After the Darkness

Then she remembered Lenny.

I'll take care of you, Grace. You'll never have to worry about anything again.

"The advice is free," said Karen, creeping back to her own bunk. "But when you remember where you hid all that money, maybe you can send me a little token of your appreciation."

Grace was about to protest her innocence again, but changed her mind. What was the point? If her own family didn't believe her, why on earth would anybody else?

"Sure, Karen. I'll do that."

GRACE TOOK HER CELL MATE'S ADVICE. For the next two weeks she kept her head down, her wits about her, and her thoughts and fears to herself. No one's going to help me. I'm on my own. I have to figure out how life here works.

Grace learned that Bedford Hills was admired across the country as a model for its progressive outreach programs aimed at helping incarcerated mothers. Of the 850 inmates, more than 70 percent were mothers in their thirties. Grace was astonished to learn that Cora Budds was one of them.

"Cora's a mom?"

"Why d'you look so shocked?" said Karen. "Cora's got three kids. Her youngest, Anna-May, was born right here. Baby came two weeks early. Sister Bernadette delivered her on the floor of the prenatal center."

Grace had read an article once about babies being born in prison. Or had she heard something on NPR? Either way, she remembered feeling appalled for the children of these selfish, criminal mothers. But that was in another life, another time. In this life, Grace did not find the children's center at Bedford Hills remotely appalling. On the contrary, staffed by inmates and local Roman Catholic nuns, it was the one bright spot of hope in the otherwise unremittingly grim regime of the prison. Grace would have dearly loved to get a job there, but there was no chance.

Karen told her, "New blood always gets the worst jobs."

Grace was put to work in the fields.

The work itself was backbreaking, chopping wood to build the new chicken coops, clearing swaths of weed-covered ground to make way for the bird runs. But it was the hours that really killed Grace. The Bedford Hills "day" bore no relation to light and darkness, or to the rhythms of the outside world. After lights-out at 10:30 P.M., prisoners got only four hours of unbroken sleep before low lighting came on again at 2:30 A.M. This was so the fieldworkers could eat breakfast and be outside in the bitter cold, working, by four. "Lunch" was served in the communal mess hall, at nine thirty. Dinner was at two, eight and a half long, boring hours before lights-out. Grace felt like she was permanently jet-lagged, exhausted but unable to sleep.

"You'll get used to it," said Karen. Grace wasn't so sure. The worst part of all was the loneliness. Often, Grace would go entire days without speaking to a single soul other than Karen. Other prisoners had friendships. Grace watched the women she worked with lean on one another for support. During breaks, they would talk about their kids or their husbands or their appeals. But nobody spoke to Grace.

"You're an outsider," Karen told her. "You're not one of us. Plus, you know, they figure you and your old man stole from people like us. So there's a lot of anger. It'll pass."

"But you're not angry," Grace observed.

Karen shrugged. "I used up all my anger a ways back. Besides, who knows? Maybe you really are innocent? No offense, but you don't come across as no criminal mastermind to me."

Grace's eyes welled with tears of gratitude. She believes me. Someone believes me.

She clung to Karen's words like a life raft.

"BROOKSTEIN. YOU GOT A VISITOR."

"Me?" Grace was coming in from the chicken runs. It was two days after Christmas and a heavy snow had fallen overnight. Grace's hands were red raw with cold and her breath plumed in front of her like steam from a boiling kettle.

"I don't see no other Brookstein. Visiting hours almost over, so you better get your ass inside now or you'll miss her."

Her? Grace wondered who it could be. Honor. Or Connie, perhaps. They've realized they were too tough on me. They're going to help me file an appeal.

The guard led her into the visitors' room. There, sitting at a small wooden table, was Caroline Merrivale. In an oversize fox-fur coat, her fingers glittering with diamonds like Cruella de Vil, she looked uncomfortable and laughably out of place in the dismal box of a room, a visitor from another world. Grace sat down opposite her.

"Caroline. This is a surprise."

During the trial, when she had stayed with the Merrivales, Grace had sensed a growing hostility in Caroline. John, darling John, had been staunch in his support from first to last. But Caroline, whom Grace had once thought of as such a dear friend, almost a surrogate mother, had been aloof, even cruel at times, as if she were enjoying Grace's suffering. She had not bothered to hide her irritation about the unwelcome press attention Grace's presence in the house attracted. "It's intolerable, like living in a cage at the zoo. When is all this going to end?" The deference she had once shown Grace as Lenny's wife had been replaced by a haughty coolness. Grace tried not to resent it. After all, if it weren't for Caroline and John, she'd have been out on the streets. She wouldn't have had the great Frank Hammond to defend her. She wouldn't have had a thing. But Caroline's bitterness still stung. She was the last person Grace expected to see at Bedford Hills.

Caroline looked around, like a nervous flier searching for the nearest emergency exit. "I can't stay long."

"That's okay. It was good of you to come at all. Did John get my letter?"

Grace had written to John a week ago asking him about next steps: What should she do about an appeal, should she hire a new attorney, how long did he think it would be before they agreed to review her case, etc.? He had yet to reply.

"He did, yes."

Silence.

"He's been very busy, Grace. The FBI is still looking for the missing money. John's been helping them as best he can."

Grace nodded meekly. "Of course. I understand." She waited for Caroline to say something else, to ask her how she'd been holding up, perhaps, or if she needed anything. But she didn't. Desperate to prolong the encounter, her first with the outside world in weeks, Grace started babbling. "It's not too bad in here. I mean, of course it's bad, but you try to get used to it. The worst thing is how tiring the days are. It makes it hard to focus on anything. I keep thinking about Lenny. About how any of this could have happened. I mean, someone framed us, that much is obvious. But after that it all gets so tangled. Hopefully, once John starts my appeal, there'll be some light at the end of the tunnel. But at the moment it's so dark. I feel lost."

"Grace, there won't be any appeal."

Grace blinked, like a mole in the sunlight. "I'm sorry?"

Caroline's voice grew harsh. "I said there won't be any appeal. At least, not with our help, or our money. Look, John stuck with you for as long as he could. But he's had to face the truth now. We all have."

"The truth? What do you mean? What truth?" Grace was shaking.

"You can stop with the Little Girl Lost act," Caroline spat. "It won't wash with me. Lenny ripped off his investors and his partners. He betrayed poor John. You both did."

"That's not true! Caroline, you must believe me. I know Lenny changed the partnership structure, and it's true I don't know why. But I know he would never have done anything to hurt John intentionally."

"Oh, come on, Grace! How stupid do you think people are? Why don't you come clean and tell the FBI where the money is?"

This was a nightmare. A sick joke.

"I don't know where the money is. John knows that. John believes me!"

"No," Caroline said brutally. "He doesn't. Not anymore. He wants nothing more to do with you. I came here today to ask you to stop contacting him. After everything you and Lenny have done to him, to all of us, you owe us that much at least."

She stood up to leave. Grace fought down the urge to throw herself into her arms and plead for mercy. Inside, her throat was hoarse from screaming: Don't leave me! Please! Don't take John away from me. He's my only hope! Outwardly she kept her mouth clamped shut, afraid that if she opened it the screams would never stop.

"Here." Caroline pressed a small, tissue-wrapped package into Grace's hand while the guard's back was turned. "John wanted me to give you this, weak, sentimental fool that he is. I told him you're hardly likely to get much wear out of it rotting your life away in here!" She laughed cruelly. "But given that it's hideous and of no earthly use to me, I suppose you may as well take it." She turned on her heel and was gone.

Numbly, Grace followed the guard back to her cell. She'd slipped the package inside her sleeve and kept it hidden till she was safely back on her bunk. Her hands trembled as she opened it, carefully unfolding the tissue paper. John Merrivale had been Grace's last true friend. My only friend. Whatever this package contained, he had wanted her to have it.

It was a brooch. A butterfly brooch, in rainbow-colored glass. Grace's eyes welled up with tears. Lenny had bought it for her last Christmas from a secondhand store in Key West. When the police froze Quorum's assets, they'd seized all of Lenny's personal effects, including Grace's jewelry. The brooch must have slipped through the net, perhaps because it was valueless. But it could not have been worth more to Grace if it had been made of solid diamonds.

It was a last piece of Lenny. A last symbol of happiness, of hope, of everything that she had lost forever. It was her passport to freedom.

Eternal freedom.

Gently, lovingly, Grace released the brooch's pin from its clasp and started slashing her wrists.