Chapter 33
Pill did not wake up to the smells of her sister’s rosemary roasted turkey. Neither did she make her customary string bean casserole, nor did she salivate over her best friend’s sweet potato soufflé. Instead, she dined on a cheddar bratwurst and tater tots.
She thought about entertaining a few clients who, like her, were alone and saw getting their hair done on Thanksgiving as a perfect way to avoid the crowds. She had signed a rental agreement on a suite in a salon plaza in Fountain Square. She would have saved money and done hair out of her kitchen, but she held out hope that her husband would return.
She had no doubt her regular customers would follow her despite Carmen’s invitation to personally service them. She had been successful, thanks to her ex-coworkers who alerted all her former clients that she worked alone. She was technically her own boss, but she missed the gang. In her opinion, salons were meant to be communal with a variety of style options and varying opinions on what looks good and what doesn’t.
Pill had set an agenda to be charitable starting early that morning by loading up three bags of her things with her favorite ivory boots on top to donate to the local collection center. Before she could take them there, she thought of the one person who might need and appreciate some of her most special things more.
She found an empty Oldsmobile tucked away on a cross street just past the shopping center that housed the Lend It loan store. Two practically new pair of work boots sat on the curb next to the rear tire. Pill was hesitant to leave her goods there. Realizing that Martin and his teenage daughter didn’t have much storage space, she rebagged three pairs of designer jeans, two sweaters, a pair of ballerina flats, and the alpine boots and poncho set she just had to have from Ahmad, the hustle man.
She hoped the things would reach her intended recipient. Pill said a prayer that the saints would continue to do their part so that one day she’d ride past this corner and not see Martin panhandling there.
Now she found herself en route to Mecklenburg Correctional Center. She knew if she ever went to see her mother it would be on a whim. It was a crazy drive, almost two hours toward the North Carolina border. She’d wake up and take off without giving herself much time to think about how inconvenient the whole visit would be.
In actuality, she had thought about taking a trip like this for the last eight years of her life. It never felt like the right time until now.
It was a bit of a shock to see her mother shackled as they escorted her into the prisoners’ side of the room. She thought the Plexiglas partitions and phone receivers were a Hollywood interpretation of what a prison really looks like. This was maximum security. She couldn’t even hug her mother if she wanted too. Her mom was doing some serious time.
Sheree Jones was shorter than Pill remembered her, shrouded in the orange prison-issued jumpsuit. Her dark chocolate complexion, much like Pill’s, was clear and smooth. She could have been a beautiful woman if she cared enough about her appearance. But she had eyes so big and wide they haunted her. Pill noticed her already-thinning hair was pulled back tightly in a knot at the back of her head. Fond recollections of brushing her mother’s hair when Pill was younger came rushing to mind and the ongoing joke that Pill was snatching her bald, as her mother would put it. She shrugged off the memory, feeling that warmhearted memories gave her mom too much credit.
Her mom waited until her hands were unshackled by the guard before picking up the receiver. “Hey, baby girl, where’s your sister? Did she come with you?”
Pill looked around. She wasn’t alone on her side of the room. An older man sat next to her, waiting for his loved one to be brought from the cell block.
“I came alone. I don’t know if you noticed, but I am all grown-up. I’m not in Sheena’s care anymore. I’m married,” Pill shared, not knowing what her mother knew of the outside world—her world.
She smirked. “I know that, baby girl. Your sister brought in your wedding pictures. Don’t think I don’t keep up with you. You were a beautiful bride. Look at you now; you’re gorgeous like I knew you’d turn out to be. No longer are you my little string bean.”
Pill put up her hand to stop the pleasantries. This trip was not about that to her. “I’m not here for all that.”
“Okay, okay, tell me, to what do I owe the pleasure after eight years,” her mother half-mumbled to herself.
“This trip is about me facing the fact that my mom is serving a life sentence, and me, feeling like I’m doing the same all this time.” Pill used the hand she gestured with to wipe her eyes just in case a tear dared to form or fall.
Pill looked at the man next to her as if to apologize for what she was about to say. She lowered her voice, talking purposefully into the mouthpiece. “I want to keep this short and sweet. I just want to know why Sheena and I were never good enough. Why we were always put last. You chose my father, who was no good. You chose to turn to drugs and alcohol, and that was no good for you. Your absences. Your shoplifting. You never chose us, and we were in need.”
She noticed her mother squirm. Sheree cradled the phone between her neck and shoulder and began to play with a scab on the back of her hand before answering. “I was sick, baby girl. Addictions had me doing things I wouldn’t do otherwise.”
“That’s a lie,” Pill fired back. She kept a loaded arsenal of memories that had plagued her existence to back her up. “You’d come out of the treatment center clean. You had lived without drugs for months before the incident. When you had that miscarriage, you even put the bottle down too.” Is she addicted to being addicted? “You never gave up the boosting, though. The one thing I can’t get over was that you were sober when you robbed that store. Why couldn’t you leave the shoplifting alone?”
Pill realized she was not the only one who played with her hair when she was put on the spot. She watched her mother use her forefingers to scratch the crown of her head before using the palm of her hand to smooth back down the wisps of hair she upset. Pill wondered when the last time was that she had a good wash and conditioner.
“Risk taking and thrill seeking are actually addictions. Adrenaline is as potent as any drug. It was my drug of choice, or at least that is what the counselors in here seem to think. Apparently my need to risk and win out over my conscience and the overall odds will continue to put me in dangerous situations.”
Pill thought her mother sounded like a textbook. She wondered whether she truly believed in that root cause or if they had indoctrinated her in prison. What about her own risky behavior of the past? How many times had she just made it while other people had to bail her out?
“They got me seeing a therapist for Emotional Release Therapy,” she cackled and coughed, making Pill wonder whether she had a stint with nicotine as well. “Sounds like a bunch of bunk, don’t it?”
“No, Mom, it doesn’t.” Pill stared at her incredulously through the plate glass. “You killed a person. Daniel Rodriguez, a man who can’t go home to his family, and for what? Two hundred sixty-three dollars out of the register.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” Sheree Jones said in a way that scared Pill. Her eyes intensified, and her teeth clenched. Pill didn’t remember her mom being a big disciplinarian, but she did remember her anger. It was that anger toward others or their circumstances that usually led to her irrational behavior.
They brought in another inmate, which gave her mom cause to calm down. She didn’t acknowledge the woman with stringy blond hair, but turned immediately back to her daughter.
“It’s the shame and the guilt we are trying to numb when we risk,” her mom continued.
Pill wondered if her mom was referring to her when she spoke of we. Was she a textbook risker too?
“I’ll go along with anything if it can get me out of here; the therapy, the medication, all of it, just so I can get back to my family.” Her mom licked her lips at the prospect. “Therapy is the road to early release, and with two loving daughters willing to write a few letters on my behalf and help me get acclimated to the world on the outside, I might get time served in less than two years.”
“Why? So one day we can wonder where you are, and you end up robbing a bank? What good would that do to come out if you’re not ready? You are not fully healed, and to me, that means you haven’t paid your debt to society. You owe it to that man’s family to be better.”
Pill felt a huge knot in her chest. She kept telling herself it didn’t happen to her. She didn’t lose a family member like that man’s family.
“You act like you don’t want me home, baby girl,” her mother said, leaning toward the glass.
Pill pulled the straps of her purse that was sitting on her lap up on her shoulder. “And you act like nothing has changed, like this is all a game or something.”
Pill looked over at the older man next to her, looking adoringly through the glass at his wife who, she could see, was speaking enthusiastically through the receiver. Whatever she had done to be put down obviously had been forgotten. It was not a love fest at all on Pill and her mother’s side. As much as she imagined melting in this woman’s maternal love or the thought that she’d despise her for her despicable deeds, she felt neither.
“That hurts,” her mom smirked. “You’ve always held a grudge. You can’t forgive me, but my Sheena can.”
Pill stood, hovering over the phone’s cradle. “You’re right, Ma. I pray, one day soon, that God can bring me to a point of forgiveness. In the meantime, I hope no one asks my opinion on the early release thing, because to me, letting you out early sounds too risky.”