CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The air conditioning hummed, blasting out sheets of cool air in the stark visiting room. Shannon rubbed her bare arms, wishing she’d brought a sweater. She didn’t remember it having been so chilly the last time she was there. Perched on the edge of a hard plastic chair at a table inside a small room, she waited.

She tried to conjure up an image of her mother, tried to remember how Dora had looked at Christmas, but the images that paraded before her eyes were older ones, so much older. Sewing Shannon’s leotard, the corner of her lips screwed up in concentration as she threaded. Placing a Band-Aid on Shannon’s knee when she’d skidded on her bike. Holding her hand as she walked her to school. So young, so vibrant, so blond. Just like Shannon. She’d had the same bright blond hair. Absently, Shannon raised her hand to her now-brown hair.

Someone opened the door.

Shannon rose. Nerves skittered across her flesh. The corrections officer appeared first, a tall, sturdy woman with dark hair in a braid. Holding the door open, the guard nodded and grunted a curt hello.

“Hello,” Shannon said, the word feeling strange on her tongue. Even after all these years, it still never felt normal to be conversing with a corrections officer.

Her mother entered, and Shannon did her best impression of a sealed-up box. Otherwise she’d fall to pieces. Keeping her chin up, her muscles steady, she managed a simple, “Hi, Mom.”

Her mother was a shadow of the woman she’d once been. Her bright blond hair was the color of dishwater, her cheeks were sunken, and her green eyes were a shade of sallow. Even so, she smiled. Her lips, with their cracked red lipstick, quivered as she held out her arms for a hug.

“My baby,” said the woman in orange.

Shannon walked into her arms, embarrassment and shame smacking her from all directions. She wasn’t ashamed this woman was her mother. She was ashamed for Dora, for what she’d become, for the choices she’d made that led her to this. Thin arms wrapped around Shannon, arms that had once been strong and maternal. Her mother clutched her.

“Oh, baby. My baby. It is so good to see you again,” Dora said, her mouth closer to Shannon’s neck than she would have liked.

“It’s good to see you, too, Mom,” Shannon said, lying, but knowing it was only a white lie. It wouldn’t hurt anyone for her to say that.

“I’m so happy you’re here.” Another firm grip, then she felt the first drop from her mom’s eyes. A tear had fallen on Shannon’s bare shoulder as Dora embraced harder and tighter, as if she could graft her body onto Shannon’s and escape as a growth on her kid.

“All right, Prince. That’s enough,” the CO said, her command clear.

Shannon’s mom pulled away, and shot the woman a contrite look. “Sorry. I just missed my baby girl so much. She’s a dancer. Isn’t she lovely?” Her mom held out her arms to Shannon as if she were presenting her on Wheel of Fortune.

“Mom, stop,” Shannon said, embarrassed now for a whole new reason. She glanced at the woman. “We’re fine. We’ll sit down now.”

“Behave, Prince,” the woman warned as she shut the door, leaving Shannon alone with her mother. They sat at the gray plastic table, like the kind in a cafeteria.

“Baloney,” her mom said.

“Baloney?”

“That’s what they fed me the other day. Baloney on white bread. Can you believe it? Baloney.” Her mom brought her hand to her eyes, covering them, as if the memory of the cold cuts was too much to bear. “I hate baloney.”

“Tell them you hate it.”

“I tried. I asked for turkey. They don’t think I deserve turkey.”

“Did they say that?” Shannon asked.

Her mom raised her face. “They don’t have to. I can tell. They don’t like me here. They don’t like me at all.”

“Mom,” she said, doing her very best to sound comforting and caring, because that was all she could do. “Why would you say that?”

“Because.” Her mom clamped her lips shut, as if she was refusing to speak.

“Because why?”

“Because.”

Shannon held up her hands in defeat. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me.”

“Because of what happened,” her mom snapped out, like a wild dog.

“Because of why you’re here?” she asked gently, as if she were talking to a child who’d been caught skipping school.

Her mom shook her head, whipping it back and forth so rapidly she was a cartoon character in fast forward. “No. Not that. Not that at all. It’s because of the—” She stopped talking and jammed her fist in her mouth, biting hard on her knuckles.

Shannon cringed and reached for her mom’s hand, trying to remove it. It wouldn’t budge. She tried again. Her mom bit deeper. “Mom, stop that,” she said in a harsh whisper. “Your CO will come back and you’ll have to go. You’re making a scene.”

Her mom crunched, digging her teeth into the flesh of her hand.

“You’re going to draw blood. Stop!”

The door swung open.

“Enough, Prince,” the corrections officer barked.

Dora dropped her fist from her mouth, her shoulders sagging, her body going limp. The big woman held up her hand and raised her index finger. “One more shot, Prince. One more shot.”

“Okay,” her mom muttered.

Shannon dared to look. Her mom’s hand had deep grooves from her own teeth. Red and raw, on the cusp of bleeding. “What was that all about?” she asked, bewildered.

“Nothing,” her mom mumbled. “Just nothing.”

Shannon nodded, trying to digest everything that had gone wrong so far. Baloney obsession and gnawing her own fist in the first three minutes. Steeling herself for another painful visit, she fixed on her best happy face, and asked, “Are you still watching General Hospital?”

Dora’s eyes lit up. They sparkled with a mad kind of glee as she began rattling off couples, and plot lines, and twists and turns. Shannon let her talk, and let her share every spoiler, because that soothed the savage beast inside her mother.

After fifteen minutes of mindless chatter about TV and the meatloaf served last night, her mom asked about Shannon’s work, and Shannon told her the latest about her shows. Then, after they’d settled into a peaceful rhythm, Shannon broached the topic of the phone call. “You said earlier you wanted to talk about something that would change everything,” she said, then swallowed. Her throat was dry. Her mouth was sawdust. She had to do this though. She had to know. “Is the case being reopened?”

Her mom sat up straight, like a puppeteer had just pulled up her marionette strings. “Is it?”

Shannon sighed. “Mom, I don’t know. I thought that’s why you wanted to talk. You told Ryan on the phone, and you told me earlier today you had news that would change everything.” She placed her hands on the table, knowing her mom would take them, knowing the woman who gave her life would want to hold them. Her mom shot out her hands instantly, gripping Shannon’s. Inside, she cringed, not wanting that kind of connection to the woman. But she let her mom do it anyway. Because it was the compassionate thing to do. That was where she could be different from the woman in orange. “Tell me. Did someone find new evidence? I heard the DA was talking to Stefano. Is there something going on? Tell me, Mommy,” she said, hating to use that term, but it was the way to get her mom talking.

“I don’t know anything about Jerry,” she said, using the shooter’s first name.

“What did you see your lawyer about then?” Shannon squeezed her bony fingers, urging her to speak.

Her mom’s chest rose and fell. She breathed heavily. Then, faster. A lone, silent tear streaked from her eye. “It’s about Luke.”

Shannon flinched. She hadn’t heard that name in years. Hadn’t thought it much either. There had been no reason to. Luke Carlton was long gone. The local piano teacher her mother had had a brief affair with when Shannon was thirteen was ancient history. The police had questioned him, but it was perfunctory. He was never a suspect. He’d had no connection at all to the crime.

“What about Luke?” she asked carefully. She wasn’t wild about the man, not by any stretch, but there was a big difference between being a cheater and being a killer. There was no evidence to show her mother’s lover was involved in any way, except loving the wrong person at the wrong time. “The police cleared him, Mom. In just two days he was cleared of any knowledge.”

“I know. He didn’t do it. He’s not that kind of man. He’s a gentleman and a saint. He’s not the one who shot your daddy in the driveway. And it wasn’t me either. It was a robbery gone wrong,” she said, sticking chapter and verse to her age-old defense, as if the open wallet and stolen bills missing from it proved her innocence.

Shannon sighed deeply, her heart cratering as her mom toed her own party line. “Then why are you bringing up Luke?”

Her mom peered to the door, making sure it was shut, then back at Shannon. She lowered her voice to a feather of a whisper. “He said he’d wait for me. He promised he’d wait for me.”

“You’re in for life. He’s going to be waiting a long time.”

“Not if they find the real killer.”

“If they were going to, it would have happened already. It’s been eighteen years,” she said, reminding her mother that time was not on her side. She didn’t bother to bring up the powerful evidence that had put her there in the first place, including the shooter’s own testimony that Dora Prince had hired him. That didn’t need to be said, because it didn’t change this interaction.

“Oh, it’ll happen. They’ll realize.”

Shannon bit back all the things she wanted to say. All the truths she wanted to remind her mother of. She didn’t want to rehash the case. She didn’t want to play courtroom trial again. “What does this have to do with Luke?”

Her mom leaned across the table, coming as close to Shannon as she could, and said in a fast breath, “Because he promised to wait for me. He swore he would. And I just found out he’s remarried. One of my girlfriends on the outside told me. Baby, he married another woman. He was supposed to wait for me. For me, for me, for me. And now he’s with someone else, and I’m all alone.” She dropped her head to the table, tears spilling like summer rain from her eyes.

Shannon brushed a hand over her mother’s limp hair. “That’s what you talked to your lawyer about?”

Her mom nodded her head against the table as she sobbed. “Yes. Because it proves something. And lawyers need proof. So I told my lawyer.”

“What does it prove?”

“It proves that Luke lied to me,” she said, her voice breaking like waves. “He lied when he said he’d come back.”

“And that changes everything?”

“Yes. It changes everything for me. Everything.” Her mom cried more, a river of tears rolling down the plastic as Shannon stroked her hair, some strange kind of relief washing over her even in the midst of all this hollowness, all this hurt for the woman her mother had become.

Through it all, one fact remained starkly clear.

The case was closed. Her mother’s fate was irrevocably sealed eighteen years ago, and now she was paying for her crime in so many ways. With her life, with her health, and with her sanity.

Dora Prince lived in her own land, and she’d done it all to herself.