The clank of metal against metal, a shrill cry, a moan from someone in the depths of prison passion, were so common now that she hardly noticed them. Each day was the same as the thousand next and the one before it.
In the beginning, she’d simply curled up at the corner of her bunk at night, fearful of what might happen if she fell asleep. Given the nature of her supposed crime, she was immediately ostracized by the other inmates. Other than former cops, baby killers received the worst treatment inside prison.
Dinnertime was the worst. The other inmates’ chanting the words baby killer, baby killer greeted her as soon as she entered the utilitarian cafeteria each day. It wasn’t unusual for a spoonful of food to fly across the cafeteria, smacking her in the face, or to have a glob of instant mashed potatoes smashed in her hair as though she were nothing but a thing to torment. As hard as it was, Tessa refused to fight back. After a few years, she blended in, just like the others. She was a number, an inmate, a convicted murderer. She would die here in Florida’s Correctional Center for Women. No one would care; there would be no memorial service to honor the person she’d been. Nothing. She would be carted out in a pine box, and from there, she would most likely be buried in the state’s cemetery, where all the other inmates who had died were laid to rest.
Stop, she told herself. Stop! It was these thoughts that would kill her. Not the other murderers and drug addicts. Not the child molesters and rapists housed in the men’s prison across the road. No, she would not die at their hand, but her own, if she continued to allow her thoughts to return to that day, now almost eleven years ago.
She had died that day because since the moment she discovered the dead bodies of her husband and twin daughters floating in their pool, bobbing, up and down, like the red-and-white bobbers used by fishermen, she’d had no life.
Nothing would change the devastation of what her family had suffered. There was no going back. To this very second, she was as traumatized as she’d been the day the words guilty of murder in the first degree filled the courtroom. Nothing would ever bring her a moment of happiness.
Nor did she deserve it. If only she’d stayed home that weekend instead of racing to the mainland to prepare for an indefinite stay with the girls.
The memory of that last day was all too clear to her now, very clear, having emerged in bits and pieces during her ten years in prison. If only she could turn back the hands of time.
Chapter 1
October 2021
Tessa rolled over, facing the same wall she’d viewed for more than ten years. Thirty-seven cracks, 192 tiny holes punched in the shape of a small handgun, courtesy of the prison cell’s previous “guest.” She had often wondered what instrument had been used to make such tiny holes, as any objects that could remotely cause injuries were forbidden. Some days she spent hours thinking about it. It was usually at this point that her circumstances served up a harsh dose of reality. Tears pooled, and she wiped them away with the edge of the wool blanket that covered the thin, worn mattress.
When her thoughts took her back to her previous life, which they did on a daily basis, Tessa did the one thing that helped her to cope with her anxiety.
She exercised.
She lay down on the cold cement floor, hands folded behind her head, and began doing sit-ups. When she reached five hundred, she stopped, a thin sheet of sweat covering her, the hair at the nape of her neck slick with dampness. She stood and began doing jumping jacks, something she’d learned in her seventh-grade gym class. She remembered thinking how stupid some of the girls in her class had looked. A few had developed breasts, some quite large. Jumping up and down with their breasts practically smacking them in the face, she’d been glad to be a bit behind in the physical-development department. The memory brought a mimic of a smile, a rarity. The last time she’d smiled and felt true happiness was nothing more than a distant memory, as though it belonged to someone else.
A lifetime ago.
With the force of an indescribable power, her mind suddenly registered the blatant fact that she’d now been incarcerated longer than her girls had lived. Tears blurred her vision again, and she wiped away the mixture of sweat and tears with the back of her hand. For once, she felt blessed to have the small sink in her cell. She turned on the tap, cold water only—all they were allowed—and she was glad of this missing amenity. The sharp sting of the cold water brought back the harsh reality of what had become of her life.
One day
