Pay the Piper by Joan Williams Read Free Book Online Page B

fury that she, so young, was the one to decide if her father was dying of a hemorrhage or losing his lunch. She wanted then to be where people loved her better, and where such scenes did not take place.
    Laurel went from the store to a cleaner’s and picked up William’s shirts. Then she stopped at the end of her driveway to collect the mail. There was nothing interesting today. But there would not be anything as interesting as the correspondence her friend in Delton inadvertently had started.
    She had been surprised to hear from Catherine a few weeks ago. Enclosed in her letter was an article from the Delton Advocate written by Hal MacDonald about his incarceration. She could not believe he was in prison in Mississippi. How could a man from his background survive such a place, even its ignorance? Her heart went out to him with more sympathy than she’d ever had to feel for a contemporary. The article was not only moving but beautifully written. Laurel had had to write him in return; she sent her first novel as an introduction.
    Even now, the awe with which she used to think of the MacDonalds in her growing-up days in Delton could come back in memory. She wondered if she could go to that prison and meet him. She had seen him once in that long-ago time, and she could remember everything about it vividly. She knew so much about him, having never met. She knew his whole life-style, so different from her own back then—the country club set, a great plantation down in Mississippi. She may have been there once.
    In high school she knew both his sister and his wife. In public school, Catherine had insisted before ninth grade that they transfer to Miss Poindexter’s School for Girls, a move that changed her life’s direction, Laurel thought. “In time to join a sorority,” Catherine had reasoned. So Laurel set out into as much of Delton society as she knew. That remembered past came back when, in her house alone, she could real Hal MacDonald’s letter again.
    April 11
    Dear Laurel:
    I have reread your lovely letter and hardly know how to answer. I was surprised to find it and your novel. I don’t know why I can’t remember you as a child but do remember reading an interview about you some time ago in the Mid-South Review . I didn’t connect you at the time with someone I should know. Being editor of the prison newspaper, for which I originally wrote my article, which was picked up by the Delton Advocate , is different work from any I’ve known—cotton farming’s been my life. But I enjoy what I’m doing. It gives me the opportunity to use my mind some, for which I’m grateful. And the work is a lot more pleasant than being in the line camps and working in the fields all day. Actually, Laurel, I’m somewhat unique here because convicts with a university degree are rare indeed, whereas on the outside I would be, as I’ve always been, just one of the crowd. I’ve been well treated since coming here and I’m not blind as to why—I had help from friends on the outside. I came here determined to get along. I made up my mind to make the best of an unbelievable situation. I’ve been made full trusty, which means more privileges than a regular convict.
    I have periods of such wrenching, absolute, exquisite misery, though, as I’ve never known in my wildest dreams. It doesn’t last and is usually brought on by worrying over the complete destruction of my family, Sallie and our little girl, Tina, and the fact I’m helpless to do anything about anything. The situation I’m trying to describe would be true in any kind of confinement. Here we live in “camps” and each camp has “cages” where the prisoners live. At first I didn’t think I could live like this and keep my sanity. I mean, I really doubted my ability to stay sane. And that scared me. This prison isn’t perfect but it’s a vast improvement over a few