The matron rolled her eyes.“Right,” she told Emily.“You can do the floors with Eliza.Grab a mop and get to it.Soap flakes are in the store cupboard in the corner.Fill up your bucket in the kitchen sink and dump it in the toilet down the hall when you’re done.”
Emily nodded and seized the required materials, then she and Eliza moved to the attached dining hall while the three remaining inmates stayed in the kitchen to clean.She glanced at Eliza, whose wide hazel eyes stared back at her, and she offered a tentative hello.They walked to the sink to fill up their buckets.
“I’m Emily.”
“Yeah, yer new, eh.”
“Yes.”
“I seen ya talkin’ to one of the Blues at breakfast yesterday.Wasn’t that you?With Crazy Annie?”
Emily looked up from her bucket.“The Blues?”
“Yeah.Crazy Annie and the others.All the lunatics hafta wear blue dresses, so they’re easy to see.”
“Oh,” Emily said, taking note.She paused.“How many of those inmates are there?”
They turned off the taps and made their way back to where they’d started.
“Dunno,” Eliza said.“They’re all behind that gate on the second floor.Where’s yer cell?”She dipped her mop into the steaming, sudsy water.“I’m on the third.Matrons’ quarters are on the fourth.”
“Second floor,” Emily said.“The south corridor.I did wonder about the gate.”
“Yeah.They ’ave their own bathroom ’n everything ’cause most o’ themare violent whacks.But some o’ them are allowed out with the rest of us.Like that Annie woman.”
“What do you know about her?”Emily asked, kneeling to wring the mop with her hands.The warm water coursed up her forearms, wetting her pushed-back sleeves.She set the mop back down on the floor and wiped her gritty hands on her apron.
“Well, I heard she killed ’er own baby.Total loony.”
Emily’s hands stilled.“Are you serious?”
“That’s what they say.Tried to kill ’er man, too.”
“But…why is she here, then?Why isn’t she in Kingston?”Violent criminals were sent to the maximum-security penitentiary there.
Eliza shrugged.“Search me.Word gets ’round here, though.So, if I was you I’d stay clear of ’er.She screams in ’er sleep, too, we can hear it even up on the third floor.Good luck gettin’ a decent rest.They usually hafta sedate ’er when that happens.”
“Ah.Yes.Thanks,” Emily said, shooting her a half-smile.The Mercer wasn’t meant to be a prison for violent offenders.It was allegedly a reform institution.But Emily had to admit that so far, she hadn’t observed much in the way of reform.The place was one giant holding cell powered by its inmates’ labour.Over a hundred women waiting out their months- or years-long sentences for petty offences.Emily considered Eliza’s claim, piecing it together with what Annie Little had told her directly at breakfast the day before.Prison terms at the Mercer were limited to two years under the FRA, except under very extreme circumstances.
“So what are ya in for?”Eliza asked.
Emily cleared her throat.She had a spiel planned, the details as generic as possible.“My parents thought I was too unruly.Unmanageable.I think they did it just to frighten me into behaving the way they want me to.”
Eliza scoffed, laughed.“ ’S it working?”
Emily shrugged.“I’m in for six months.But I think once I’m out, I’m leaving my parents.”She scrubbed hard at a sticky spot on the floor and swallowed, realizing that what she said was inadvertently the truth.She’d mused about it before coming to the Mercer, but now that she was out ofher parents’ house—for better or worse—the idea of living apart from them felt more possible than it had before.“I mean…women have more options than we used to.I don’t think you have to be a spinster to have an independent life.”She caught herself.She’d gotten too personal.“So uh.”She cast around for a useful change of subject, and saw an opportunity to wheedle some information.“Do you know why we aren’t allowed outside for exercise hour?Warden Barrow said some inmates had misbehaved, but—”
“Oh, yeah,” Eliza said, eyes widening.“They think somebody musta contacted somebody on the outside, told ’em what’s goin’ on ’ere.”She nodded knowingly and dipped her mop back into the bucket.“The mail gets checked before it goes out, so anything bad anybody says isn’t gettin’ out—remember that when ye write yer letters.I’m not sure how else they coulda done it except during yard hour.But I heard from Pearl Wilson that she heard Barrow’s secretary talkin’ about some reporter lady that called askin’ questions.”
Emily’s stomach flipped with guilt.“Can ya believe that?”Eliza went on.“Don’t know why a reporter would care, though,” she said with a dismissive shrug.“Nobody ever has.”
Emily paused, chose her words with care.“But really,” she said in a low tone, “it’s awful in here, isn’t it?The food alone, my goodness.If you can call it food.Do you know if this place ever gets inspected?”
“Oh, it does,” Eliza said, chuckling.“Once a year or somethin’.But Warden Barrow oughtta be a stage director, she’s so good at puttin’ on that show.It’s scheduled, so she has lotsa time to plan it.”
Emily supposed she shouldn’t be surprised.There was no way a place like this could have gone on undetected as long as it had without some kind of cover-up, or corruption.But she would need to see some of it for herself if she was going to name names.She squinted at Eliza.
“How have you learned all this?”
