With Love from the Inside (5 page)

Normal people cringe when the phone rings in the middle of the night. Maybe Sophie startled at unexpected calls when she was younger—she couldn't remember—but after being married to a doctor for almost five years, she didn't jump when the phone rang or when the annoying sound of Thomas's pager turned her dreams into a random game show in which she was constantly running toward a beeping sound she could never quite reach.

Thomas, usually exhausted from a hectic day of surgeries, slept without acknowledging the first round of
beep . . . beep . . . beep.
After two minutes—and yes, Sophie had timed this—if Thomas hadn't responded, a closer, longer, higher-pitched
beeep . . . beeep . . . beeep . . .
had him searching the nightstand for his pager.

If he was totally knocked out—or in a surgery-induced coma, as Sophie liked to call it—the pager would sequence through to its final passive-aggressive demand and launch into a solid ear-piercing
beeeeeeep
. Similar, Sophie guessed, to the sound family members heard when a heart stopped beating and the hospital monitor flatlined.

So early that morning when the pager went off, she assumed the usual—the hospital, calling for Thomas. Another consult, an infected suture, or a new nurse scared to make an independent decision. Whatever the case, he would listen, give orders, then roll over and they'd both go back to sleep. Thomas was good about keeping work matters at work.

But this time was different. Neither of them had slept well. Thomas
had tossed around so much since returning from the hospital after midnight, the silk sheets had pulled off the mattress corners on his side of the bed.

He hadn't discussed the case with Sophie in detail, mumbling only generic things like “allergic reaction” or “possible infection,” but she knew that he was bothered by this little girl's death, and not only on a professional level.

She hadn't seen him this way before. When his pager beeped at 4:51 a.m., she wasn't sure he'd ever fallen fully asleep. Something about last night had also triggered feelings and memories for her that she tried desperately to push from her mind. William's contagious giggle played in her mind like an old breakup song on the radio. She saw his face, too. His head full of white-blond twisted hair. The twinkle in his sea-blue eyes and how his neck disappeared when he belly-laughed. The smell of his miniature toes sprinkled with baby powder and the acceptance of his tiny fingers around hers. Fragments of her life Sophie had tried hard to forget.

“Geez, Sophie, I feel like I'm in a damn straitjacket,” he snapped, as he grabbed the beeper and called the hospital back. “This is Dr. Logan. Somebody paged me,” he said curtly to the voice on the other end.

Sophie flopped her head back against her pillow, then sat up. She hated it when Thomas became angry. He didn't get mad often, and rarely at her, but when he did she took the blame and tried to fix the problem. She motioned for Thomas to stand so she could tuck in the bottom layer of sheets around the whole bed.

“Wound care,” Thomas repeated, still on the phone, “third-degree burns.” He scribbled the patient's name on his hospital list lying beside the bed. “Okay, thanks. Can you put his nurse on the phone, please?”

—

“Y
OU DOING OKAY
?”
SHE ASKED
as they both returned to bed.

“Well, I need a haircut before we leave for my parents' house,” he said
with a slight grin, avoiding her question as he ran his fingers through his thick hair. Sophie loved his wavy, ink-black hair, and the more of it the better. She hated it when he cut his hair, and Thomas knew it. When it was long, slightly touching the neckline of his T-shirt, it accentuated the sharp angles of his jawbone.

“Stop torturing me,” she teased. Her pleas were interrupted by another page.

“This is going to be a long day,” Thomas said, and groaned. He looked at his pager and picked up his cell phone.

—

A
FTER
T
HOMAS LEFT
, S
O
PHIE WENT
on her usual morning run. She started down her brick-paved driveway and through the columned flagstone posts that announced their residence. She'd been slightly overwhelmed when she first moved into a house with such large columns: they made her think of big exclamation points that shouted, “Hey, these people live in a gigantic house!”

West Lake subdivision was considered, by anyone's standards, elite. It consisted of older homes that all had a European Old World elegance to them. Many of the homes were occupied by older couples, retired, who rode in golf carts and sipped sangria at the clubhouse. Some privileged couples were younger, some with kids, some not. All lawns were perfectly landscaped and most had circular driveways that highlighted a tiered fountain or sculpted trees that looked as though they were posing.

Growing up in her small town of Brookfield, Sophie knew no one who'd had a house half as nice as the ones that now surrounded her. Her parents' two-bedroom, one-bath house could have easily fit into the garage of most of these.

Her mom, to her credit, had made the most of what they had. Sophie imagined if the cards had been dealt differently, her mom could have had a show on HGTV demonstrating how to make curtains out of a pair of
old blue jeans, or a hundred different ways to decorate with wildflowers and canning jars. Sophie's childhood was not luxurious, but there was a time when it had been beautiful.

Her only true childhood friend was named Jillian, and she hadn't talked to her since they both graduated from high school. Jillian, a part of the pre-Thomas era, knew all about Sophie's family and loved her anyway. Sophie thought about calling her but dismissed the idea. Too much time had passed, too many conversations missed. And a wedding invitation that never got mailed.

Sophie hadn't known whether she could trust Jillian to keep her secrets. To keep the lie that popped out of her mouth the first time Thomas asked Sophie about her family.

“Gone. I have no one.”

“No one?” She saw sadness in his eyes. He touched her hand, and for the first time she put her hand in his.

“No.” This part was true. “My dad died of a heart attack right before I graduated high school.

“My mom,” her first lie to Thomas began, “died of cancer when I was twelve. No siblings.”

She wanted to tell him the truth, but it was too soon. Too early in a relationship to delve into her story of murder and abandonment. She would accept his sadness instead of his pity, take his compassion to avoid humiliation. She planned to tell him; if this relationship progressed anywhere, she would tell him. But for right then, she'd told herself, she needed to move on. She had to forget.

One kiss turned into dozens, and before she could find a way to tell Thomas the truth, he had told his parents. About her, about everything. They showered her with gifts when Thomas took her to meet them over Christmas break.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive,
Sophie's mom used to tell her. She loved to quote famous people. Sir Walter Scott
was her go-to guy for honesty.
Your word is everything,
her mother emphasized. Sophie wondered if her mom had choked on that adage.

She checked her watch to decide how far she could run this morning. She had time to run her usual three miles, three full laps around the outer streets of West Lake if she cut over through the country club and ran around the pond. Her legs felt heavy after she made her first lap—worn out from lack of sleep. She mustered the will not to give up and turn around so early in the workout.
Two
more miles, and then tackle my marathon to-do list.
The sooner she finished, the more she could accomplish on the fund-raiser. She picked up her pace, sprinting faster than she ever had around the pond and up the steep hill that bordered the golf course at the club.

The chocolate-brown Lab who sat watch in the courtyard at the front of Mindy's house barked as she approached the top of the hill. She knew she should check on Mindy, but her mounting to-do list overshadowed her nagging sense of right and wrong.

Her mom's old lesson rang in her head: “Friends need each other.”

“Hey, Murphy.” Sophie panted as she slowed down and petted the top of the dog's head. He was the sole beneficiary of the bacon treat she had tucked in her Dri-FIT Nike running jacket. The bank teller handed out either lollipops or dog treats. Since Sophie didn't have a two-year-old, she took the bacon treat.

Murphy always waited for Sophie. As soon as he saw her coming up the hill, he assumed the give-me-a-treat position. Upper-class dog etiquette, Sophie had thought when he first demonstrated his new trick. His head pointed straight up in proper form while his tail remembered the pound he'd come from. His quick wiggle made Sophie smile.
Best part of my run,
she thought as she tossed the treat over her shoulder and started to move again.

“Sophie.” She turned around and saw Mindy in a butter-colored
bathrobe standing on her front steps. Her eyes were swollen. “Can you talk?”

“Sure. Long time no see,” Sophie said in a lighter-than-appropriate tone. “You okay?”

“I hope to be.” Mindy wiped her nose with a crumpled Kleenex. “He left me. Stephen left me. I don't think he's coming back.”

—

A
N HOUR AND A HALF
later, Sophie returned home to an empty house and her bulging list of things to get done. She wished she'd known the magic words to help Mindy feel better, to stop crying, or at least to help her make sense of the situation. Phrases like “I'm sure this will work out” or “He'll cool down and realize what he's throwing away” hadn't seemed to comfort her. Stephen was probably gone for good, Mindy's life would be altered forever, and nothing Sophie did or didn't say would change that.

She took a quick shower and towel-dried her hair. If she let her hair air-dry, she could make a few calls before heading to Thomas's office. She hoped she could eat lunch with him before heading to solicit donors at the hospital. She pulled out her white button-down shirt and navy blazer, and sifted through the bottom hanging rack of her closet before pulling out her dark skinny jeans.

Okay, where to start?
She glanced at the top of Thomas's organized desk sitting angled in the corner of the study. Medical journals, fountain pens, and paper clips all had their place and stayed in perfect order. Her stack of unopened mail, the latest issue of
InStyle
magazine, and the Secret Chef fund-raiser notes did not; all were perched on the red-and-white paisley chair, hungry and vying for her attention.

She decided to blow-dry in lieu of phone calls so she could simultaneously sort through the mail. She pulled a trash can close while she turned
the dryer on at the warmest setting.
Flyer about tire sale, throw away. Water bill, keep. Pest control, keep. Heart Ball invitation—definitely throw away. Second thought, keep. Thomas said we needed to go this year.

The last piece of mail came from an address Sophie didn't recognize, from a name she had never heard
.
Her hands started to tremble as she examined the hand-addressed envelope with the name
Mrs. Sophie Logan
written across the front. Someone from her hometown was trying to get in touch with her and apparently now they knew where she lived.

“Bend over, Bradshaw,” ordered the badge conducting the strip search. “Spread 'em and cough.”

I had never been completely naked in front of anyone before coming to prison. My husband, of course, but even then I asked Paul to turn off the lights. Besides my doctor, he'd been the only one to touch me, to see my most intimate places. In here, every crevice was open to the elements and on display for officers, male or female, to examine anytime I left my cell. During those moments, shame replaced modesty and my self-worth took a beating.

My first strip search after coming to Lakeland was the worst. My identity no longer existed. The former Grace Bradshaw became prisoner #44607 and the second woman on South Carolina's death row. My peer group had one thing in common: we had all murdered someone, or at least been falsely convicted of doing so.

During that first search, I stood naked in front of two correctional officers while they documented every square inch of my body as though they were inspecting livestock at the county fair.

“Raise your left arm,” said the female intake officer. She scrutinized my armpit, and I remembered I hadn't shaved.

“Now your right arm.” She scribbled something with her red pen.

“Bend over, spread your cheeks, and cough,” ordered the male officer helping with the search. “Cough again.”

“Lift your breasts.” He put on his latex gloves. “One at a time.”

Was this happening to me? I started to feel hot and off-balance, like the floor was tilting and about to give away.

The male officer made a quick, deliberate swipe under each of my breasts.

“Turn around. Lean over,” he said. My eyes focused on his unreadable, black-chipped name tag. “Put your head down and shake your hair.” His fingers raked through my tangled, sweaty hair.

The other officer shook white powder over my head. “Lice shampoo.” I tried not to inhale.

I no longer belonged to myself.

“Straighten up, spread your legs,” he ordered. “Okay, now squat three times.”

“Cough . . . cough again,” commanded the female officer as she looked between my crouched legs, checking to see whether anything fell out.

“Any birthmarks?” asked the male officer.

I pointed him to the two-inch pear-shaped pale red spot that has occupied the space between my shoulder blades since birth. A favorite spot of my husband's. In here, another thing to document. Paul used to outline “the stork bite,” as he called it, with his index finger just before he kissed me there.

The female officer moved from my backside to my front lower half, documenting the two-inch-thick raised scar below my left knee. She must have been describing it in great detail, judging by the amount she was writing. No one asked, but for the record, it happened in the sixth grade when I fell out of my tire swing. A birthday present from my dad after I proclaimed my old metal swing set too embarrassing for a twelve-year-old.
Hold still, Gracie girl.
He examined my injury while my mom dripped stinging droplets of Mercurochrome on my bleeding shin.
Why didn't that square knot hold?

On both sides of my belly button were stretch marks that started and stopped like faded zebra stripes. Ugly to most, I supposed, but to me they were trophies. Reminders of Sophie and William and how they'd grown inside me. I'm not sure whether the officers wrote those down or not.

“No tattoos?”

I almost laughed. I hadn't even gotten my ears pierced until age twenty-five. I shook my head.

At the time, I didn't think I would ever get used to this humiliation. Was I used to it? Thousands of strip searches later, I simply complied. I had to. I had to adapt. Even when it went against my own best interests.

When the latest search was over, I pulled up my oversize gray pants and adjusted my underwear the best I could with my hands in cuffs. The prison uniform, all gray for the general population, came in only two sizes—too big or too small. Today, I was wearing the former, and the bottoms hung a good four inches past the length of my legs. The top half, which swallowed me, was orange and signaled to the rest of the prison population that I was a death row inmate.

“Get moving. The clock is ticking.” The officer pointed to his watch.

“Yes, sir,” I replied, avoiding eye contact, anything to put this behind me.

“Your turn,” the officer commanded, turning his attention to Roni, the next in line, who'd been perched on the other side of the four-by-four inspection cubicle, her bleached, stringy hair draped so it covered her eyes. “Don't give me that look. We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

Don't make this harder on yourself, Roni.
I counted the tiles while I walked to the guards who would escort me to my job. My pants bunched beneath my black rubber slippers. As hard as strip searches were on me, I knew they were worse on Roni. I could tell by the way she recoiled when the officers put on their latex gloves and searched her for
contraband. Her body had been rummaged through before and without her permission. We were adaptable, but sometimes Roni just had to fight back.

If you'd asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I can guarantee you my answer wouldn't have been working at the Live or Dye Beauty Salon located within the picturesque gates of Lakeland State Penitentiary. My career path didn't go as planned, but let me fill you in on how climbing the corporate ladder works, prison-style.

My first few years of no
disciplinary actions earned me the privilege of working within the
unit. A coveted position that paid me seventy-two cents a
day, but it gave me a productive reason to get
out of bed each morning. First, I was assigned to
janitorial duties, where I pushed dirt, strands of hair, and
wad of paper around with a long-handled broom. I'd count,
in my head as I swept, the number of days
it'd take me to buy you a present, maybe a sequined
prom dress or a new pair of dark denim jeans. I
mopped the floors in front of each cell and soaked
up the drippings from the daily overflowed toilets each day.
After that was done, I scrubbed unidentifiable food and bodily
substances off the cinder-block walls, earning me $14.40 a month
in my commissary account. Not much, but it was enough to
buy toothpaste and shampoo, which I was grateful for. Following
my tenth year on the row, and since I had
an impeccable behavior record, the warden allowed me to work
in the beauty salon located between cell block A and
death row, a five-minute handcuffed-and-shackled walk I took twice a
month. I was overjoyed to have a job most inmates
considered “Cadillac” (easy and enjoyable). Plus, I got to interact
with the general population. The pay stayed the same, but
I didn't care. Guarded by two flanking officers, I could
hold scissors, cut and shampoo hair, even wax an occasional eyebrow.

Roni happened to be my first client earlier today.

She plopped down in the gray swivel chair with her hands still cuffed and her face spotted with flat red patches that started below her cheekbones and trailed down her neck.

After a few huffs and failed attempts to get her waistband straightened on her pants, she finally spoke to me. “You remind me of my mama. You have the same-shaped mouth. Not the same smart tongue, though.”

I kept an eye on the scissors while I Velcroed the black smock over Roni's orange top. I always gauged her face before I responded, the way I would test the water temperature with my toes before I stepped into a full bathtub—slowly but surely—because proceeding too quickly and without caution could get me some scorching results.

“What do you want done today?” The red blotches had faded to pale pink, so I took that as a sign it was okay to change the subject.

Roni was the newest and youngest (age twenty-three) occupant on the row. She'd spent the first few months not talking, not looking at anyone, refusing to eat, and showering only when forced. Her unoccupied eyes, disheveled peroxide-blond hair, and incoherent mumblings made her big-boned stature even more threatening. When it came right down to it, she was a shell of a person, really, with a soul that had crawled somewhere else. Scared of its own shelter, I had to guess.

I hoped she'd adjust and not go mad like some in here had been known to do. Her vacancy made some sense to me—no one taught you how to make a life for yourself in prison, but the prison staff viewed Roni's acts of withdrawal as defiant and disrespectful. Not a good way to live out your time on death row.

Lately, she'd started to come around. She would leave her cell on occasion to sit in the common dayroom that was the nucleus of the women's death row housing unit. There, we orange-shirted inmates could congregate to watch TV or make our weekly fifteen-minute phone calls. This earned social time occurred from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. and could be withdrawn at any moment for any reason, or for no reason at all.

After six consecutive months without disciplinary action, she was allowed a haircut. I was thrilled the first time I was able to get a wide-tooth comb near her thick head of hair, which today was now black at the top and brassy only on the bottom third.

“Two inches and no more,” she said today with conviction. She pointed to the back of her ponytail.

I nodded and used my index finger and thumb to confirm Roni's measurements. I rolled her over to the shampoo bowl and turned the water on, running my hands underneath until the temperature was warm enough.

I could tell by the way Roni shook her foot and stiffened her back when she spoke about her family members that their relationships were not good. I avoided asking any questions, fearing this haircut might be my last. Roni, though, with every haircut, seemed to want to tell me things, painful things that had been shoved and stomped so far down they were scraping to get out.

“You don't look like someone who would kill their kid,” she said as I towel-dried her hair. She scrutinized my reflection in the plastic-coated mirror.

I knew to most people I was no more than the words stamped on my prison record, but coming from a lady convicted of hacksawing her stepfather, mother, and first cousin, and then hiding them piece by piece, duct-taped and plastic-wrapped, in a basement freezer, I viewed this veiled compliment as a smidgen judgmental.

Not that I hadn't been surprised how normal-looking the other women on death row were. Women like Carmen, with her puffed southern hair and wrinkled hands, or Jada, with her cleft chin and scent like bubble gum—both average enough to have worked beside you in a cubicle answering questions about which bed-and-breakfast you should stay at on your vacation or what was the best way to make fluffy mashed potatoes instead of the pasty ones I'd been known to make. Women who, if given the right tools—a sober mother to tuck them into bed at night, a father
who kept his hands to himself—might be working at the makeup counter at the mall instead of living in a cage with all the freedom afforded to a rabid animal.

In the food chain of convicts, I'm valued alongside termites and small rodents. A child killer. Categorized as even more despicable than the group of perverts who'd molested neighborhood children waiting alone for the school bus. I was long past trying to convince others of my innocence—of the love I'd had and still had for my family, of the good mother I'd so desperately tried to be. In prison, lies, justifications, and excuses were as common as dry skin in the winter. Instead, I focused on what I could control, such as how I treated others and the kind words I spoke.

“You think I'm evil?” Roni asked me as she checked the ends of her hair to make sure they were even. She freely admitted to anyone who asked she was 100 percent guilty, deserved to die, and didn't have an ounce of remorse in her.

“My on-and-off-again stepfather screwed me every chance he could,” she'd told me once, “and my mama knew it. My birthday present on the night I turned five. That bastard and my poor excuse for a mother deserved to die. My cousin was collateral damage. Saved her from another night with him, too.”

I hesitated before speaking. I placed my hand on Roni's shoulder, using my back as a shield to obscure my touch from the officers. “Your stepfather did a bad thing. Your mom did worse.”

I thought about you as I was doing Roni's hair. Did you share your story with the lady blow-drying your hair?

“My mom was
arrested when I turned twelve. I practically raised myself.”

I wondered if your words produced tears or if you'd told the story so often the sharpness had worn off.

“I'm so sorry,” I imagined the faceless lady replying as she turned off the dryer and stroked your damp hair, “you had such a bad childhood.”

I looked at Roni's reflection in the mirror and said with the only truth I could speak with certainty, “I see much good in you.”

Her face, scarred with deep pits from anger and acne, briefly softened, and I caught a glimpse of an innocent child whose own mother never loved her.

After my last client of the day, I washed out the sink and swept the curly and straight hair into a dustpan, while the two officers bantered back and forth their predictions for the upcoming Thanksgiving bowl games. I handed the scissors back to the officer standing closest to me and watched as he locked them away in a white Formica drawer that held razors and sterilized thin black combs.

I wondered what your hair felt like, and if your honey-gold hair was still curly like your dad's or straight like mine. What did it smell like? Our home had been nothing like Roni's, but I feared your scars cut just as deep.

I returned to my cell and knew I had to write all of this down for you. My hands are weary, and my feet are cramping, but my mind is boiling over. I have no possessions to distribute, no finances to arrange, no funeral to plan, but I still have affairs to put in order. I need to stamp my place in this world even after I no longer belong to it: I am here! I matter! And most important, I need for you to know you matter.