Fractured Faith
Chapter 1
"Please, sit down Yvonne."
She didn't think so. It was bad enough everyone always had to run as soon as the Gov called, like rebellious children to see the principal. She wouldn't give Miss Betts the further pleasure of looking down on her. She ignored the request.
"Yvonne, please." Miss Betts repeated and there was something in her voice, something that sounded like genuine concern and it threw Yvonne off balance. She sat down.
"Thank you." And while Miss Betts did look pleased at her decision she was still looking at her with a deeply grave and serious expression.
"What did they frame me for this time?" Yvonne inquired, because honestly, this was getting a bit old. Being called to the Gov's office, being accused of something, getting sent down the block and back to the wing a few days later because they'd finally managed to find the real culprit. Screws… as long as they didn't have to do more than lock and unlock the cells they were ok, but as soon as something happened that actually required some brain capacity to get behind, they were completely out of their depths.
"Did I drown someone? Poison someone? Did I sell drugs? What is it this time?"
"I'm afraid it's none of the above, Yvonne." Miss Betts told her and the line on her forehead became even deeper. Yvonne watched how she folded her hands on the tabletop and clenched and unclenched her fingers.
"Oh? So, let me see. No water, no poison, no drugs. Maybe… I tried to escape through a hole under the pool table I was standing at when your Mister Fenner dragged me here."
Karen sighed.
"Yvonne, please. Would you just listen to me? It's really, really important. And it's not funny."
Yvonne leant back in her seat. Miss Betts was behaving oddly and Yvonne wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on. The sooner she knew, the sooner she could try to think of how to prove she hadn't done whatever it was they were accusing her of. In the back of her mind she saw Jim Fenner's grinning face, the triumphant look in his eyes as he'd told her Miss Betts wanted to see her – "immediately". Whatever this was, she was sure he was behind it.
"Yvonne, I'm really sorry. I just got a call from the hospital. It's Lauren. She was found dead this morning. I'm so sorry"
Karen looked at her, expecting tears, yelling, a complete breakdown then and there. What she didn't expect was for Yvonne to be laughing right in her face.
"Yeah, of course. You screws really don't stop at anything to fuck up our lives in here, do ya? Well, too bad because I'm seeing right through it. You can tell your sweetheart Fenner that this time he miscalculated. You should know better than to expect me to believe this crap. There's no way my Lauren's dead. Not my Lauren. And you must have even more shit for brains than I thought to try and feed me those lies. You sure are a pack of sad, pathetic bastards."
Karen looked at the woman opposite her and didn't know what to say. It had been bad enough saying the words for the first time. She wondered why it felt so much worse having to say it for a second time. She looked at Yvonne and she saw her pride in her daughter, her unwavering conviction and trust in the fact that her daughter was too strong to be hurt, to clever to be caught and too good to be dead. And it broke her heart having to destroy that unquestioning faith that Yvonne held in her daughter. She was sure, the Atkins family was far from the perfect picture book family and Yvonne was far from being a model prisoner, but she respected the other woman for her stark honesty and outspokenness and she recognized a mother's love when she saw it. Still, she had to say it. No matter how little she wanted to, it was her job to make sure Yvonne understood that she was telling the truth.
"Yvonne, I'm not joking. Or trying to set you up. I'm telling you the truth. I'm very sorry for your loss."
"You're a good actress, I have to give you that. But I'm telling you for the last time: Your little scheme doesn't work on me. Go and try your crazy psycho-games on someone else."
With those words she stood up and her eyes were shooting sparks of contempt and rage at the Wing Governor that helplessly watched her make her way to the door. She realized that there was nothing she could do in that moment to make Yvonne believe her. And so it was with a sigh that she gave in to the woman's impatient, expectant demeanour and called for a PO to take her back to G-wing.
"I'm sorry Yvonne. I'm sorry, but it's true." She said once more to the closed door on the other end of the room.