That set Duke off, too. He had a miserable job. There had to be some perks. All these women. Some were butt ugly and fat and gross. Others weren’t so bad. They even did things for him when he promised them perks. But Betsy was the most beautiful woman he’d seen in his life.

She was his.

And he would have her.

He would get his revenge on Coralee, too.

* * *

Betsy was given a job in the prison cafeteria as a short-order cook, so to speak. It wasn’t the worst job. She liked to cook. It was the one thing she and her mother did together. Her mother had taught her how to make everything from scratch to save money: Bread. Pies. Cakes. Casseroles. Chicken dishes. Turkey dinners. It was all centered around Betsy’s mother “performing her wifely duties in the kitchen,” as her father always said, but it did give her time alone with her mother.

The food in prison was flat, but maybe she could make it better. She would try. She had nothing else to do. Plus, in some small way it reminded her of her and Johnny’s plans. They were going to farm together. They would sell the food they grew on the farm. It would be organic. Their organic food would make people’s lives better, healthier. They would have a farmhouse and acreage. They would have apple, pear, and cherry trees. They would have blueberries and potatoes and carrots and lettuce.

Every time she envisioned that farm, selling at farmer’s markets or a small grocery store, she would feel a sense of hope, of light, but then her reality would crash in on her along with the bars in her cell and the group showers, and darkness would descend. Still, she hung on to that image, that future.

Her new cellmate was named Eartha. Eartha was twenty-two. She was in for attacking her stepfather. He had beaten up her mother one too many times. She had tried to kill him, but it hadn’t worked. “I could not tolerate seeing my mother’s face bashed in one more time,” she said. “He always threatened to kill her if she left him, so I decided to take things into my own hands with a hammer when he was drunk and passed out.”

Her defense attorney literally fell asleep at her trial, twice. The judge had to shout at him. In the end, she was found guilty of assault and was in for three years. “Hopefully we can stay roommates for that long,” Eartha told her after a week. “You ain’t crazy and you ain’t mean, and you haven’t tried to kill me yet, so we’re good.”