Mr. Jamon came in on Friday. The store was jammed, the line to get treats at the café ten people long. It was the Toffee Crunch and Candied Pretzel cake we were selling. Bettina knew how to bake.

“Hello, Mr. Jamon.”

“Hello, Evie,” he croaked out. “I’ll need another book by Mrs. Macomber and I need something that’ll keep me thinking, using the ol’ noggin all night.”

I gave him a historical fiction book about slavery—“history with a magical twist”—and a current book about social issues, minimum wage, and staying broke in America. “Nonfiction. We can all learn from this.”

He was quite pleased, especially with Mrs. Macomber’s book. “She believes in love,” he told me.

“Yes,” I said. “She does.”

Then he leaned in and whispered, “I’ll take another bodice ripper, too.”

Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Betsy Baturra
Women’s Correctional Prison
Salem, Oregon
1976

Prison was a torture for many reasons. Betsy was trapped behind bars, like an animal. She was told what to do and when to do it. Some of the prisoners were mentally ill. Some were mentally ill and dangerous. Some weren’t mentally ill but were dangerous. Some of the women were nice enough, or interesting, or even friendly, and others were to be avoided at all costs.

It was gray, it was depressing, it was hopeless. Betsy had been given a life sentence. She might get out early for good behavior. She might not.

She had lost Rose. The only reason she decided not to kill herself was because of her premonition: It looked like one day, in the future, she was out of prison. Either she died or the other woman in the truck died, but maybe she had weeks or months or years to live outside of prison before that. She could hope.

Her first roommate attacked her with a piece of wood that she had sharpened into a tiny knife. The blood soaked through her orange prison shirt and she was sent to the infirmary. The roommate was sent to isolation and then transferred to a mental hospital. Her second roommate was schizophrenic and mean. She and Betsy had a physical fight, and Betsy won. She was small but strong, and her survival instinct kicked in.

But they both ended up in isolation.

That was where Betsy came into contact with a guard named, ironically, sickeningly, Duke.

Duke was in his midthirties and already balding. He had a heavy stomach that dripped over his belt. He had bad skin; bad teeth; and the deadened, soulless eyes of a panther.

The first time he saw Betsy, on duty in the isolation ward, he stopped making crude jokes to two other guards, who clearly couldn’t stand Duke, to pant over Betsy.

“Whoa. Look at that beautiful bitch,” Duke breathed.

“Hey,” one of the other guards said. “Knock it off.”