“I don’t have all the answers about what happened to your mother at the Mercer prison,” Rachel says gently, wishing she could tell him to seek therapy, if he hasn’t already.“I only know as much as you do, about how and why she ended up there.”She pauses.“But off the record, I don’t think she killed herself.”
He clears his throat, nose twitching.“They uh, they said she did, though.The coroner’s report and everything said she did.And that’s why—”
“I know,” Rachel says.“But there’s someone I think you should talk to, who might know more about this than even the coroner did, or your grandmother.”
Gregory’s brow furrows.He swallows.“Okay.Sure.Yeah.”
“Stevens will go get her.”
“Now?”
“Yes.She’s waiting outside.”
“Oh,” Gregory says, sitting up straighter.“Uh, okay.Sure.”
Stevens returns a moment later with Emily, who has been waiting in her Volkswagen across the street.She looks like a nervous job interviewee, dressed in a smart grey pantsuit, clutching a white handbag in a tightened fist.Stevens gestures her over to the sofa, then falls back out of the way.Rachel offers Emily her seat, and she accepts, licking her lips as she finally meets Gregory’s eyes.
“Gregory Little, this is Emily Radcliffe,” Rachel says.
“Hi.”Emily extends a hand.It’s a little shaky, but she manages to still it before it’s grasped by Annie’s son.“I’m uh…” Her eyes land on the pile of magazines, and she falters, exhales something between a sigh and a laugh.“I was a reporter who went undercover at the Mercer prison in 1961.”
Gregory exhales hard.“The year my mother died.”
“Yes.”
“And you were there…sorry, why?”
“To break the story about the conditions, about the way they were treating people like your mother.”
He takes in her features.“Can you tell me something nice about her?Something good that she did, or how she was?My grandmother obviously couldn’t tell me those details.From my mother’s adult life, anyway.There’s this huge gap where I know nothing about her.”
Emily considers a moment, then smiles.“She loved strawberries,” she says, and he lets out a watery chuckle.
“Me too.”
Emily sighs.“She was unhappy, for obvious reasons,” she says gently, “but the happiest I saw her was when she told me about Millgate, and her childhood.About the strawberry fields around there.And when she spoke about you, Gregory.”Her voice breaks.“She was a good friend to me.”
“How did you meet?”he asks, wiping away a tear.
“Well, they wouldn’t let her have a knife to cut her meat, so I let her have mine.And then we ate together almost every breakfast for six months.”
Emily tells him about her time there, and her interactions with his mother, about playing cribbage and reading terrible cast-off library books in the recreation room.
“And what about the bad stuff?”he asks after a few moments.
Emily glances at Rachel, then runs her hands over the knees of her suit.
“I can handle it,” he assures her.
She nods, then talks about Annie’s struggles, the conditions that her investigation hoped to draw attention to.And then, finally, she tells him about Annie’s death in her arms in the middle of the dining hall on that cold December night.He resolutely dries his eyes with the back of his hand several times before excusing himself to retrieve a tissue box.
“But your mother’s death inspired the other women,” Emily tells him when he sits back down.“I think it’s important that you know that.The psych and regular inmates all came together once they knew who I was, and why I was there.And they witnessed your mother’s death.Hermurder,” she corrects herself.“I think if that hadn’t happened, they might not have been so motivated to help me get out.And getting me out is what led to the Mercer being shut down, which brought an end to the abuse of so many women.Her death should never have happened, but it did end up meaning something.”
Gregory clenches his fists in his lap, over and over again, for several minutes.Stevens clears his throat.She’s feeling the gravity of this one weighing on her, too.And she’s glad the case has been able to provide closure to both Emily and Gregory, in a roundabout way.So often the resolution of her investigations is just pure tragedy.It’s a relief to see something good come out of it.
“Did uh,” Gregory begins, “did my mother—”
“Hey Dad!”A teenage girl comes whipping around the corner from the hall, and all four of them are jarred from the conversation.“Do you know where my—oh, sorry,” she says, a little quieter now as her big blue eyes look down at the three unfamiliar adults.“Are you in trouble?Did Tyler crash the car?”she asks, eyeing Rachel and Stevens in their uniforms.
