CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

They arrived one by one.

They each showed up at the door, took half a second to look around, and went directly to the appropriate table. What surprised me was how many of them wore glasses, the lenses gleaming in the fluorescent lights. And how many were gray-haired or bald, as though it took experience to be a prisoner here—this was not a place for beginners.

Each inmate was allowed one quick hug, a kiss, and then they had to take their seat with their hands clasped in front of them, facing the half dozen officers along one wall. The prisoners were dressed alike, a gray T-shirt and gray pants. A form letter from the Department of Corrections had warned, “no visitor will be admitted wearing gray clothing of any kind.”

T-shirts always made Dad look square-shouldered and athletic. He didn’t see us. Cindy stood and waved her arm side to side, a farm girl hallooing silently across a wide field. He still didn’t—and then he gave a tuck of his head and a smile.

We hugged like people in an airport, joyful, but taking it in stride.

“Those sandwiches look good!” he said, prying one of the plastic cartons with his fingernail.

“I thought we’d wait for lunchtime,” Cindy said, as though it was important to do things in the right order.

“Lunchtime!” he said, like he had never heard of such a silly idea.

I took a bite, tuna, with a thin patina of lettuce.

He chewed for a while, “Delicious!” muffled by a mouthful. He had lost more weight, a pucker at the corner of each eye. We tore into our food, glad to have something to do, although I could barely swallow.

He rubbed his hands together, tugged at the short sleeves of his shirt. “When I’m out of here,” he said, letting us get used to the feel of the words, emphasizing the phrase with his eyes, “When I’m out, I’m starting a service. For people who’ve bought cars that are defective.”

Cindy said something I couldn’t make out, busy with her Doritos. She cleared her throat and said, “You’d be proud of that Jaguar.”

He thought about this, his chin jutted ironically, maybe wondering if he was, in fact, likely to feel proud of a car.

“It runs fine,” Cindy said, and I could tell she was wounded by something that had passed between them. They had shared so little conversation in recent weeks that even a glance could hurt. It surprised me, the strength of her feelings.

“Consumers buy cars with cracked head gaskets,” my father was saying, putting some kindness into his voice. “Faulty exhaust,” he added, and Cindy smiled.

“Problems that don’t show up when a mechanic peeks under the hood,” Dad said. “I’ll call it Lemonhounds, something like that. There’s a huge market there.”

The California State Bar Association had compensated my father’s clients, and he could never practice law in the state again. Miss P told me that no one expected a competing diver to be able to handle pre-med classes.

Cindy was saying it was a good idea, she could picture the business cards, a lemon driving a car.

“A lemon in a car.” Dad laughed, affectionately, too hard.

“A hound driving a lemon,” I said.

His eyes brightened. “Good idea, Champion.”

I could not look at him for a moment.

“I’m going to get it all back, Bonnie,” he was saying, leaning toward me across the table. “All of it.”

“We still have contacts, people who believe in Harvey,” Cindy said. “They’ll set Harvey up again like this.” She snapped her fingers, softly, so it didn’t make a sound.

When a guard called over a loudspeaker, “Visiting hours are over,” the inmates began to stand up but didn’t leave their stations.

Dad cocked his head in the direction of the PA system, a round hole covered with a steel grid up near the ceiling. He gave me a you-wouldn’t-believe-this-place roll of his eyes, like this was a restaurant where the service was terrible. The food was bad, and they ignored you when you asked for your check.

I had come with so many things to say, that I still believed in him.

He said, “Next time, Champion.”

Without anyone telling us, we made sure the chairs were pushed all the way in against the tables. The inmates lined up against the far wall, and the visitors lined up against the other. We began to leave the place, two lines walking in opposite directions, but ours was slower.

I watched as he filed from the room, laughing with one of the guards.