Page 34 of Jar of Hearts
“I can’t blame Lenny for not loving me anymore. Everything he loved about me is gone. My looks. My laugh. My sex drive. Last time we had a conjugal visit, I spent half the time sleeping. Best I could manage was a hand job.” The older woman attempts a smile, but it’s weak. “This isn’t what he signed up for. We had plans for when I got out. Mount Rushmore, Mount St. Helens, the Grand Canyon—we were going to sleep in motel rooms, fuck like rabbits, collect those souvenir shot glasses from every place we visited. I got sick and changed all that.”
“He’s a goddamned cheating bastard,” Geo spits. She can’t help it. “It’s not right. It’s not fair.”
“Yes, and yes,” Cat says patiently. “But we already know that about life. Tomorrow, you’ll be a free woman, and I want you to go home and never look back. Rebuild your life. Find a man. Get married. Have kids. Put all this shit behind you. And don’t ever come back here, ever. Not even to see me. Not even when I’m dying.”
“Stop it.” Hot tears sting Geo’s eyes, but she blinks them away before they can fall. “You’re not going to die in here. They’re going to grant you compassionate parole. We’re supposed to hear back from the parole board any day now. And when you get out, I’ll take you to all those places—”
“I won’t make it,” Cat says gently, stroking Geo’s arm. “Accept it.”
“No—”
“Accept it,” Cat says again, more firmly.
Never, Geo thinks, but she nods. It’s not her place to argue with a sick woman.
Her friend’s gaze flickers to the TV sitting on the desk. “What’s that doing there?”
“That’s your brand-new TV,” Geo says. “Otherwise known as my old TV, which you can now have. Eight inches of non-high-definition color, for your viewing pleasure.”
“I wish it was eight inches of something else for my pleasure.”
Geo snorts. “Like you could handle that.”
“You’d be surprised. I’m small, but I’m mighty.”
The women share a hearty laugh.
“It’s yours now.” Geo turns it on and fiddles with it for a moment. “Look,The Young and the Restlessis on.”
She sits on the chair next to the bed. Technically, Cat needs to be approved to have a TV in her cell, but Geo can’t imagine anyone will deny her sick friend something that Geo doesn’t need anymore, anyway.The Young and the Restlessis Cat’s favorite soap opera. It brings her comfort to watch the two lead characters scream at each other yet again.
“When will she realize that he’s no good for her?” Cat says with a dramatic sigh.
“Never,” Geo says, her feet propped up on the desk. She munches on one of Cat’s crackers and files her nails with the small emery board she bought in commissary. “Their angst will go on forever until one of them dies. It’s a soap opera.”
The irony of fussing with her nails while watchingThe Young and the Restlessisn’t lost on her. Five years ago, Geo had regular appointments at the nail salon down the street from her house. It was owned by a small Vietnamese woman named May, who was learning English through American soap operas. The salon had a TV mounted in the corner andThe Young and the Restlesswas always playing at full volume. Geo would relax in a puffy faux-leather chair, her feet soaking in a tub full of swirly water, as May worked on her manicure. Every so often the woman would look up and ask, “What meanscandal?” or, “What meanadulterer?” and Geo would explain.
Those mani-pedi appointments seem like an absurd luxury now. Along with her Range Rover, her twelve-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets, her countless pairs of Stuart Weitzman high heels. Everything has been stored at her dad’s place since her housewas sold, and while she’s looking forward to getting out of Hellwood, she’s dreading going back to her childhood home. But there’s nowhere else to go.
The Young and the Restlessends, and Geo turns to find Cat asleep, her breathing deep and even. Geo watches her for a moment, her heart swelling and breaking at exactly the same time. The papery skin, the blue-veined eyelids, the dry, deflated lips. How can she leave her friend in here to die?
Fucking Lenny. It isn’t fucking fair.
“You’re being creepy.” Cat’s eyes are still closed, but there’s a hint of a smile on her face. “I love you, too. Stop staring and let an old woman rest.”
The news comes on. Geo watches absently as a pretty blonde reporter highlights the day’s top stories. And then suddenly her father’s house appears on the TV screen.
She sits up straight, pulling the TV a few inches closer. There’s no mistaking her childhood home. Same taupe-gray siding, same bright blue door, same dark-red Japanese maple tree to the left of the garage that’s always been there. Geo strains to listen, not wanting to turn the volume up because she doesn’t want to wake Cat.
“Police haven’t yet confirmed the identities of the victims, but we can confirm that one is an adult female and the other is a minor,” the reporter says, her diction clear and even. “To recap, both bodies were discovered in the woods just behind Briar Crescent in the Sweetbay neighborhood, reminding local residents of a similar discovery more than five years ago. More to come after the break.”
The news cuts to commercial, and Geo sinks back into the chair. Terror seizes her heart in a vice grip, wrapping it in steel fingers that won’t let up. Beside her, Cat snores.
Calvin’s back.
Just in time to welcome her home.
13
