Chapter 10 – Jack

"Listen, I'd really like to come for dinner, Mark, but I can't." Jack spoke into his cell phone as he drove on the highway.

"Jack. You are the most antisocial man I have ever met. What is your excuse this night? And don't use 'I'm going to the cemetery with my Mom' again, it's so depressing. I just thought it might do you some good to, I don't know, converse with people, maybe even – and I know it sounds completely outlandish – maybe even have a good time?" Jack's friend's voice was heavy with sarcasm, and it irked him to no end.

"Actually," he interrupted, speaking unnecessarily loudly into the phone, "I'm on my way to visit Kate." He changed lanes smoothly. The exit was coming up.

There was a pause on the other end. "Oh." Mark said finally. "Um. Sorry." Another beat passed before he spoke again. "How is she?"

Jack shrugged involuntarily. "I'm still not sure. I mean, she has her bad days... At least she's trying to eat, though she isn't gaining much weight yet."

"She talking now?"

"Sometimes she talks to one of her roommates." He said quietly. He hated even to think about how secluded Kate had made herself, all those months. He felt a familiar pang of guilt, like he always did when he thought of how he'd abandoned her.

"It's not your fault, you know." Mark said tentatively, as if he'd read his friend's mind.

He'd reached the exit. He was suddenly anxious to get off the phone. "Yeah. Hey, Mark."

"Huh?"

"How about dinner tomorrow?"

"Okay. Have a good visit."

And he hung up, just as the prison loomed up into sight.

She wasn't there when he sat down at the visitor's center. He looked around at the other people in the room. The women with their guests looked tired, but like they were trying their best to seem happy. Some of their visitors didn't catch on, didn't notice the façade playing before their eyes, and spoke animatedly. One couple, over on a couch was laughing. The one that was a prisoner, who wore that hideous orange jumpsuit, was hunched over, and though she was laughing, her eyes were melancholy, and her hands laced together, her knuckles white, as if she was trying to hold herself together. On the other side of the spectrum, some groups were subdued, and they didn't attempt to hide their unhappiness. He could hear someone crying from where he sat. Jack idly wondered which way Kate would be today. You could never really guess.

Then he turned and saw one of the guards in their drab gray uniforms open the door, and Kate walked through, already searching. Her eyebrows were raised, making her look almost surprised. Jack quickly noted that though she looked energized enough, her face was still tinged with gray, and there were dark circles under her darting eyes.

She had spotted him. "Jack!" she exclaimed loudly, and to his surprise, ran up to him like a small, excited child and gave him a tight hug. For someone so skinny, she was still strong.

"You're crushing my arms, Kate." He said, grinning. Apparently, it was a good day.

She pulled back and looked up at his face. "Sorry." Her smile was wide and eager.

They sat down at the circular gray table. Kate immediately pulled her chair closer to his, and it made a loud scraping noise along the floor.

"So," she said, "How goes the life of the dashing, charming surgeon?" She sounded more like herself than she had since Jack had seen her. He was glad; because it was time they talked about something he had been allowing her to avoid the past couple of weeks, and he hadn't felt like he could talk about it if she was already melancholy.

'Not bad," he told her. It would be best if he got down to business and got it over with, right? "Listen, Kate, I – "

But Kate interrupted suddenly. "Oh! I wanted to know, are you going to Charlie and Claire's wedding? They actually sent me a letter, saying how sorry they were that I couldn't come, and sorry I'd been sick… it was really nice."

"You still are sick, and no, I'm not going." Jack said stoically.

Kate twisted a curl of hair around her finger absently, a slightly concerned frown on her face. "Why not? I'd give anything to go."

Jack sighed. "Kate. I need to change the subject, okay? We need to talk about something before I go. We've been avoiding it every time I've visited, and-"

Kate knew what he was about to say, it was written all over her suddenly panicked face. Her hands dropped to her lap dejectedly. Then, as if she'd changed her mind, they fluttered up to her face. She pressed her palms against her eyes.

"Not today, Jack. I was in such a good mood…" she said, a plea in her voice.

Jack knew this would be her reaction, but it still disappointed him. Much as he himself would like to chatter on with the Kate he knew on the island, instead of the drawn, tired girl he had been seeing lately, it needed to be brought up.

"No, Kate." He said as gently as he could. "We need to talk about your trial. I know you don't want to, but… at least give me a few details. Have you met with your lawyer?"

She brought her hands down, and he saw that she had already transformed back into the sad, worried post-island Kate. She sniffled a little, but she wasn't crying. She bit her lip. "Yeah. Once." Jack looked at her expectantly, wanting her to elaborate.

"He was okay, I guess. He knows all about me and everything." She shrugged, her eyes fixated on the table surface. Jack heard her tap her foot against the floor as if she was already bored with the conversation. If you could call it that. Jack thought sardonically. He watched her until she glanced up.

Exasperated, Kate rolled her eyes like a disgusted teenager. "What do you want me to say? It's hopeless! Everything I've been charged with is true. Everything I'm charged with is really what I did."

She hit the arm of her chair with her palm, enunciating every word. "I'm here. For. What I did. And there's no excuse, no explanation that will change the goddamn jury's mind, Jack." She glared, but he knew she wasn't glaring at him – her ferocity was directed towards herself. She leaned forward.

"Thirty years in prison. That's what he said it could be." Her voice caught. "I would be fifty-seven. I would be fifty-seven." She repeated. And then she exhaled a long, labored breath. She closed her eyes for a second, and then opened them, blinking hard.

And Jack knew Kate was relieved to have finally said it. She sat slumped in her chair, almost deflated of all the bottled up thoughts she had let out. Her mouth was in a hard, thin line, severe and unforgiving. Her bony arms were wrapped around herself like they always were when she was trying to protect herself. She was trying to hold herself together, still blinking angrily at unwanted tears.

Jack leaned across the table and put his hands on her cheeks lovingly. She looked up at him mournfully. Jack smiled sadly.

"And I'll be sixty-one and waiting for you."

Kate laughed softly through her tears. "I believe you." she said after a moment.

A security guard barked loudly, addressing the whole room full of people. "Visiting hour is over!"

And chairs scraped, goodbyes were said, and feet scuffled. Finally, reluctantly, Jack let go of Kate. He turned to go, and was halfway across the room, when he heard Kate call him.

"Hey Jack?"

He turned to face her again, his hands in his pockets. She remained seated although the last of the other prisoners were already walking back to their cells.

She nodded. "Go to the wedding. You were our savior. And I think…" She stood up at the impatient urging of the security guard. "I think to most of us, you still are."

She smiled a little, that familiar crooked grin, and was escorted out of the room.