Betsy hated prison. Everyone did. It was dangerous. It was devoid of all elements of a normal human life. Freedoms. Choice. A job. Family and friends. Weather. Walking. The beach.

But Betsy found two surprising things.

For many women there, they’d made one mistake. One. Usually in conjunction with a toxic relationship with a man and/or with drugs. There wasn’t much that separated most of the women in prison from the women outside of prison. Once sober, once they were out of the way of bad influences, they were like everyone else.

About thirty percent, Betsy figured, were mentally ill. She couldn’t understand why they were there in the first place. Prison was enough to make anyone lose their mind. It was worse for those who had already lost it. The vast majority of the women in prison had been poor all their lives. Many were minorities and clearly had had grossly inadequate defense attorneys representing them. They were sentenced for things that Betsy knew a wealthy white woman would not go to jail for. Or their sentences were way too long, overly punitive.

Now many of the women, they deserved to be there. They were sick and dangerous and had no morals or empathy and they were a danger to society. She avoided the monstrous ones as best she could.

The monotony in prison killed her spirit. The fear killed her soul. The loss of Rose killed her heart. The abuse from Duke disgusted her, scared her, repelled her.

Betsy longed for Johnny. She lived for his letters. She wished she could see a premonition about the two of them, together, happy in the future, out of prison, but she saw nothing.

She thought of Rose every day and prayed that she would have a happy, safe life. She worried about Tilly constantly. Now and then she would get a picture in an envelope, drawn by Tilly, but no words. She knew that Tilly was in foster care, traumatized by what she’d seen. Betsy hadn’t even known Tilly was in the room when she’d killed Peter. Tilly was now a child with no parents, no brother. Alone.

She felt responsible. Her guilt made her ill. If she was ever out of jail, she would make it up to Tilly. She had no idea how, but she would. Tilly deserved it.

* * *

Betsy was hit with the car-crashing premonition again after a particularly bad day where Duke was staring at her, eyes narrowed, his hand near his crotch and making a swishing motion. Eartha yelled at him to “get your long tongue back in your marshy mouth, get your short dick under control, and stop staring at Betsy with your piggy eyes. She don’t want you, Duke, she never will. You’re like pond scum to her. Pond. Scum.”