“I always knew, from the beginning, you would never do something like that.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore what I did or didn’t do,” Jennifer said, and she hated how dead her voice sounded. “It’s too late.”
Emily opened the small purse she had brought. She took something out: a rosary. Small, light blue glass beads. A simple silver crucifix.
“I pray for you every day,” Emily said, placing the rosary on the table. “Every day, Mom, to the Virgin Mary, asking her to protect you, to reveal the truth.”
Jennifer looked at the rosary as if it were something from another world. “Emily, I don’t—”
“I know you stopped believing in anything,” Emily said, and her tears finally fell. “But I never stopped believing in you, and I never stopped believing that She’s listening.” She pushed the rosary across the table. “Take this, please, for me.”
Jennifer looked at her daughter, at the rosary, at the small hands that still trembled slightly, and then, for the first time in six years, Jennifer felt something she had buried so deep she barely remembered what it felt like. Love. Not the empty, distant kind you keep as a memory, but real love. Visceral. The kind that aches in your chest and tightens your throat.
She picked up the rosary. The beads were cold to the touch. “All right,” she whispered. “I’ll take it.”
They talked for another twenty minutes. About small things. About Emily’s school, about how she was learning to play the guitar, about the dog Aunt Linda had adopted. Normal things. Things normal people talk about. As if they were just a mother and daughter talking about life. As if they weren’t counting down the last days.
When the time was up and the end of visitation came, Emily stood. She hesitated. “Can I hug you?”
Jennifer nodded, unable to speak. The hug lasted only seconds—they never allowed it to last long—but Jennifer felt every moment. She memorized the smell of Emily’s hair, the texture of the hoodie she wore, the strength of those thin arms around her.
“I love you, Mom,” Emily whispered.
“I love you, too.”
And then Emily was gone.
Jennifer was taken back to her cell. She hid the rosary under the thin pillow, lay down, and stared at the ceiling. Two weeks became twelve days, then ten, then seven. Jennifer never kept the rosary far away. She didn’t pray. But she held the beads sometimes, when the nights grew too long and the silence too heavy. Have you ever held something just because it reminded you of someone you love? Just because it made you feel less alone? That’s how it was with the rosary.
The days passed. Other inmates looked at Jennifer differently now. Everyone knew when someone was counting down their last days. There was a silent respect. A space given. Nobody talked about it directly, but everyone knew.
Five days left. Four. On the third day, Jennifer made a decision. She spoke with the guard in the morning. Donna, a woman in her fifties who had been working there for fifteen years and had already seen a lot.
“Donna,” Jennifer called when she passed by the cell.
“Yes?”
“I have a request.”
Donna stopped. She waited.
“I know my time is almost up,” Jennifer said, and she hated how her voice trembled. “And I know you allow a last request.”
“Within reason. Yes, we do,” Donna said gently. “What do you need?”
Jennifer took a deep breath. “I wanted to see the chapel, the image of the Virgin Mary that’s there.”
Donna blinked, surprised. It was the first time anyone had asked for something like that. “You want to go to the chapel?”
“Yes, just for a few minutes. I didn’t ask for visits. I didn’t ask for phone calls. Just this.”
Donna nodded slowly. “I’ll speak to the warden, but I think it’ll be allowed.”
Two hours later, Donna returned. “Tomorrow. Nine in the morning. Fifteen minutes.”..
