Inside These Walls Read Online Free PDF Page B

again an end. What was sundered and undone shall be made whole . But that is not true, because I know I will be torn by this, not only once anymore, but again and again without amnesty.

Chapter Two
    Annemarie leaves with the information she wanted. A summary of everything I can remember about my family’s medical history and the few details I can recall from my pregnancy with her. I’ve told her about my father’s early heart attack, my mother’s cancer, but it’s been so long since I dredged up any of that and my mind feels foggy about anything beyond those stark facts. And as for my pregnancy, there’s very little there, in the cubby of my memory where that time should be. I suppose it was the stress of the arrest, the incarceration, and all of the court business that caused me not to even realize for the first four months or so. And not long after the end of all that, there came the trial, so that was looming over me even then.
    After the hour’s visit I am led back to the Braille workshop. The print of Guernica is still on the light box, topped with my onionskin overlay. I sit on the stool and begin sketching again, continuing my outline of the woman on the far right whose arms are thrown toward the sky. As I draw I add in my little symbols about depth and texture, a code nobody else can read.
    What about my father’s side? Do you know anything about them?
    I’ll have to try to remember all that. I’ll work on it.
    Her eyes squinted up, as if anticipating a blow. Was it Ricky Rowan?
    No, no, no. Your father was a wonderful person, generous and very kind.
    I trace the small window high above the woman in the painting, the sharp angles of the flames leaping above and below her. I begin on the head of the spirit-woman drifting in through the window, her arm and hand holding the lamp, and I stop. I stop.
    “I’m not feeling well,” I say. I turn to the C.O. by the door and repeat myself. “I’m not feeling well.”
    “You need to go to the clinic?”
    No . “I think I just need to rest.”
    “You’re either sick or you’re not sick.”
    I turn back to the light box. I deepen some of my lines, then return to the arm, the lamp, the spirit woman with her mouth agape. I shape the doorways, boxes inside of boxes, each a fresh sharp angle.
    She said, absolutely for sure, that it was you. I didn’t believe her at first .
    But she believed her in the end, and so she came.
    Clara Mattingly?
    I push it all away. I can do this. I’ve been doing it for a long time, and can keep it up a little longer. I hunch my shoulders above the light box and focus on nothing but the lines of the great wounded war horse at the center, its dark nostrils and dagger tongue stretching forward in an endless scream.
    * * *
    In the hour in my cell between yard time and dinner, while Janny is at Narcotics Anonymous and I would normally be dancing, I sit on my floor and tear through the boxes of documents and papers stored beneath the bed. I’m seeking any slip, any shred of connection to the young woman who met my eyes and uttered that phrase. You’re my mother . And there is nothing—not a photograph, not a medical record, certainly not a diary entry. I hoist the thick dot-matrix printout of trial transcripts from the bottom of the cardboard box and sit back against the cold cinderblock wall. The pages are held together by a rusting butterfly clip, and I flip through them, recognizing the testimony of Forrest Hayes—Ricky’s supposed friend, who was with us that memorable weekend.
    Q: And after Mr. Rowan opened the cash register, where was Ms. Mattingly?
    A: Still in the side room, like, near the doorway, to watch over the family. They were still all sitting on the floor in front of the big sink. She had her back to me, but she kept turning her head back and forth to look at Ricky. We were all real nervous by then, except Ricky and maybe Chris.
    Q: And Ms. Mattingly was armed.
    A: Yeah, she had the gun. After Ricky got the register