Blame: A Novel by Michelle Huneven Read Free Book Online

much time anybody should spend in prison. I have to trust the court on that.
    His shoulders sank, and he winced, perhaps trying not to cry. Above his nose, his forehead creased in two deep lines. A victim impact statement, he said. Hard to know the impact, it’s still so new. I’ll try. He spoke to the two women. For me, it’s like two bright lights have gone out and the world is just a much darker place. And it’s probably going to stay like that. He waited—they all did—to see if he had more to say.
    Surely, Patsy thought, he would mention the boy now doomed to a motherless life.
    Thank you, Mark Parnham said to the judge, and walked back to his seat.
    Nobody else came forward, so the judge sentenced her to four years in the state penitentiary and asked if she cared to address the court.
    She made her own way to the front. On the benches before her sat the other cases waiting their turns in family clusters, all indifferent to her own proceedings. She and Mark Parnham looked at each other directly, steadily. They might have been alone in an empty field.
    I’m sorry, she said. I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused the family. I hear there’s a young son, and I—
    Her words seemed so trite and inadequate, but none others came to mind.
    I didn’t intend to hurt anybody. I don’t really even remember what happened. But I’m sorry with all my heart, and if I could, if there was any way—
    She stopped herself. As for prison . . . She lifted one hand helplessly. It can’t be worse than what it’s like now.
    She wanted to say more, something honest and comforting, but nothing came to her. Okay, she said, and looked to Benny.
    The judge spoke rapidly, conclusively, too quickly for her to catch. She waited for his final word, his turning to a new page, the gap between cases, so she could feel the clasp of her family’s arms, press her face against each of theirs. And someone did touch her: the tall, barrel-gutted bailiff had come up beside her and grasped her upper arm.
    I must demand any personal property on your person, he said.
    She had been told to expect this, and last night had removed watch and rings and necklace, the gold hoops from her ears. Today she’d dressed in a basic old teaching skirt and white cotton blouse, a wool cardigan. Clothes she’d be comforted to see again when she was settled in prison.
    Her family stood up behind the partition, her mother trying to hurry them forward, her father’s face dark and curiously wrinkled. Was he weeping?
    What? she said to the bailiff.
    Your pin.
    It seemed she must also hand over the bobby pin holding the hair off her face. Too long for bangs, too short to tuck behind her ears, this hair fell forward and curtained her eyes.
    He gave her a minute to kiss her family one by one, Mom, Dad, Burt; then she again felt his touch on her arm.
    Turn around and put your hands behind your back. He spoke with the same tender firmness he might have used elsewhere, in private. With the clasp of handcuffs came a warmth and pressure from his hands. A light touch on her lower back—a gentlemanly nudge.
    Dad, she whispered, pausing, wanting to touch her father’s face.
    Come along now, said the bailiff, and decisively led her by the arm past the recorder and the witness stand. The door the prisoners passed through swung wide at his push and slammed shut behind them.
    Down they went, on concrete steps. Flight by flight, the bailiff’s large hand remained on her arm, not cruelly—in fact, almost companionably—all the way to the basement, where they pushed through thick metal doors into a corridor and passed through other doors and corridors to a central lockup where half a dozen women crouched on a concrete floor still moist from a recent hosing. Patsy waited against the wall alongside two silent prostitutes for an hour or so. A single steel toilet sat in the middle of the room. Clogged, it overflowed with each use.Her name was called. Eventually she and the prostitutes