and distorted mask.
~ ~ ~
I’m getting dressed for my evening shift at Vendange when my cell phone rings. Cursing, stumbling out of the massive walk-in closet in just my half-buttoned black work shirt and underwear, I dash for the living room where I dropped my purse on my way in earlier this afternoon.
Although I’m not anticipating that Nick might call—more accurately, I’m convinced that he won’t—I still race for my phone as if I’m running a marathon. My mind swirls with a dozen cutting things to say to him, all of the icy responses I’ve been rehearsing since my lunch meeting with Margot.
But it’s not Nick calling.
Of course, it’s not. The bastard probably deleted my number by now.
Some of my anger fizzles out as I register the Pennsylvania area code on the display. I’ve already spoken with my mother this morning. It’s rare that she’s allowed to call more than once a day. Practically unheard of. Something must be wrong.
Alarm jolts through me as I swipe to answer. “Mom?” The automated collect call message talks past my rushed greeting. Anxiety spiking, I wait for it to finish. “Yes, I accept. Mom? Hello, are you there?”
“I’m here honey.” Her voice sounds thin, a little weary, but that’s nothing unusual the past couple of years. “Am I calling at a bad time?”
“No, you’re not.” I wedge the phone between my ear and shoulder as I fasten the rest of the buttons on my shirt. “What’s going on? Is everythin
g all right?”
“Oh, yes. Everything’s fine, sweetheart.”
“What’s up, then? Why are you calling again today?”
“Mr. Stadler came to see me a little while ago.”
I frown at the mention of the public defender handling her case. “What did he want? Has there been any progress on your appeal?”
“Nothing yet on that, sweetheart. But he’s working on it.”
I refrain from pointing out that Stadler’s been working on her appeals ever since the state sent her away. All we’ve seen is one roadblock after another. Honestly, I don’t know where my mother gets her patience. Maybe she’s eternally optimistic. Or maybe, in order to survive where she is for the past nine years, she’s had to give up any hope that she might ever see her conviction overturned or her sentence reduced.
I hate that I can’t do anything to help. I hate that she’s in a cage two-hundred miles away from me and I can’t see her face. I haven’t hugged her in more than a year.
I hate that the woman I love more than anyone else on this planet has been labeled a monster by the judicial system. A killer who shot her husband—my drunk of a stepfather—dead in cold blood.
It’s not like she denied it. My sweet, loving mother had shocked everyone in the court, including me, when she pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.
“We don’t have word on the appeal, Avery, but Mr. Stadler did have some other news.”
Her soft voice breaks into my thoughts. I hear something odd in her tone now. Something light. Is it . . . excitement?
“What kind of news? What’s going on?”
“We got the parole board interview.”