Lisa stuck her phone in the holder on the dashboard, then started the car, still not speaking. Of course, I wasn’t speaking, either. I wanted to say thank you for doing this, but that would make me sound more vulnerable than I wanted to appear. I felt so strange, like I was attempting to step back into the person I used to be. For the first time in a year, I was wearing my small silver hoop earrings, the silver stud in my nostril, and my old blue sleeveless shirt. Not that I’d selected the shirt from my closet; I’d been wearing it the day I got locked up, so that was all I had with me. Still, I was glad I had on this particular shirt, not only because the day was warm, but because I wanted Lisa to see my tattoo in its entirety. The intricacy of the lacy design. It was the only thing I had with me to illustrate that I had any artistic talent. But Lisa said nothing about it.

Why was this woman wound so tight? Did she resent the fact that I was a criminal she’d been forced to spring from jail? Or that she was conservatively dressed and groomed within an inch of her life—I could smell jasmine-scented perfume in the air—while I sat there in my torn-at-the-knee jeans with a tattoo on my arm? Or that some of the money Lisa stood to inherit was going into my pocket? Or maybe that I was white on top of it all? I had no idea. All I knew at that moment was that Lisa was too close to the car in front of us while driving sixty-five miles per hour. You were supposed to allow a car length for every ten miles per hour. I remembered the rule from driver’s ed, though I’d probably never followed it myself. But that was before. Now I had to fight the urge to press an imaginary brake on the floor to slow Lisa down. This is the new Morgan, I thought sadly to myself. The Morgan afraid of the outside world.

We’d ridden ten minutes in silence before Lisa finally spoke.

“The government never fully paid the artist—Anna Dale—for the mural, so after she went crazy—or whatever happened—it essentially became my father’s property to do with as he pleased,” she said. “But since the gallery is a gift to the community, your work on the mural becomes a sort of community service.” She glanced at me, and the smallest of smiles lifted the corners of her lips. “So says Andrea.”

The rationale seemed quite a stretch and I waited for her to continue, unsure of her point. “I understand,” I said when it was clear Lisa had nothing more to say on the subject. “But why did the mural end up with your father?”