Her heart resumed its frantic thumping as she rose, stuffing her large handbag onto the chair behind her. He was right beside her now, the shiny handcuffs that swung against his belt reflecting the fluorescent lighting of the office. She felt the PO’s thick hand grasp her lean bicep, and he roughly guided her to the wall.
“Spread ‘em,” he ordered, and she immediately placed her hands up and out against the wall, moving her legs apart as much as her beige skirt would allow. She tried to appear calm and composed, but her continued trembling revealed her fright. At least this time she knew what to expect, unlike the first surprise arrest in her therapy office. Sophie Taylor was returning to prison.
Jerry frisked her in a methodical and business-like manner, his stone face hiding his disappointment. He had thought this one might actually make it. But he had to follow through on the consequence for her parole violation. It was his job. He had no choice.
Unclasping the handcuffs from his belt, he drew one wrist from above her head down to the small of her back, feeling the tremor of fear in her body. Encircling this wrist, then the other, with a cold steel manacle, he joined the two in a shameful binding. Unlike the large, burly men he typically had the pleasure of cuffing, Sophie’s thin, delicate arms fit neatly behind her. She had dipped her head, and he wondered if she was crying.
“Have a seat,” he commanded.
Sophie kept her head down, and they both sat on their respective sides of the desk. Jerry glanced at the panic button on the wall near his desk, for use if a parolee physically threatened him. It had been a few months since he’d pressed it, as the metal detectors at the courthouse entrance had greatly reduced attacks on parole officers. He still had a scar on his belly from a knife wound he sustained twelve years ago, though, and he could not allow himself to become complacent.
Suspiciously eyeing the docile woman across from him, he decided to use a less emergent means of communicating that he had a prisoner ready for transfer. He picked up the phone.
“Yeah, I’ve got a prisoner that needs to go back to Downer’s Grove,” he told whoever was on the other end of the line. Through a surreal fog, Sophie listened to him bark, “Well, don’t make us wait too long. My next con is due in ten minutes.”
He hung up the phone and gave her a stern glance. “Forty percent, Taylor.”
She looked up at him with surprisingly dry eyes. Dry, hollow eyes. “Excuse me?”
“You told me you weren’t returning to prison. You seemed determined to be in the forty percent who don’t violate their parole. And I believed you.”
“I’m sorry.” She sensed his disappointment, and it made her feel even sicker. Kirsten was going to kill her. Sophie had not told her this was a possibility when she left for work this morning. She hadn’t wanted to worry her, and there was nothing Kir could do anyway.
“What the hell were you thinking showing up today without a job? Did you think I would look the other way? Did you think you would just walk out of here?”
“No, sir.” She felt his expectant gaze upon her, but what was the use of explaining? It wasn’t like he cared. It was hopeless.
“I asked you a question,” he prompted. “We have a few minutes before the officers arrive, and I want to find out how I was so wrong about you.”
Reluctantly she began to speak. “Nothing was panning out, but I—I was waiting to hear from a hospital yesterday. I thought for sure I was going to get the job. They promised they would call. And then suddenly it was five, and they hadn’t called, and human resources was closed. Yet another rejection. I didn’t know what to do.” Her expression turned sheepish. “I considered not showing up for our appointment.”
He shook his head. “That would only have delayed the inevitable, Taylor. I would have been a hell of a lot more pissed off at you if you didn’t show up.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I told you to apply for more jobs! Demeaning jobs, stupid jobs, scum of the earth jobs … anything to keep you out of prison.”
“I did!” she insisted. “At least some jobs—I can’t work for minimum wage because I have student loans to pay off, but I did apply for some! And they all told me I was overqualified.”
“You’re telling me that in this massive city, there was not one job you could find?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Bullshit.” She glared at him, and he added, “I think you want to go back to prison.”
“No, I don’t!” she shouted, then looked around, embarrassed by her display of anger. In a softer voice, she continued, “I don’t want to go back. I just couldn’t …”
“You couldn’t what?”
She sighed. “I couldn’t crawl back to my father and beg for a job.”
“You could’ve gotten a job with your father this whole time? Why the hell didn’t you?”
“Let’s just say I don’t want to work in construction.”
Jerry sat thinking for a moment. “That’s your father? Taylor? As in Taylor Construction?”
She smirked. “The very one. Will Taylor. Owner of the largest construction company in Chicago—in all of Illinois, probably.”
“Are you sure you have a PhD? Because you might be the dumbest parolee ever to cross my doorstep! You’re returning to prison instead of working for your father?”
Her eyes flashed with anger. “You don’t know my father.”
She couldn’t hold in the tears in any longer. Why was Officer Stone arguing with her? She had acted unethically and unlawfully. She had selfishly brought on the death of her own mother. She was a horrible person. She should go back to prison. It was where bad people belonged. Where she belonged.
Tears slid down her cheeks, and frustratingly, she could not brush them away with her hands cuffed behind her back. Jerry averted his eyes, unable to watch her looking so broken.
“Maybe you’re right,” she muttered darkly. “Maybe I do want to go back to prison. We both know I can’t make it on the outside.” She exhaled derisively. “I can’t even find a job. I’m a fucking felon.”
Jerry was taken aback. Still puzzled by the woman across from him, he gently asked, “What is so bad about your father that you would choose to go back inside instead of work for him?”
Sophie sniffed. “He hates me.” Sniff. “He blames me for my mother’s death. She died six months ago, when I was inside.” Sniff. “She died because of the stress caused by her only child going to prison.”
His chest ached upon hearing her explanation. He couldn’t bear the death of yet another mother, not when his own mother was hanging onto life by the thinnest of threads. As Sophie continued to sniffle helplessly, Jerry plucked a tissue out of the box and walked around his desk, kneeling next to Sophie and raising the tissue to her face.
“Go ahead, blow your nose.”
Her eyes registered surprise, and she felt simultaneously touched and mortified by his paternal gesture. Not knowing what else to do, she gave a dainty blow into the tissue, and he wiped her nose for her. “Well, I couldn’t have you getting snot all over my officers,” he gruffly explained, rising and tossing the tissue in the garbage.