Death Row novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The First Hug

The officer with the cross opened my door at eight that night.

"Ten minutes in the dayroom," she said. "The tier's locked down, and the camera in that corner has been broken since March."

"Who's in there?"

"Somebody who asked for you."

I walked down the tier in my socks, so nobody would hear me.

Dorrie was standing at the far table.

She was smaller than I had pictured her, and her braid had come half undone in isolation.

She had a cardboard property box under one arm.

We looked at each other across the empty room.

For three years we had only had a wall, a vent and a voice.

"You're taller," she said.

"I'm the same."

"I was sure you were taller."

Then she laughed, and the laugh broke in the middle, and I crossed the room.

We had never touched.

I put my arms around her, and she put hers around me, and she was warm and thin and shaking.

She smelled like prison soap and the cold from the isolation block.

"You came out loud," she said into my shoulder.

"You told me to."

"I told you to for three years. You picked a good day."

I held on until my arms hurt.

It was the first time in six years that anyone had held me on purpose.

She pulled back and wiped her face with the heel of her hand.

"Sit," she said. "We don't have long, and I have to show you something."

We sat on the same side of the table, shoulder to shoulder.

She opened the box and took out a white envelope.

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