“Adjusting. You are out of your lane,” said the pleasant voice of the computer. The steering wheel jerked slightly to the left under her father’s hand, and he made a frustrated sound.
Hannah looked down at the half-eaten sandwich in her lap, her appetite gone. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said. The apology was rote to her ear, a dying echo that had traveled too far from its original source, its meaning all but lost from overrepetition. She had said those words so many times—to him, to Becca, to her mother, to the ghost of her child, to God—knowing they weren’t enough and never would be; knowing she’d feel compelled to keep saying them over and over again even so. Her life had become an apologetic conjugation: I was sorry, I am sorry, I will be sorry, with no hope of a future perfect, an I will have been sorry.
Her father let out a long breath, and his body relaxed a little. “I know.”
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“There’s a place in Richardson run by the Church of the Risen Lord. It’s called the Straight Path Center.” Hannah shook her head; she hadn’t heard of either. “It’s a kind of halfway house for women like you. If it works out, you can stay there for up to six months. That’ll give us time to find you a job and a safe place to live.”
The “us” reassured her, and the fact that the center was in Richardson, just south of Plano. “When you say ‘women like me’ …”
“Nonviolent Reds, as well as Yellows and Oranges. They don’t accept Blues, Greens, or Purples. I wouldn’t send you there if they did.”
“Have you seen the place?”
“No, but I spoke with the director, Reverend Henley, and he seems like a sincere and compassionate man. I know he’s helped many women find a path back to God.”
Back to God. The words kindled a bright flare of longing within her, doused almost instantly by despair. She’d prayed to Him every day in the jail, before and during her trial, kneeling on the hard floor of the cell until her knees throbbed, begging for His forgiveness and mercy. But He’d remained silent, absent as He’d never been before. With every day that passed Hannah felt more desolate, like an abandoned house falling into ruin, cold wind whistling through the chinks. Finally, the day she was sentenced and taken to the Chrome ward, she acknowledged the inescapable truth: there would be no forgiveness or mercy for her, no going back to Him. How could there be, after what she’d done?
“But understand,” her father continued, “this isn’t vacation Bible school. They’ve got strict rules there. You break them and you’re out. And then God help you, Hannah. We can’t afford to get you a place of your own, even if your mother would let me pay for it.”
“I know, Daddy. I wouldn’t expect you to.” They had no family money, and his salary was modest. It occurred to her now that without her income to supplement his, her parents would have to live much more frugally—one more thing for which she could reproach herself. “But who’s paying for this center?”
“The 1Cs are sponsoring you. Reverend Dale himself appealed to the council.”
Shame scalded her, and she saw it reflected in her father’s face. Hannah, and by extension, the Payne family, was a charity case now. She remembered how she used to feel when she worked in the soup kitchen, putting trays of food into the hands of its ragged supplicants, people who stank of poverty and desperation, whose eyes avoided hers. How she’d pitied them, those poor people. How generous, how virtuous she’d felt helping them. Them—people totally unlike herself and her family, people who had fallen to a place she would never, ever go.
“He’s also the reason you got in,” her father said. “The center has a long waiting list.” When Hannah didn’t reply, he said, “We’re lucky Reverend Dale has taken such an interest in your case.”
She imagined how it must have felt for Aidan to make those calls. Had he pitied her? Felt benevolent? Thought of her as one of them?
“Yes,” she said woodenly. “We’re very lucky.”
WHEN THEY MERGED onto Central the expressway was jammed as usual, and Hannah and her father proceeded the ten miles to Richardson at a crawl. He turned on the sat radio and navved to a news station. Hannah listened with half an ear. The Senate had passed the Freedom From Information Act eighty-eight to twelve. Right-wing militants had assassinated President Napoleón Cifuentes of Brazil, toppling the last democratic government in South America. Continued flooding in Indonesia had displaced more than two hundred thousand additional people in October. Syria, Lebanon and Jordan had withdrawn from the United Nations, citing anti-Islamic bias. The quarterback of the Miami Dolphins had been suspended for using nano-enhancers. Hannah tuned it out. What did any of it have to do with her now?
A family of three pulled up alongside them, pacing them. When the young boy in the backseat saw Hannah, his eyes went wide. She put her hand over the side of her face, but she could feel him staring at her with a child’s unselfconscious directness. Finally, she turned and made a scary face at him, baring her teeth. His eyes and mouth went wide, and he said something to his parents. Their heads whipped around. They glared at her, and she felt a stab of remorse. Of course the boy was staring; she was a freak. How many times had she herself stared with morbid fascination at a Chrome, knowing it was impolite but unable to help herself? Though they were a common sight in the city, especially Yellows, they still drew the eye irresistibly. Hannah wondered how they endured it. How she would endure it.
Her father took the Belt Line exit, and they drove past the shopping mall where she and Becca used to go witnessing with the church youth group, past the Eisemann Center, where they’d seen The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, past the stadium where they’d gone to high school football games. These sights from her old life now seemed as quaint and unreal as models in a diorama.
They were stopped at a traffic light when out of nowhere, something thudded against Hannah’s window. She started and cried out. A face was smashed against the glass. It pulled back, and she saw that it belonged to a young teenaged boy. A girl his age with rainbow-dyed hair and a ring through her lip stood behind him. The two of them were laughing, jeering at Hannah’s fright.
“Hey, leave her alone!” Her father flung open his car door and got out, and the kids ran off down the street. “Punks! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!” he called out after them. The boy shot him the finger. There was a loud honk from the car behind them, and Hannah jumped again—the light had turned green.
Her father got back in the car and drove on. His jaw was tight-clenched. He glanced at her. “You all right?”
“Yes, Daddy,” she lied. Her heart was still racing. Was this how it was going to be from now on? Would she ever know a day without mockery or fear?
Her father pulled over in front of a nondescript four-story building on a commercial street. “This is it,” he said. It looked like a medical park or an office building. A discreet sign above the door read, THE STRAIGHT PATH CENTER. A potted rosebush flanked the entrance. There were still a few late-fall blooms offering their fragile beauty to all those who passed by. They were red roses, once Hannah’s favorite. Now, their vivid color seemed to taunt her.
She turned to her father, expecting him to shut off the engine, but he sat unmoving, looking straight ahead, his fingers still wrapped around the steering wheel.
“Aren’t you coming in with me?” she asked.
“I can’t. You have to enter alone, of your own free will, bringing nothing but yourself. It’s one of the rules.”
“I see.” Her voice was tight and high-pitched. She swallowed, tried to sound less afraid. “How often can you visit?”
Her father shook his head, and the hollow feeling inside of her expanded. “Visitors aren’t permitted, and neither are calls.