Sing Sing Correctional Facility, 1997
I think the use of so much white in this goddamn place is designed to make the inmates go crazy. Death Row is no better—twenty-three fucking hours on lockdown for the “bad” guys here, and maybe, if you’re lucky, an hour of rec time somewhere that isn’t white.
I learned that lesson the hard way, but when you’re a big guy, the new kids here try to fight you to prove they’re worth the balls hanging from their body. I’ve smashed enough heads in my day that I don’t need to fight anyone else to prove my worth, but these little fuckers—they just keep coming for me.
The Warden gets it these days, though. He’s told me that any time I spend in AD-SEG isn’t because of defending myself, it’s to keep the other inmates safe from me.
“Blackburn! You’ve got mail!”
I raise an eyebrow and lift my head off my cot slightly. Officer Davis is a good guy; he’s always treated me with the same respect I treat the rest of the C.Os. I think in a way, he knows the truth, but he won’t tell anyone because he’s not entirely sure.
Hell, even I don’t know what the fucking truth is anymore.
“From whom?” I ask, looking at him curiously.
He looks down at the small envelope in his hand and reads the return address to me.
“G. Blackburn,” he recites, holding it through my cell bars.
The palms of my hands begin to sweat as I throw my legs over the side of the cot and get to my feet. It’s not possible, is it? She couldn’t have possibly written me a letter when I was so damn sure that everyone convinced her I was the devil incarnate.
“You alright? You look shaky all of a sudden,” Davis remarks as he raises an eyebrow at me.
“Yeah, man. I’m fine. Thanks,” I say with a nod, as I take the letter from him and go back to my prison-issued bed. It’s the most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever slept on, and some nights I prefer the floor to the itchy blanket and impossibly flat mattress.
I wait until Davis makes his way to the next cell before I turn the letter over and look at the return address. I have to see it with my own eyes for it to be true, but there it is—plain as fucking day. G. Blackburn.
I let out a shaky breath as I flip the envelope over again and tear the back off. I’ve spent a lot of sleepless nights on the floor, wondering if my baby girl hated me, and I have a feeling that this letter will hold the answer.
The paper is neatly folded equally in three, and I can almost swear I smell her on it. I look up at the ceiling as I carefully open it before I decide to rip off the proverbial band-aid and look down to read.
The handwriting is different from what I remember, but she’s grown up a lot since then, so that’s to be expected. It’s the first line—the salutation—that renders me to tears as I do my best to read what she’s written to me without bawling like a baby.
Dear Daddy,
I want you to know that I miss you. I love you lots and I don’t believe what they’re saying about you.
Would it be possible to visit you sometime?
I hope so.
Love,
Gracie.
It’s one of the shortest letters I’ve ever read, yet it holds the most meaning of anything the world can ever offer me. Reassurance from my own flesh and blood that she still loves me; that she’s not afraid of me, and believes me to be a good man.
I wipe the tears from my face and let out a soft laugh. Gracie has always been the one good thing in my life—the constant reminder that while I may never have been the best father or husband in the fucking world, just once, I had gotten something right.
“My special girl,” I say softly, with a shake of my head as I fold the letter back up and slip it into the envelope. I lean back and slide the letter under my pillow and lie back down.
We named her after my mother; partly because she looks so damn much like her, and partly because it was another way to stick it to Doreen. Of course, had I known the kind of mother that bitch would have been, I would’ve taken Gracie and run far away from Cold Spring.
It was so fucking hard to keep my baby girl safe from that psychopath, working the long hours I did, but I would take her to work with me the days Doreen had drugged herself into a stupor. It was against company policy to have such a little girl in the scrapyard, but she wore her hard hat “just like Daddy”, as she would proudly say, and she always watched from the office window while I worked.
I never knew just how bad shit had gotten, because Doreen wouldn’t bruise Gracie where I could see. Usually, she’d come to me crying if I came home late from work, and when I would try to hug her and ask her what was wrong, she would let out a squeal of pain.
That’s how I knew she was abusing her. I didn’t have any solid proof, because every time I attempted to check my baby’s body for any marks, she would scream at me that I was being inappropriate with Gracie, and how she would call the cops and have me arrested for touching my baby.
I never did, though. I never fucking put a hand on my little girl; in anger or any other way.
The last day I was at work before it happened, Gracie looked up at me with her big brown eyes and told me I was her hero.
Something snapped in me after that. If I was her hero, how come I couldn’t save her? Isn’t that what a hero does? Save those that can’t save themselves?
I cross my arms behind my head and stare up at the white ceiling in this sickly white room, and wonder about the little white lies that had been fed to her after I got arrested.
I’ve never been able to prove my word to anyone in halls of the judicial system, and when the court sees fit, they’ll set a date for me to get a needle to the arm, signed off by the governor himself.
I close my eyes and sigh. I’ll ask Davis for some paper and a pen when he comes back. I’ll get some stamps from the commissary with the little bit of cash I have in there, and I’ll write Gracie back. I’ll tell her that prison is no place for her to be, and that even though I love her and miss her so fucking much, it’s better if she remembers the good times we had and not have to walk down these halls.
These halls are for killers, thieves, rapists … the scum of the fucking Earth. My baby girl doesn’t belong here.
Neither do I, I think as I turn on my side and stare at the white wall that silently stares back at me.