He raised his head from my knee, his gaze wide and hopeful. “I swear,” he said, gripping hold of my hand and pressing his lips to it.
“I hope you realize what will happen to me if I do this.” He had to understand the consequences for me. Best-case scenario, I’d get fired from a job I considered my only shot at a real future. Worst case, I’d be incarcerated, even if I did return the money. No way would that amount of missing cash go unnoticed.
“I promise you, Shay, you won’t go to prison,” he said. “No way would I let my sister end up behind bars.”
—
Two months later, I accepted the guilty plea for embezzling as recommended by my court-appointed attorney. From the Seattle cell, I was placed on a transport bus from King County jail and driven across the Tacoma Narrows bridge to the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Purdy, Washington.
When the prison door locked behind me, the sound reverberated in my head like a thunderbolt, shaking the entire room. I was locked away from any hope for a decent future. Any hope of making something out of my crummy life.
From any hope whatsoever.
My sentence was three years. I’d risked everything for my brother. I had no one to blame but myself. After giving the money to Caden, I hadn’t heard from or seen him since. His promise was empty. I’d known it at the time and had still given in. Deep down I accepted that my brother couldn’t be trusted. He’d never intended to fulfill his promise, and now I was paying the price.
Helping Caden had stolen my future and sentenced me to a life I had worked so hard to escape.
All was lost.
Any chance for a decent future.
All hope.
I don’t know what made me believe there would ever be anything else but struggles and pain for me. Even when I tried to do the right thing, I got kicked in the head.
Three years later
I was released from the Washington Corrections Center for Women in Purdy at midnight the first week of December. Apparently the state of Washington wasn’t interested in paying for my upkeep one minute longer than necessary. No one stood outside the prison gates to greet me. Any friends I’d made while working at Pacific Bank had been quick to disassociate themselves from me, not that I blamed them. My only living family was my brother, and he was the reason I’d gone to prison in the first place.
In all three years of my incarceration, I hadn’t received a single letter from Caden. The first letter I’d mailed him had been returned with a notice that he’d moved with no forwarding address. I shouldn’t have been surprised. For all I knew he’d taken that five thousand dollars and escaped to Mexico. One thing I could count on was the fact that he didn’t have a shred of guilt for what he’d done to me.
Bitterness ate at me, consumed me. I should have ulcers for all the nights I’d lain awake and replayed that final scene with Caden. What an idiot I’d been to let him talk me into stealing money for him. To save his life. Yeah, right. Caden had missed his calling. He should be on the stage. His acting ability was worthy of a Tony.
As much as possible I stayed to myself while in prison. I took accounting classes, although it was probably a waste of time with my record. I sincerely doubted any company would take a chance on hiring me. As for the dream of one day getting my CPA license, that ship had sailed. The best I could hope for now was working as a hotel maid or in a restaurant washing dishes. Whatever it was, I was going to need housing and a job, and I was going to need them immediately.
Right. Like that was going to happen.
I had information on the closest bus stop, walked there in the cold and dark, and waited until daylight. I sat, chilled to the bone, with the wind buffeting against me until I got on the first available bus that would take me to downtown Seattle, over fifty miles away. Everything I owned in the world was in one small suitcase. All I had on me was a few hundred dollars in cash. I was afraid to spend it on anything other than bare necessities, not knowing how long I was going to need it to last.
The one constant for nearly the entire length of my sentence had been letters from an elderly woman named Elizabeth. She was a retired teacher who volunteered for Prison Fellowship, the Christian organization started by Chuck Colson, another felon. In her letters, Elizabeth talked a lot about God and her own life.
I wasn’t particularly interested in either, but it was mail. I was desperate for any link with the outside world. While I was grateful, this old lady had no idea of what my life was like. She lived in a lily-white world that was the opposite of my own. I read her letters but basically ignored what she had to say. She seemed to consider it her duty to be hopeful for me, to encourage and inspire me. When I did write her back I pretended to believe her, but I knew better. It was far too late for me. I had no future. The poor woman was delusional. She didn’t have a clue. Not a single clue of what my life was like.
In my last letter, I explained that when I was released I would have no place to live, no job, no family to help me. I laughed when I read her reply. She wrote that I should trust God and that she’d be praying for me. Yeah, right, like it had worked so well in the past.
I quickly wrote her back with a page full of questions. Doubts poured out of me until the letter was an entire page, written on both sides. I vented about the injustices that had happened in my life, the unfairness, my anger and fears. My hand could barely move fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. The lead in the pencil broke several times as I pressed it hard against the paper and I blasted at her for being naïve.
This woman was a joke.
In the end, I didn’t mail the letter. Why waste a stamp? Elizabeth had this mountain of faith, and my own resembled a pothole in the road. She’d been kind and it felt wrong to lash out at her for not understanding my situation.
I stayed on the bus for three hours until it hit Fourth Avenue in the heart of downtown Seattle. It took that long for the warmth to seep into my bones after my long wait in the December cold.
My first day of freedom and I had nowhere to go. I had nowhere to sleep that night and no one to ask for help. I stepped out onto the sidewalk and drew in a deep breath. A homeless person was asleep on the sidewalk, tucked up against the bus shelter. That could well be me in a matter of hours.
Breathing in the taste of freedom, I had to admit it frightened me more than anything ever had, including my father’s fist. To my surprise, when I looked up I realized the bus had let me off in front of a church.
It was almost comical. A church. Really?
Not having anyplace else to go, I decided to step inside and hope it was warm and that no one would kick me out. I had a list of shelters in Seattle, but spending the night in one was my last resort. From what I’d been told, shelters didn’t take people in until nightfall, which was hours away. A church would be a relatively safe place to hang around until I could find someplace else.
I walked up the steps to the church, and thankfully the door opened. I’d half suspected that it would be locked up tight. I wasn’t there to pray. All I wanted was to stay out of the cold.
Once inside, I went from the lobby into the interior, which was dark and empty. As I stood in the back and looked toward the altar, the sanctuary felt cavernous. I was sure if I were to call out, my voice would echo back at me. Row upon row of wooden pews lined each side of the center aisle.
I had been inside a church only a few times in my life. Once with my mother, who took my brother and me on Christmas Eve; I must have been four or five at the time. Dad got mad when he found out about it, shouting at Mom. I remembered his anger more than anything that happened while we were at church. They gave me a little Bible, but Dad took it away. I’d wanted to keep it and cried because I’d never had a book before. Mom said I could get another someday, but I never did.
I stood in the middle of the church aisle. It didn’t look anything like the church of my childhood memory. The church of my youth had been a small neighborhood one. This was a large city church. Stained-glass windows allowed meager light to flicker against the floors. Unsure what to do next, I slipped into the back pew and sat down. A nativity scene was set up close to the altar and I focused on the figure of the baby. I felt as helpless as a newborn, alone and desperate.
Tears pricked at my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. I was tough by this time; emotion was a weakness I didn’t dare display while behind bars. I’d seen what happened to the women who lowered their guard and showed signs of vulnerability. I was determined it would never be me. Consequently, I’d shut down emotionally as much as possible, remaining stoic and indifferent to all but a precious few.