My parole officer. I blink in surprise. I have totally forgotten about her. I’ve been on parole two years now, and while I am required to check in each month, my own behavior has been so constant I’ve stopped noticing the meetings. Just another bout of paperwork and dutifully signed forms. Guy like me, the whole thing is over and done in about eight minutes. I copy my pay stubs, hand over a letter from my treatment counselor, prove I’ve paid my weekly fees for counseling, etc., and we’re good to go for another thirty days.

“What d’you think your PO will say?” Wendell asks now, eyes narrowing.

“Not much to report.”

“You went to work today?” Mrs. Brenda Jane inquires.

“Yes.”

“No drinking, no drugs, no Internet?”

“I work. I walk. I’m keeping my nose clean.”

“Then you should be fine. Of course, you have the right to a lawyer, so if you start to feel uncomfortable, you should ask for one.”

“I think the husband did it,” I hear myself say. No good reason. Just that whole rationalization thing again. See, I’m not the monster. He is.

My group goes to bat for me, nodding their heads. “Yep, yep,” several reply. “Ain’t it always the husband?”

Wendell still has that smirk on his face. “It’s not like she’s fourteen—” he starts.

“Wendell,” Mrs. Brenda Jane interrupts.

He feigns innocence. “I’m just saying it’s not like she’s a beautiful jail-bait blonde.”

“Mr. Harrington—”

Wendell puts up a meaty hand, finally acknowledging defeat. But then, at the last minute, he turns back to me and finally has something useful to say.

“Hey, kid, you’re still working at the neighborhood chop shop, right? Hope for your sake the missing woman didn’t get her car serviced there.”

In that instant, I can picture Sandra Jones perfectly, standing in front of the industrial gray counter, long blonde hair tucked behind her ears, smiling as she hands over her keys to Vito: “Sure, we can pick it up at five….”

I realize for the second time in my life that I will not be going home again.

CHAPTER EIGHT

What makes a family?

It is a question I have pondered most of my life. I grew up in the typical Southern clan. I had a stay-at-home mom, famous for her meticulously groomed appearance and award-winning rose garden. I had the highly respected father who’d founded his own law firm and worked hard to provide for his two “lovely ladies.” I had two dozen cousins, a passel of aunts and uncles. Enough relatives that the annual family reunions, hosted at my parents’ sprawling home with its acres of green lawn and its wraparound front porch, were less a summer barbecue, and more a three-ring circus.