“So why did you end up being charged and going to prison?” She didn’t believe me. I could tell. No one believed me.
I shook my head. “At this point it doesn’t matter,” I said, not wanting to go through it all again. “Just … I just wanted you to know that I didn’t do it. I can’t sit here and pretend that I did.”
“You had an attorney, right?”
I nodded. My court-appointed attorney hadn’t believed me, either. “It was just … at first I said I was alone in the car because I wanted to protect him. My boyfriend. He’d just gotten a scholarship to Georgetown Law and I … He had too much to lose. I had no idea I’d end up in prison. I thought I’d be fined, or … I didn’t know what. I wasn’t thinking clearly. It was all so … terrible.” Sickening images flashed through my mind, and I raised a hand to my eyes as if I could block them out. “When I finally told the truth, no one believed me,” I said, lowering my hand. I was so tired of explaining it all. It was pointless. I should have gone along with what was in this woman’s file. Gotten it over with.
Rebecca pursed her lips. Cocked her head. “What about your previous DUI? Was your boyfriend driving then, too?” She raised her eyebrows. I supposed she was waiting for another lie.
“No, that was me,” I said. “I’m not proud of it.” An understatement.
“Well, if what you’re saying is true about the accident, I hope you’re done with your so-called boyfriend.” Rebecca lifted my file in the air. “And I have to go with what I have here,” she said. “That you served time for a Class F felony. And we move forward from there.”
I was surprised to feel tears burn my eyes as a familiar sense of helplessness washed over me, but I looked at her squarely. “I wish you could believe me,” I said. Why was this so important? Why did I need her—need someone—to believe me?
“I have to go with what I have,” she said again. “What I do believe is that you’re lucky to have your new lawyer.” She looked down at my file. “This Andrea Fuller. The one who got you out.”
What I heard behind her words was: Most people can’t afford a lawyer like yours and they end up serving their maximum sentence, and when they get out they have a record employers can’t get past and they can never find a job.
“I didn’t hire her. This all just fell into my lap.” I motioned to the file in her hands. “I just wanted you to know the truth about what happened.”
She hesitated, her eyes tight on my face before she slipped on her glasses again. “Let’s move forward,” she said, returning her gaze to the file. “Supposedly you’re uniquely qualified for the work you’re doing in the gallery, and supposedly the work is going to improve the community. What are you doing there exactly?”
I tried to hold my head high against what I perceived to be her sarcasm. “I’m an artist,” I said. “I’ll be restoring a mural.”
“And this will improve the community,” Rebecca said. It was a statement but I heard it as more of a question.
I shrugged, trying to come up with a response that wouldn’t sound argumentative. “I hope so,” I said.
“Well.” Rebecca lifted a clipboard from her desk and handed it to me. “I have some paperwork for you to fill out,” she said. “Your supervision is for one year.”
I looked down at the stack of papers attached to the clipboard. “I’ll only be in Edenton a couple of months,” I said.
“We’ll worry about that later.” Rebecca looked down at my file. “And during the time you’re under supervision, you need to work twenty hours a week.”
“I’ll be working a lot more than that,” I said.
“Fine. That’s the minimum. Just so you know. And once you complete the work, you’ll still be on parole until the twelve months are up.”
“All right,” I said. I would do whatever it took to stay out of prison. I glanced at her file. Took in a long breath. “I have a question,” I said slowly. “Do you have any information on … Do you know how the victim of the accident is doing?” It was hard to get those words out. I shut my eyes, an involuntary reaction, as if I could block out the image of Emily Maxwell’s bloody, mangled body from my memory.
“I have no idea,” she said. “You haven’t had any contact with her? There’s nothing in your postrelease supervision preventing it.”
I opened my eyes and looked down at my hands. I was afraid I was going to lose it. “I don’t want to see her,” I said quickly. “But I dream about her. Nightmares. I just wish I could know how she is.” Emily was my age, almost to the day. When I thought about what Trey and I had done to her life … Sometimes I didn’t think I could bear it.
“I can’t help you with that,” Rebecca said. She returned her attention to her paperwork. “So, here’s how we work out your restitution and the payment of your court costs, et cetera,” she said. She handed me a chart filled with dates and numbers and dove into a long explanation of how I could try to make up for the harm I’d done using dollars and cents. The numbers swam before my eyes.
“You were in AA while in prison?” Rebecca asked, breaking away from the chart.
“Yes.”
“I’m going to require that you attend at least one meeting a week.” She handed me another sheet of paper.
“I don’t think I’ll have time,” I said. “But I’m completely over alcohol. I was never an alcoholic. I just drank when I was with—”
“You have two DUIs, Morgan. By the age of not quite twenty-one, you had two.” Rebecca leaned forward again. “You crippled a young woman. Permanently. I want to hear you say it: I have a drinking problem.”
I swallowed, the image of Emily rising up in my mind again.
“I sometimes used to drink too much,” I said. It was the best I could do, and Rebecca seemed to give up the battle.
“That’s a list of local meetings.” She pointed to the paper she’d handed me. Then she gave me yet another sheet. “And here’s a log for you to keep track of the meetings with spaces for the dates and locations. You need to have someone verify you were there with their phone number, and turn it in to me when we meet.”
I imagined going up to a stranger and asking him or her to sign my log. “I really don’t need AA now,” I said. “Wouldn’t you rather know I’m working hard than going to—”
“This is not negotiable, Morgan,” Rebecca said. “Find a local group as soon as possible and make that connection.”
I caved. “All right,” I said.
“You and I will meet every couple of weeks at first and I’ll be stopping by your home … the place you’re staying or your place of employment … the art gallery … some time unannounced.”
“That’s fine.”
“You may not leave Chowan County for a year.”
“What about when I finish my work at the gallery?” I asked. “My work on the mural?”
“We’ll talk about it then. One step at a time,” she said, handing me an appointment card. “I’ll see you here again in two weeks.”