Pieces of Her (Andrea Oliver 1)

ONE MONTH LATER

I felt a cleaving in my Mind—

As if my Brain had split—

I tried to match it—Seam by Seam—

But could not make them fit.

The thought behind, I strove to join

Unto the thought before—

But Sequence ravelled out of Sound

Like Balls—upon a Floor.

—Emily Dickinson

EPILOGUE

Laura Oliver sat on a wooden bench outside the Federal Corrections Institute in Maryland. The complex resembled a large high school. The adjacent satellite facility was more akin to a boys’ summer camp. Minimum security, mostly white-collar criminals who’d skimmed from hedge funds or forgotten to pay decades of taxes. There were tennis and basketball courts and two running tracks. The perimeter fence felt cursory. The guard towers were sparse. Many of the inmates were allowed to leave during the day to work at the nearby factories.

Given the seriousness of his crimes, Nick didn’t belong here, but he had always been good at inserting himself into places he did not belong. He’d been convicted of manslaughter for killing Alexandra Maplecroft, and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction for the New York piece of the plan. The jury had decided not only to spare Nick’s life, but to give him the possibility of parole. Which was likely how he had wrangled his transfer to Club Fed. The worst thing that inmates had to worry about inside the blue-roofed pods spoking out from the main building was boredom.

Laura knew all about the boredom of incarceration, but not of the rarefied kind that Nick was experiencing. Per her plea deal, her two-year sentence had been spent in solitary confinement. At first, Laura had thought she would go mad. She had wailed and cried and even fashioned a keyboard on the frame of the bed, playing notes that only she could hear. Then, as her pregnancy had progressed, Laura had been overcome with exhaustion. When she wasn’t sleeping, she was reading. When she wasn’t reading, she was waiting for mealtimes or staring up at the ceiling having conversations with Andrew that she would’ve never had with him in person.

I can be strong. I can change this. I can get away.

She was mourning the loss of her brothers; Andrew to death, Jasper to his own greed. She was mourning the loss of Nick, because she had loved him for six years and felt the absence of that love as she would the loss of a limb. Then Andrea was born, and she was mourning the loss of her infant daughter.

Laura had been allowed to hold Andy only once before Edwin and Clara had taken her away. Of all the things that Laura had lost in her life, missing the first eighteen months of Andy’s life was the one wound that would never heal.

Laura found a tissue in her pocket. She wiped her eyes. She turned her head, and there was Andy walking toward the bench. Her beautiful daughter was holding her shoulders straight, head high. Being on the road had changed Andy in ways that Laura could not quite get used to. She had worried for so long that her daughter had inherited all of her weakness, but now Laura saw that she’d passed on her resilience, too.

“You were right.” Andy sat down on the bench beside her. “Those toilets were disgusting.”

Laura wrapped her arm around Andy’s shoulders. She kissed the side of her head even as Andy pulled away.

“Mom.”

Laura relished the normalcy of her annoyed tone. Andy had been bristling about the over-protectiveness since she’d been released from the hospital. She had no idea how much Laura was holding back. Given the choice, she would have gladly pulled her grown daughter into her lap and read her a story.

Now that Andy knew the truth—at least the part of the truth that Laura was willing to share—she was constantly asking Laura for stories.

Andy said, “I talked to Clara’s daughters yesterday. They’ve found a place for her that specializes in people with Alzheimer’s. A nice place, not, like, a nursing home but more like a community. They say she hasn’t been asking about Edwin as much.”

Laura rubbed Andy’s shoulder, swallowing back her jealousy. “That’s good. I’m glad.”

Andy said, “I’m nervous. Are you nervous?”

Laura shook her head, but she wasn’t sure. “It’s nice to be out of the splint.” She flexed her hand. “My daughter is safe and healthy. My ex-husband is speaking to me again. I think, in the scheme of things, I’ve got more to be happy about than not.”

“Wow, that’s some class-A misdirection.”

Laura gave a surprised laugh, startled that the things Andy used to say inside of her head were finally coming out of her mouth. “Maybe I’m a little nervous. He was my first love.”

“He beat the shit out of you. That’s not love.”