Life Sentences Read Online Free PDF

Cassandra knew where to find the corners her mother never stopped cutting, a legacy of the lean years that had left her so fearful. The refrigerator and the stove would be scratch-and-dent specials, with tiny flaws that prevented them from being sold at full list. The new porcelain sink would have been purchased at Lennie’s “professional” discount—and, most likely, installed by her, along with the faucet and garbage disposal. She had kept the palette relatively plain. “Better for resale,” she said, as if she had any intention of putting the house on the market. Like Penelope stalling her suitors, Lennie continually undid her own work. By Cassandra’s reckoning,this was the kitchen’s third renovation. Lennie was desperate not to leave the house, which had been big for a family of three, almost ruinous for a single mother and daughter, simply ridiculous for a woman now in her seventies.
    But this conversation was already too fraught to take on the subject of the house, which her mother had come to love and defend against all comers. Instead, Cassandra asked her mother, “Do you remember Calliope?”
    â€œAn organ? You mean at the Presbyterian church? And I think it’s pronounced differently, dear.” Her father would have made the correction first.
    â€œNo, in my class. Callie Jenkins. At Dickey Hill, starting in fourth grade. She’s in one of the photographs. She wore her hair in three fat braids, with those little pompon things on the ends.”
    Cassandra bunched up a fistful of her own hair to jog her mother’s memory.
    â€œThree—oh, she must have been black.”
    â€œMother.”
    â€œWhat? There’s nothing bigoted in saying that. Unless you’re me, I guess. I’m not allowed to notice the color of anyone’s skin.”
    Cassandra had no desire to lecture her mother. Besides, she had a point.
    â€œAt any rate, I was watching CNN and there was a story about this case in New Orleans—a woman’s child is missing and she took the Fifth, refused to say where the child is. Someone said it was similar to a case here years ago, involving Calliope Jenkins. It has to be the same person, don’t you think? The age is about right, and how many Calliope Jenkinses could there be in Baltimore?”
    â€œMore than you might think.”
    Cassandra couldn’t tell if her mother was being literal or trying to make some larger point about infanticide or her hometown. “Don’t you think that would make a good book?”
    Her mother pondered. That was the precise word—she puckered her forehead and considered the question at hand as if she were Cassandra’s literary agent or editor, as if Cassandra could not go forward without her mother’s blessing.
    â€œTrue crime? That would be different for you.”
    â€œNot exactly true crime. I’d weave the story of what happened to Callie as an adult with our lives as children, our time in school together. Remember, she was one of the few girls who went to junior high with me.”
    â€œOne of the few black girls,” her mother said with a look that dared Cassandra to correct her for referencing Callie’s race.
    â€œWell, yes. And race is a small part of the story, I guess. But it’s really Callie’s story. If I can find her.”
    â€œEven if you do find her, can she speak to you? I remember the case—”
    â€œYou do?”
    â€œAnyone who lived here at the time would remember.” Was there a implicit rebuke in her mother’s words, a reminder that Cassandra had disappointed her by moving away? “I didn’t recognize her name, but I remember when it happened. The whole point was that she wouldn’t talk. But if she did kill her child, she can still be charged. If she didn’t, why didn’t she cooperate all those years ago?”
    Cassandra was well aware of this particular problem; her editor had raised