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Page 4 of All the Ugly Things

“Yes, ma’am.” I wouldn’t. I’d be the best paroled prisoner ever.

“Any questions?”

Only a thousand. One prominent. Who helped me? It didn’t matter, did it?

I’d been in chains too long to question this now.

“Here are the rest of your belongings. Your Illinois driver’s license is expired and out of state, so talk to Ellen about what you need to do to get a new ID. Per conditions of your parole, you won’t be able to get a license until your parole is completed, Follow the rest of the parole guidelines, and I trust I’ll never see you again.”

“You won’t. I promise. And thank you.”

For the first time since I’d met her, Warden Dunham gave me a soft smile. One that almost made me cry again. Almost like she believed I could do this. “You did the time. Did the work. Now go do something good.”

My cheeks burned. It’d been so long since someone believed I could do anything good. Candace, maybe. Josh, definitely.

I blinked away the memory of him and grabbed the envelope the warden held out. “Thank you, again. For this.”

“You earned it. Good luck.”

Later, after processing and my bags were checked, I was dressed in clothes donated by Goodwill for these exact situations. Long gone were designer clothes and shoes and handbags. I didn’t care. The sweatshirt I wore and the aged denim jeans were the most comfortable things I’d worn in years. Anything was better than the scratchy, ill-fitted, baggy gray uniforms I’d spent six years wearing. I wrapped my arms around my stomach and relished the worn, soft insides of the Iowa sweatshirt.

“Face the left,” the guard said, once I took the bagged items back from him.

I stood in front of a set of metal double doors. Beyond that would be a chain-link fence with barbed wire coiled around the top.

Every second I wait made my blood pump faster and harder until all I heard was a roar in my ears, drowning out the loud buzzer that sounded the alarm.

The doors slowly opened.

I didn’t look back.

I walked out into the bright, but frigid winter sun, clutching my meager belongings to me. The echo of the interstate in front of me, a wall of cornfields beyond.

A taxi waited, already given my new address to a woman’s halfway house where I would spend at minimum, the first six months.

I was moving to Des Moines.

Freed from prison.

I’d never been more terrified of blue skies and snow and semi-tall buildings in my life.

But I could do this. For Josh. For Candace for believing in me. And most of all, for me, because six years ago I was forced into making a decision that would haunt me forever, but now—

Now, I could live for me.

2

Lilly

Ten Months Later

Judith Falkner was a terrifying woman,and I’d spent six years in prison, so that was saying something. Heavyset and round, she had onyx eyes and hair to match. Harsh features with her painted-on eyebrows and blood-red lipstick, the first day I stepped into her diner, Judith’s, at the recommendation of Ellen, my knees knocked together so hard I was certain she heard them. I was positive she could smell my fear.

It amazed me to this day how her diner could make a decent turnover when she was borderline rude to the customers, took no shit from anyone—not even her husband Chaz who did the cooking—and after six months of working here, I’d yet to see her smile.

The diner wasn’t the first place I worked after getting set up with my parole officer. I was lucky that Ellen seemed to really care about finding a good fit because the first few jobs were pretty ugly. Luckily, she seemed to understand the reason why they didn’t work out wasn’t because of me or my job performance, but other circumstances and she hadn’t quit trying to find me somewhere I’d be comfortable.

Judith gave me a job when getting a job was nearly impossible, and for that, I’d spent the last six months trying to get on her good side. Last week, I was pretty sure I almost saw a hint of a smile. Maybe.


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