The guard stepped forward and said, “Hey,” as she held up a rectangle of cardstock.
“Just giving her my business card,” Reyes said. The guard approached and examined it before handing it to Lucky and returning to the other side of the room. Marisol Reyes, it read. Driver San Diego Third-Strikers Foundation.
“What is this?”
“It’s the organization I work for now. A nonprofit—”
“Are you serious, Reyes?”
At least Reyes had the good grace to flush and look away. “This is legit. It’s a group of lawyers who help third-strikers—like your dad—get released from prison. I’m a driver, like the card says. I pick people up if the lawyers are successful in getting them out, help get them identification, clothes, a meal, leads on places to live—”
“And maybe recruit them? For your so-called charity? Maybe pawn them off on Priscilla? You should be ashamed—”
“I don’t work for Priscilla anymore. You know how badly I always wanted to get away from her. But listen, we don’t have time to discuss any of that. Your dad is struggling.” Reyes glanced at the clock behind them. “You should get in there.”
“Struggling how?”
“Forgetting things. A lot of things. Just call me, okay? To talk about your dad, but…” She stepped closer and lowered her voice. “I saw you on TV. And I promised your dad I’d always look out for you. Call me.”
Then Reyes was gone, out the waiting room door, while Lucky moved forward into the visiting room, which resembled a cafeteria. She spotted her father, sitting alone at a table in the corner, staring vacantly ahead. He looked smaller.
He started to stand when he saw her, then sat back down. The guilt she had managed to keep at bay swarmed around her like bees.
“Hi, Uncle John,” she said, sitting down at the table.
“How’ve you been, Lucky?”
“You’re not supposed to call me that,” she said, voice low.
“Sorry. It was…?”
“Sarah.”
“Right.” He smiled, embarrassed. “Sorry, it’s been a while. Sarah Armstrong. My niece.”
“Reyes mentioned you haven’t been feeling well.”
He frowned. “Did she? You saw her out there? Well, I’m not that bad.”
“Ten minutes left!” the guard nearest the door called out.
Snippets of other conversations rose around them. “I miss you so much…” “We’re having some troubles…” “Ramen noodles would be nice, maybe some chocolate…” “Baby Katie did the funniest thing last night…”
“I’m in trouble,” Lucky finally said. But she smiled so it would just seem like they were having a normal conversation, and her father did the same, his smile wobbly. “Cary. He—”
“He turned up again, after all these years?”
“This is hard. I didn’t tell you, but we were together. For the last decade.” She couldn’t tell if he was surprised. He looked hurt, more than anything. “I’m sorry, okay? I don’t have time to explain it all now—but he took off on me.”
“Ah, well, good riddance. I didn’t tell you, but I always knew he was—”
“You don’t get it. We were… working.” She looked at her father steadily, hoping he would understand. “We went too far. A lot of money was involved. Not ours.”
“I see,” her father said. “I know what working means.”
“We had a plan. To go to Dominica. But instead, he took off. The day before yesterday. Now they’re looking for me. I’m in trouble.” She saw the hurt in his eyes and it was a hard thing to witness: the pain she had been planning to cause him by taking off.
“Truth is, I don’t know how I can help you,” he said sadly. “Not from in here. I’m so sorry, kiddo. I never wanted this to happen to you.”
“I have something that could help, though—something big.” She glanced at the guard nearest their table, but he wasn’t paying attention to them. “Remember you and me, our road trips when I was a kid, how you’d always let me buy a lottery ticket and play my lucky numbers? Do you remember?”
“Sure,” he said. “Of course I do.”
“I bought a ticket to remember you by.”
“Like I was dead or something? Gone from your life, that was going to be it, after everything—”
“I won.”
He stopped talking. He blinked a few times. “How much?”
“All of it.”
“Don’t joke.”
“I won three hundred and ninety million dollars.”
He hooted out a laugh. “Did I hear you right? Are you sure you’re not putting me on?”
“Why would I come all the way here, under my current circumstances, to tell you a joke about a winning lottery ticket?”
He was silent. Then, “Well, what are you going to do about it?”
“That’s what I was hoping you could help me with.”
“Have you done the math?” he asked.
“What math?”
“On how many years, if you got brought in. Any idea?”
“It would be a lot,” she said over a frightened lump in her throat. “More than you. Probably thirty.”
Reyes’s card was still in Lucky’s hand. She had been fiddling with it, hands nervous in her lap, but now she lifted them onto the table and her father looked at it.
“No—what you should not do is ask Reyes for help. She’s on probation. She’s doing so well. Couldn’t be associating herself with someone who was—well, you know, trouble. Did she tell you when you saw her in the waiting area, about her job?”
Lucky shoved Reyes’s card in her pocket. “I won’t call her,” she said. “Don’t worry. You’ll get out, with your precious Reyes helping you.” The bitter jealousy in her voice made her feel seventeen again. “And I—” In the silence between them that followed, Lucky was aware of the seconds ticking past, seconds that had seemed so precious before but were now worthless. “Who knows what I’ll do? Not your problem, I guess.”
“Five minutes!” a guard shouted.
He started wringing his hands, a nervous habit she was not familiar with. “You know,” he said, unclasping his hands and putting them on the table, “you truly are the luckiest girl in the world. I’ve always told you—”
“Stop. Please. Not now. I’m not.”