She had been there, between the all the places, a total of ten years. This week she was going home. Her mind turned the word over and over like a dog chewing a bone. Home is something in the heart. That’s what Bill had said. He gave her a poem titled: “Home Coming.”
Will you choose to keep searching endlessly for answers outside yourself? Or will you begin to trust the truth which can only be found within? Only when we look inside will we satisfy our restlessness. Only then will we come home.
The girls made fun of the poem. They made fun of everything. Marianne wondered who wrote that poem. It was signed: “Anonymous.”
Marianne went through her belongings one last time, the cards from friends, the letters, and pictures of the friends she was saying goodbye to. She hadn’t slept much, and couldn’t wait to set off, to put an end to the waiting.
She was counted for the last time, standing at attention with all the other bleary eyed women. She said a silent “thank you” to God and promised herself she’d never be back. She sat down for coffee and considered breakfast. Although she knew she would need the energy, she could not finish even one slice of toast.
Marianne tried to remember, but not successfully, how it had seemed to her in the beginning when she first came there. She had not always been in the maximum security cottage. Before that there was the dormitory and before that, the dark closet. The dark closet at home in her bedroom, and sometimes she got them mixed up. How had it been on the first day? On the tenth day? If not then, the hundredth day? The one thousandth day?
Bill said Rex and Mavis, her mother and stepfather, wanted her to come back to live with them. Would she know who they were? Would they know who she was? She had been eleven. Now she was twenty-one.
Since she had been in the maximum security cottage she had been allowed to go to her appointments with Bill alone. Before that, a supervisor had walked with her to and from the cottage, unlocking doors all the way. There had been a time before that when she wasn’t allowed to go anywhere at all. She went to Bill’s office alone now. While she waited for him, she did some mental arithmetic. Three hundred sixty-five days a year multiplied by nine. It came out 3,285 days. She could do it in her head. “You’ve got better than an average IQ, Marianne,” Bill told her. She had been locked up counting all the places a total of ten years. 10 years times 365 was 3,065 days. In any case, it seemed an eternity.
She was dressed in a plain black skirt and powder blue blouse. “Machine washable, no ironing required,” the label said. They had given her new shoes and new underwear. Everything was new, right down to the skin. She was having her menstrual flow and she hoped she wouldn’t soil her new panties. She had reached her hand down there in the night when she started her period and it had come back slippery and red. “I did it, I did it,” she screamed. The night matron came to see what the matter was.
“Shush, Marianne,” she said. “You have just started your period.”
She liked the clean smelling napkins that the matron gave her. They had only recently started giving them tampons to use. The other girls laughed when she said she didn’t know how to use them.
She had a cramp in her stomach. It was really in her uterus. She had learned that in Biology class. Her uterus was cramping in an effort to expel the lining of blood vessels that had been built up in anticipation that there might be a need for them, if the egg from the ovary had been fertilized by a sperm from a male. No one ever said they had a cramp in their uterus, for crying out loud! Everyone just said they had cramps. She was proud of having her menstrual flow. She even liked the cramps, at least she didn’t mind. She had been late to start. She was fifteen before she started.
A shock to the mind was as a shock to the body, Bill said. A sense of guilt haunting a person can cause a serious reaction. Only when the person can find self- forgiveness and inner peace can they function normally.
What would Rex think of her, all grown up? Would he know she was so tall? He never came to visit, not once in the whole ten years. Bill said maybe he was too ashamed of himself to come to visit.
Marianne knew better than that. Rex was strict and he was hard. When his big hands reached to unbuckle his belt, she didn’t wait to see if he would take it off and use it. She jumped to do what he said, all right. Shelby jumped too. But Shelby ran to Mavis to protect her.
She was twenty-one years old. Would she be able to jump over ten years to be twenty-one or would she have to start at eleven where she left off? Where would she start?
The door to the office opened and Bill was there. His mouth turned up in a smile as he entered the room.
Bill surveyed her. He pursed up his lips and whistled. Not a very good whistle. Not much better than Shelby when she was learning to whistle. She remembered things like that about Shelby now. It was like she was getting out with her today.
“How do you like yourself?” Bill asked.
“I don’t know.”
He opened the door to his restroom. He studied their two faces in the square mirror over the washbasin. “I’d rather look at you than me,” he said.
“I’d rather look at you,” she said.
“You’re beautiful! Your skin is pale like moonlight.” He squinted his eyes into little slits. “You’re a very good-looking young woman.”
“I guess I won’t break your mirror,” she said. “I think you’re good looking too.”
His eyes were almost closed.
“How did you sleep last night?” he asked.
“Lousy thank you. And you?”
“Lousy too.”
His long fingers picked at an invisible piece of lint on his lapel. He said: “You wouldn’t be normal if you didn’t have trouble sleeping last night.”
Marianne had a moment of panic. She wanted to be normal. God, she really wanted to be normal.
He sat down and leaned back in his swivel chair. Marianne tried not to look at his crotch when he leaned back. Once when she had stared she had seen his hand snake to his zipper to check that it was closed. After that session, she had been sick in the bathroom. Bill didn’t know why she had been sick but Mrs. Lewis wrote everything in her folder.
“Your mother is waiting for you in the reception area. Rex is waiting for you at home.” He didn’t ask if she was glad or sorry that Rex hadn’t come.
“Did Mom stay home from work?” she asked.
“It’s her Saturday off.”
“I forgot.”
“It’s all right to forget.”
“I know. I wouldn’t be normal if I didn’t forget.”
“It seemed a good idea to start your new life on the weekend.”
“Why?”
“You’ll have time to get reacquainted.”
“Did Rex say that?”
“I said it. Your mother sometimes works on Saturdays and if Rex was out, you’d be alone. I thought you’d prefer not to be alone on your first day home.”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
“Do you mind Rex being at home?”
“No.”
“What do you expect to happen when you see him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Just be yourself. That’s all. Don’t worry.”
“I know I’m an adult. I have to stand alone now.”
“You’re not alone, Marianne. On your own two feet maybe, but not alone. We all need someone to be there.”
“Where?”
“Where we can touch them.”
Touch it Marianne.
I don’t want to.
Go ahead, it won’t hurt you.
It’s ugly. It will make my hands dirty.
“This is a trial run, Marianne.”
“I know. You told me.”
“For a year you’ll have to follow the rules, like it has been here at IRC. It will be a time of getting reacquainted with your family, with the neighbors, with family friends. You can go anywhere you want with your family but you can’t have dates or any association with anyone who has ever been arrested, and you will have to get yourself a job. Rebuild your life, move on.”
She wondered how she would know if anyone had ever been arrested. Maybe an interview before the first date? Ask them to bring their criminal history?
“I can file and I can type. I can use a computer, if I can find someone to hire me.”
“It won’t be easy. Not at first.” He blew his nose again then he said earnestly: “You will have to be careful at first, Marianne. You are more honest than most people are used to. It’s best sometimes not to mention your past. It’s called diplomacy or social manners.”
He stood. “Ready?” he said.
Marianne stood, too tall because of her new shoes. “They’re the latest style,” Mrs. Lewis had said. Her mother had brought the clothes for her.
“She has given you so many nice things,” Mrs. Lewis said.
“I gave her wrinkles in return,” Marianne had said.
The girls had all screamed with laughter.
“I almost forgot to give you your present.” Bill dug deep in his pockets and brought out a small velvet box.
Marianne opened the box to find a gold chain with a cross on it. Her friend Nikki had made her a white, handcrafted, fake bible to sit on a shelf. Real pretty, with artificial roses attached to the front and The Lord’s Prayer written in gold across it. She would keep it always, but no one had ever given her a gift to compare with this.
“It’s so you will remember that Jesus Christ loved you so much that he died for you. And so you remember that even when there’s no one else around, He is with you.” Bill said.
Marianne bent her head and put the little box into her purse. She didn’t want him to see she was close to crying. She would put it on when she was alone and cherish it always.
“We have closed your file now, Marianne.”
“What will happen to it?”
“It will go into a file drawer. The drawer will be shut and locked, except for my monthly reports. I will come to visit you once a month.” He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. “When the year of parole is up, the folder will go into a closed file in the basement. No one will ever see it in there.”
They walked down the corridor together. People observing them might think they were on a date. It was real now. She was going outside.