EIGHTY-FIVE

This much can be said of prison:

It does give one time to think.

How quickly one becomes accustomed to the unimaginable, learns to put a brave face on it.

Bad food, when one has always been accustomed to the best?

One can stomach just about anything to survive.

Contemplating one’s own death?

Well, one must surely do so sooner or later. And, in prison, where time loses its shape, sooner and later become close to one and the same.

Left with no society but oneself?

Now that is a little harder. It takes a strong mind to survive hour upon hour with no other entertainment but the meanderings, wantings, and recriminations of one’s own mind. Even the sturdiest minds have been shaken under similar circumstances.

But I had been shaken too often before. It was now time to assess where I had come from, where I was going.

It occurred to me that for all of Chance’s self-confidence concerning his knowledge of John, I might yet know my dead husband better than he did. His theorizing about John’s motives was fine as far as it went, but I suspected there was something even further beyond what he’d seen. Perhaps John had wanted to test me. Perhaps he had wanted to see me fail. But I believed John’s great deadly sin was pride. This he had in common with Chance, the man who was moved to outrageous murder at the notion of being put in a book. John’s pride led him to want a wife who knew about sin, a wife who had been tested, but who still loved him. John had once said, “I choose Emma. I will always choose Emma.” In laying his great test before me, he had gambled, and lost, that I would choose the same.

Well, I would learn from them. Pride would not be my sin.

It took me a long time to accept what Chance said with such sureness, about there being a difference between the ways in which men and women go about the business of love. Was it possible he was right, that men are able to confine it to one corner of their existence, no matter how strong their feelings might be, while women let it infect every corner until nothing else matters?

I thought that, based on my own admittedly limited experiences, there must be some truth in his words. It was depressing, in his case, to think how much truth there was. He had been able to feel great feelings and yet still remember to protect himself. I, on the other hand, had risked everything for him and I had lost.

But whose fault was it really, my descent from normal society into the place I now found myself?

True, I had been used, manipulated, by both Chance and John. But did I see myself as a victim?

No.

I had acted. It had been my decision. Even when it had been Chance’s hand, it had somehow been my hand too.

True, I had been influenced, confused. But I saw this was no excuse for abdicating responsibility for what I had done: I had wanted the descent; I had wanted to fall.

Well, at least, I knew now I had never been crazy.

Confused?

Perhaps.

But never crazy.

There was a peculiar satisfaction to be had in that, a peculiar satisfaction in owning my responsibility.

I had passed through a crucible and I had failed the test, been found wanting. And, when everything was said and done, there was no one to blame but myself.

But, here is the thing: Just because I had failed once, no matter how miserably, no matter in how deadly a fashion, must I remain on the same seemingly predetermined course? Could I not, perhaps, act to change the future, act to achieve my own resurrection?

I knew one thing. There was no point in my trying to tell someone the truth: that Chance had acted with me; had, in fact, been the hand that held the knife. For one thing, no one would ever believe me. They would assume I was lying to save myself.

Then it occurred to me: Perhaps they would believe me! After all, he was a convicted murderer. Despite the diary—that blasted diary!—should not his own murderous past speak out as some sort of proof against his nature?

But then I thought, what good would that do in saving me? For it would only bring him down with me. Unless of course I was able to persuade someone he had acted alone, that I had somehow been forced to accompany him as witness on that fateful night. But I would do neither of those things: the former, because it was pointless, save for pure revenge; the latter because, even if I was on the path to becoming more pragmatic, I could not do that to him, even if it was what he had done to me.

I knew one other thing now for stone-cold certain and that was that Chance was right, the men’s way was right:

There was something to be said for a modicum of pragmatism.

Pure romanticism, on the other hand, could get a person killed.