For a few days afterwards, I could press my fingers up into myself and find the raw spot Kellen had left. The swelling in my wrist went down after a few days, and left a bruise in the shape of his fingers. Then that faded, too.
I put the ring away in the velvet box the lady in the jewelry store had given me, because I couldn’t wear it anymore. Kellen had made me keep the ring, but he hadn’t put it back on my finger. That meant it wasn’t my wedding ring. When I pressed it to my mouth it was just a rock. The difference between a meteor falling through the atmosphere and a meteorite lying in the dirt.
I didn’t regret kicking my electric typewriter down the stairs. Aunt Brenda had given it to me for my high school graduation, and whether she intended it or not, gifts take up space in your heart. I needed that space now. I finished my Spanish essay on a computer on campus. For the letters I needed to write, I had the manual Underwood that Grandma taught me to type on. It was Army green and weighed almost thirteen pounds. It worked fine, and Grandma didn’t take up any more room in my heart than a floor takes up space in a house.
When Renee wasn’t complaining about the sound of me typing, she was hovering anxiously. I don’t know what she thought I would do if she left me alone too long. Get high on correction fluid? Or maybe she thought I would do what I did: write a letter a day to Kellen’s parole officer until his supervisor wrote me back.
Dear Miss Quinn,
I apologize for the delay in responding to your letters. To answer your questions: the conditions of Jesse Joe Barfoot’s parole were not set by this office. Therefore, we are unable to alter the no contact order. The conditions of his parole were set by the sentencing judge. To have them changed, you would need to file a formal appeal in the district court where he was sentenced.
Sincerely,
James Teeter
“What happens now?” Renee said.
“Formal appeal in district court.”
I opened my accordion file folder, put the letter in one slot, and pulled out a Form J-319-7. Modification to Orders of Protection and No Contact. I put it in the old Underwood and rolled it up.
“Wow, there’s a form for that?” Renee said.
I’d requested the form, even before I knew I would need it, just like I’d requested copies of Kellen’s final judgment from the district court. I took those out, too, to be sure I got everything correct on the form.
It made me sick to see him listed there by the name he never wanted: Jesse Joe Barfoot, Jr. They’d taken away his identity, pressed him back into his father’s mold. Kellen wasn’t the only one who had his identity stripped away in those records. Every place I appeared, I was the minor victim, identified only as WLQ. To protect me, of course, even if I didn’t want to be protected. That was what I put in the very small space provided on the form for me to justify my request to have the no contact order rescinded. I do not wish to be protected by the court’s order, as the defendant presents no danger to me.
“Have you considered becoming a lawyer?” Renee said, while I typed.
“Never.” I thought of all the lawyers who’d passed through my life, and I didn’t envy any of them the part they’d played.
I drove up to Garringer by myself to file the form and pay the fifty dollar filing fee. After that, I waited. Just like I’d been waiting for years. Renee talked about how electronic mail was going to be the next big thing, but the dented mailbox in the front hall of our apartment building was still my god. Every day I prayed that it would deliver up a letter from Donal or from someone who knew where he was. I prayed for it to bring me an answer from the district court.
I wondered if that was what it was like for Kellen, after he’d written Liam’s phone number on my arm. When he was sitting alone and bleeding, waiting for me to come back, had it seemed like a month to him? Had it seemed longer? Had it seemed hopeless?
14
KELLEN
July 1990
That first week, I slept at the same dive hotel where I’d stayed when Beth’s grandkids came to visit. Most of June, when the weather was good, I stayed at a campground in a tent I picked up from an Army surplus store. Reminded me of sleeping out in the meadow with Wavy, and it was that memory as much as the summer heat that made me give it up. After a couple more nights in a motel, I moved in with Craig, one of the guys at the shop. Him and his wife was expecting a baby, though, and she didn’t like me being there when he was out.
By the middle of August, I was back to another crappy motel, and working as many hours as I could, so I wouldn’t have to be at the motel except to sleep.
I had my head up under the hood of a Toyota when somebody said, “Jesse,” behind me. There was Beth, with her hair dyed this new dark color of red, holding my baseball bat. Wouldn’t have surprised me if she’d swung it at me, but she said, “You forgot this. Thought you might want it. And your winter coat.”