Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 127(@200wpm)___ 102(@250wpm)___ 85(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 127(@200wpm)___ 102(@250wpm)___ 85(@300wpm)
Love, Dad.
I assumed that’d be the beginning and the end of it. When her reply showed up in the mail a week later, Fitzroy didn’t even bother to open the envelope. That indifference made swiping the letter out of the trash easy enough, but I still wanted to snap his fucking thumb over it.
Tatum’s letter was a splash of color in that cold, gray place: considerate, funny, and chock-full of heart. I couldn’t let it go unanswered. So I wrote back again, and again, and again, signing off each letter with love and a silent prayer that she’d respond.
And she did.
But now the letters would stop coming. I’m free, and while Gene Fitzroy is still behind bars, he’s not gonna take up the mantle of replying to Tatum’s letters. And she deserves to know why. She deserves not to have her heart broken—again.
“Sir?” Tatum says, bringing me back to the salon.
“Sorry,” I grumble, trying not to stammer like an idiot. “Maybe just, um… Clean it up a bit?”
She tilts her head to the side, running her fingers through my wet hair. I’d let it get long—too long—but she looks at it like maybe she likes it anyway. “Long on the top, short on the sides?” she suggests, and I nod my assent. She can do whatever the hell she likes, as far as I’m concerned.
She gets to work, her hands moving with confident dexterity, displaying no sign of the lack of confidence she expressed in her letters. She catches me watching her in the mirror.
“So,” she says. “You from around here?”
I go to shake my head.
“Nah,” I say mildly.
“Where’re you from?”
I’m about to say, a little place northeast of Brentwood, but I can’t. I came here to tell her the truth. So instead, I say, “Riverbend.” I don’t have to add the Maximum Security Penitentiary to the end of it; she knows what it means.
Her hands still for the length of a heartbeat. I think maybe I’ve lost her forever. But she gives me a smile that’s a soft place for me to land.
“Funny,” she says, her voice barely audible above the background hum of blow dryers and conversation. “That's where my dad is now.”
This is it. This is the moment where I rip off the Band-Aid and let the wound start to heal in the open air. But then she continues, “Maybe you know him? Gene Fitzroy?”
“Can’t say I’ve heard the name.” It kills me to lie to her face.
“He says it's not so bad there, all things considered. The commissary has fineries like instant ramen and his favorite, sour cream and onion potato chips.” She chortles. “Apparently he almost got into an actual prison brawl over a bag of chips.” She catches my gaze in the mirror. “I’m kidding. He's on his best behavior. I'm actually really proud of him.”
I can’t believe she remembers all that, after four years’ worth of letters. Silly, stupid details about her dad’s life on the inside. That was me, my writing, my life, my experience. She read it all, and she remembers.
And I can't do it. Goddamn it, I just can't do it…
“Sounds like you have a real special relationship.” I try on a smile that looks more like a grimace. Coward, I think to myself.
“We do.” Her pink lips curve up at the corners. “We didn't always. But now he's… Well, this might sound sad but he's my best friend.”
“Doesn't sound sad at all.” My heart leaps into my throat.
Coward, bastard, son of a bitch.
Tatum works quietly for a spell, and I try to think of some other way, any other way, that I can make this work. Maybe…maybe I can just keep writing to her, intercept her letters at the mailbox.
Sure, yeah, then I can add mail fraud to my list of felonies. And anyway, how the fuck would I even manage that?
“What’d you do before Riverbend?” she asks. “For work, I mean.”
Time’s running out; my haircut is nearly finished, and I don't have a plan. It's all I can do not to sink down lower in the chair.
“I was a carpenter,” I tell her. “Foreman, actually. Not sure what I’m gonna do for work now I’m back on the outside.”
“So you’re good with your hands,” she says.
I arch my brow. Is she flirting with me? No. Not possible…
“You could say that.”
“Where’ve they got you living now?” she asks. “Halfway house?”
I give a slight shake of my head and she places a steadying finger on my jaw, holding me in place. I relish the slight pressure, the heat from her skin.
“Motel,” I say. “Just ‘til I figure some things out.”
“That doesn’t sound very cozy.”
“It’s not. But it suits me fine…for now.”
“When’s the last time you had a homecooked meal?”
I reach back into my memory and come up blank. Tatum takes the long pause for the response it is.