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Early Release

Mary Clare O’Grady

    At the sound of the screen door slamming, Lily gathered up her homework from the chipped Formica table, eager to escape to her room. Its peeling and faded pink wallpaper was covered with glossy slick pages torn from teen magazines—images she dreamily stared into. The legs of her chair squeaked back against the worn linoleum floor. Her mother filled the kitchen doorway and threw an envelope onto the table’s dull green surface.
    Lily’s name was scrawled across it in black ink.
    “It’s from him, the bastard.” Her mother opened a cabinet, pulled out a glass, and bottle of vodka. “Thinks he can come back after six years and visit his daughter like nothing has happened.” She poured, splashing some of the liquid onto the counter. While one hand lowered the bottle the other raised the drink to her lips. “And the sheriff said I can’t stop him; said he’s been granted early release.” She glanced at Lily. “The two of them have been in this from the beginning. What a racket.”
    Lily shifted from one leg to the other trying to remember her father, a vague recollection of a tall man with a soft voice.
    Her mother shook a cigarette from the pack in her pocket. “The sheriff’s driving him over here tonight.”
    “Tonight?”
    The cigarette dangled from her lips. She lit it and sucked in the heat. “He’s not to come into this house.”
    “Here?” Lily watched the contents of the glass slosh around.
    “You understand? Not in this house. You can visit him outside, but don’t take long, I’ll be waiting on you for dinner.”
    The sound of gravel crunched under tires. Lily’s head swung to the open window. She stared at the stained curtain hanging above the sink, unmoving in the heat. At the clink of her mother tilting the neck of the bottle back over her glass Lily turned her gaze back to the countertop. Her mother clicked on the T.V. The news commentator began the dull repeat of the day’s news. In one hand, her mother held tightly to her vodka, in the other she waved her cigarette like a torch, “Go see him out in the yard.”
    Lily looked at her mother’s back then at the front door.
    Outside on the porch, the air was as hot as her mother’s breath was sticky. Lily didn’t want to move any further into it. She watched Sheriff Williams emerge from the driver’s seat and walk towards her.
    “Well, hello there, Lily, aren’t you looking pretty tonight?”
    She looked down at her soiled t-shirt, skimpy shorts, and dirty sneakers. Her mother didn’t allow her to go barefoot. She claimed Lily’s crooked toes looked like her father’s and her mama didn’t want anything reminding her of him. Sometimes, when her mother was working at the nursing home in town, Lily sat in her room, painted her toenails, and walked through the house barefoot. She didn’t feel so self-assured now.
    “You know why I’m here, Lily?”
    “My daddy’s out of prison?”
    “He is, Lily. He missed you when he was away. Did you know that?”
    Lily felt as if the kudzu choking the hillsides was clawing at her from under the porch.
    “It’s OK. I’m here to keep you safe while your Daddy says hello.”
    “I don’t really know him.” Lily wanted to act like a bold teenager but felt like a little girl. “He’s been away for a long time,” she added.
    The passenger door opened; a man stretched out.
    Lily froze in the stifling heat.
    “I’ve known your Daddy for a very long time. We grew up together. Did you know that?”
    Lily shook her head.
    “Well, we did. Right here in town. But I was lucky. I had a good Daddy.” He looked down at Lily. “Now why don’t you take my hand? We’ll walk over together.”
    His palm was clammy, his fingers thick.
    “There you go Lily, you’ll be fine. He’s waited a long time to see you.”
    She watched her feet lift over the gravel and down again. When the sheriff stopped, she stood stiffly beside him looking at the dust on her worn canvas Keds. A mockingbird called from the catalpa tree down by the mailbox. The sheriff released her fingers and with his hand between her shoulders gave a gentle push forward.
    “Hi Lily.” He crouched down, eye-to-eye with her, an arms-width away. “My baby doll, I’ve missed you so.” His voice lit up the space between them. “I love you. I hope ‘ya know that.”
    Did he say love?
    “It was an unfortunate situation that sent me away from you, but I never stopped thinking about you.”
    That voice. She remembered it beside her on the porch swing, after dinners reading her the stories she loved: Jack and the Beanstalk, Dorothy in the Land of Oz.
    “I know it’s been a while and you’re older now, but I’d like to get reacquainted, spend some time together again.”
    Lily wondered what to say, felt her mother behind the window listening. She wanted her father to speak again, waited to hear what he would say, but Sheriff William’s voice cut in.
    “Your mother will be waiting on you now, Lily.”
    Her chest seized up. Her feet, uprooted from the ground, trailed the sheriff back to the porch steps. The sound of her father’s voice swung her head back.
    “I’ll be staying at Beale’s boarding house in town. For the time being anyway, while I look for work. So, I won’t be far.”
    The sheriff squeezed her hand, dropped it, and walked away. Lily faced the house, climbed one porch step at a time. Behind tires spit out gravel. She twirled, watched the car move down the driveway. She was pulled towards it and bounded down the steps. Her legs flew over the gravel. At the end of the drive the car stopped, then turned out onto the road, and disappeared. Lily’s body stopped moving. She looked down at her sneakers, seeing the crooked toes inside. She kicked up gravel dust.
    Outside the screen door she paused. The news commentator droned on. The kitchen smelled of chicken frying. Her mother’s eyes were on the pan, her right hand held a spatula, the left alternated between her drink and cigarette.
    “He’s turned out as bad as his old man.”
    Lily frowned a question.
    Grease spit. Her mother pushed the chicken around in it. “Evil his old man was. We celebrated the day he died. Then got hitched. I should have known better.”
    Lily didn’t like the sound of her mother’s voice, loud and nasty from the booze.
    She pointed the spatula at Lily, “You need to stay away from men like them. Getting up to no good and leaving us women to care for ourselves. Useless they are...”
    Lily tuned out her mother’s screeching voice and listened to the chicken hissing in the pan. Her father’s voice had been soft and gentle. Replaying the rhythm of his words she opened the refrigerator and pushed items around on the shelves. Her arm reached into the back and found the little bottle. She decided she would add a little hot sauce to her dinner like her daddy used to do.

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