*
After that terrible visit, my father still sent letters each week but with no mention of a visit—just news about work, the house, friends, and only brief mentions of my mother, what she’d planted in the yard, how she was repainting the fence and had bought a new patio set. I tried to read between the lines, tried to tell myself she might still come around one day. I wondered sometimes now if my father also believed I was guilty but loved me all the same. I don’t know which thought was more painful, and I knew I’d never be able to ask him.
I finally got the package from my dad with the photos I requested and Pinky grudgingly made room on the wall. Her side was mostly covered with photos of her kids—she had four, all in foster care. She cried sometimes because one of the foster parents wasn’t sending letters or bringing the kid for visits. Every week she’d get letters from the other ones, or little handmade cards. I taped up all the photos of Nicole and Ryan, then lay on my bed and stared at them until I finally fell asleep, Nicole’s sweet smile chasing me into my dreams.
*
A month later, I called my lawyer for news about my appeal, my hands shaking on the phone. His voice grim, he said, “I don’t have good news.”
I listened, my heart thudding loud in my head. The judges at the appeals court had decided that the original judge had made the right decision. The next step would be to take it to the Supreme Court, but it would be costly, and I could sense that he thought it would be futile. I also thought of what my mom had said and knew there was no way I could ask them to take this any further.
“What about legal aid?” I said.
“Without any new evidence or witnesses, you’d have a tough time finding anyone who’s going to take this on.”
“There has to be someone who can help.” I felt panicky, my last chance slipping through my fingers.
“I’ve asked around, but no one was interested.”
I sat silent, his words crashing down around me. No one was interested.
“I’m really sorry, Toni.”
“There’s nothing we can do?”
“Something may come to light in a few years.” He was quiet for a beat. “But some people, they find it’s easier to just do their time and learn to have some kind of life inside. You’ll still be a young woman when you get out.”
“But I didn’t do it!” Anger was starting to choke my throat, making it hard to think, to speak. I looked around, took in my surroundings. This was all I was going to see for years, cement and metal. He was telling me to let go of hope. To give up. And he was right. There was nothing left.
“Try to focus on the future, take some courses,” he said.
“My life is over.” I hung up the phone.
*
My dad came for a visit a couple of days later, and he was alone. I noticed how gray his hair was getting, seemingly overnight. He had pouches under his eyes and he looked like he’d lost weight. I was just about to ask about Mom when he quickly said, “Your mom has a bad cold and couldn’t make the trip, but she was sorry to hear about the verdict.”
I nodded and forced a smile so he wouldn’t think I was too upset. I knew I shouldn’t be surprised that she hadn’t come, but it still stung. She’d probably taken the court’s decisions as another sign of my guilt—she’d been right about me all along. I had a feeling she’d have been more upset if I’d been freed and gone unpunished for Nicole’s death. I wondered if they’d been fighting about me.
“Are you guys okay?” I said.
“We’re fine. Everything’s fine.”
I wished he would just be real and tell me what was actually happening for them, but I knew he wouldn’t. Just like I wasn’t going to tell him what was really happening for me on the inside. It had been like that for years with us, ever since my life started imploding in high school. Why would anything change now?
We talked for a while, but I couldn’t get lost in the chatter. The stuff he was telling me about the outside, a new house they were building, things that were happening in town, either frustrated me or made me sad that I wasn’t a part of them. I tried to disconnect from the pain he was stirring up, the noise in my head, but then I went to a hard place, an angry place where I wondered how he could talk about such trivial things when I’d lost what was probably my last chance at freedom, when Nicole’s murderer was still out there. How could he move on like this? When I was in high school it felt like we weren’t in the same world—now it felt like we weren’t even in the same universe.