I turned twenty-seven in March of 1987, almost six years after my first meeting with Randy in the community room. In that amount of time, despite my initial doubt about participating in the program, I managed to earn my GED, as well as my certification as a dog trainer, for both basic obedience and service animals. The previous spring, I’d begun an online program for prisoners sponsored by a local vocational college, and combining that with my work experience at Randy’s clinic, I now had an associate’s degree as a veterinary technician. I was just over four years away from being released. With good behavior, it might be sooner. I had a parole hearing coming up in August, and this time, if I was let out early, I swore I wouldn’t screw it up. This time, I promised myself I’d have a plan—a place to live and a job—so I wouldn’t end up right back behind bars.
Unlike during the first year I’d spent in prison, my days were full, but no matter how much I kept myself busy working and studying, my girls were constantly on my mind. Brooke would be eleven soon, and Natalie would turn seven. The ache I felt for them was a wound that wouldn’t heal—if I allowed my thoughts to pick at its edges too much, it began to bleed.
Still, I wrote to them, gradually filling up the pages of five spiral notebooks that I kept on the shelf next to my bunk. They were nothing profound, just thoughts I had about them, things I wanted them to know about me. They were too young, yet, for me to write about the things that mattered, the things I really needed to say.
I wonder what your favorite subject is, I wrote to Brooke. Which you love more, words or numbers. If you are finished playing with dolls or if you still hide one or two of them in your closet, the same way I did when I was ten years old, bringing them out, hoping I didn’t get caught, unsure if I was ready to let go of that little girl part of me. Do you fight with your sister, or do you still take care of her, the way you always did when she was a baby? I wonder if you’d recognize me if you saw me on the street, with our same black hair and violet eyes. Do you look in the mirror and see me, the same way I see you?
You have my lips, I told Natalie. The top one a bit thinner than the bottom. I’d hold you in my arms, feeding you a bottle because from the moment you were born you refused to nurse, and you’d rest one of your soft, perfect hands on my chest, on top of my heart. When you looked up and smiled, I saw in your round, brown eyes the kind of mother I wanted to be.
On their birthdays every year, I wrote each of them a longer letter, filling it with as many memories of my own childhood as I could. I fell down the cement stairs at school in the first grade, I’d written Natalie last year, when she turned six. I broke my arm and I knocked out my two front teeth. Have you lost any teeth yet? I hope you believe in the Tooth Fairy . . . and in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. I hope you believe in magic. And that the people who are taking care of you love you as much as I do. I hope you love reading as much as I did when I was your age. I hope you have lots of friends and a room full of toys. I hope you have everything I couldn’t give you.
I tried not to think about the fact that it was doubtful they’d ever have the chance to read any of what I wrote them. On a warm, sunny morning in May, four months away from my parole hearing, I climbed into the back of the gray prison van and reminded myself that I was writing the letters more for me than for them. I wrote them to help ease my own pain.
“Ready?” Mendez asked, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. A broadly built, stoic guard from the Dominican Republic, Mendez accompanied me into town three times a week for my participation in work release at Randy’s clinic. He was required to be in the same room with me while I worked, or at least very nearby.
“Yep,” I said. Most of our conversations went like this, monosyllabic statements and replies. I was anxious to get to work that day. After two weeks of intravenous antibiotics for a systemic infection, Winston, one of the dogs I’d been helping care for, was still struggling. I wanted to see if the new round of meds Randy had prescribed had taken effect. I put on my seat belt and settled in for the thirty-minute ride.
As we drove along the back roads from the prison into town, I eyed the landscape that had become so familiar to me during this commute. At its heart, most of Skagit County was farm country, and over the past couple of weeks, the plowed fields had begun to sprout green with the promise of bountiful summer crops. Ancient houses alongside red, rickety barns were scattered across the hillsides. The Mt. Vernon Animal Clinic was located just on the edge of downtown. Not quite the city, but not the country, either. It was a sprawling, one-story building with lots of large, square windows and an enormous fenced area that we used for exercising and training the dogs. There was an indoor-outdoor kennel in the back of the building as well, and that was where I spent the majority of my time.
Mendez pulled into the driveway, taking the van to the farthest spot in the corner of the parking lot, near the doors where we typically entered. The scrubs I wore for work were similar to the ones I wore on the inside—they were blue, and lacked only the large block lettering announcing I was an inmate at the Department of Corrections. Here, I got to wear white sneakers instead of plastic, slip-on sandals; I kept them in my cellblock and always put them on during the drive. Both Mendez and I climbed out of the van and walked in through the double glass doors that led to the office within the kennel.
“Hey, Jenny,” Chandi, the office manager, said as we entered. Only here was I referred to as Jenny or Jennifer; the rest of the time, I was like any other inmate, known by my last name alone. There were two reception areas in the clinic, one out front for veterinary patients, and this one, in the back, for animals being groomed and/or boarded in the kennel. Since I’d completed my certification, Randy had decided to offer a monthlong, intensive, in-house obedience training program for owners who had dogs but didn’t necessarily have the time to attend weekly classes. Part of my job was to spend several hours during my shift with each of these dogs, working with them on basic instructions and tasks; the other part was to keep the kennels clean and assist with whatever additional duties Randy required. Sometimes that included helping conduct an exam, and others it put me cleaning out kennels, or on the floor with a terminally ill animal, holding it close, scratching its head as Randy gently put it to sleep.
“Hey,” I said to Chandi, who was an East Indian woman about my age. She had thick, black hair and flawless light brown skin. Under different circumstances, we might have been the kinds of friends who went to parties together or shopped at the mall. Instead, we were the kinds of friends who only saw each other when a prison guard escorted me through the door. “Busy morning?” I asked.
“Not really. But Randy asked to see you when you got in,” she said, nodding in the direction of the hallway that led to the main building.
“Oh,” I said. “Okay, thanks.” I glanced at Mendez, who barely bobbed his head and then followed me to my employer’s office. When we got there, I peeked around the doorjamb and lightly rapped my knuckles on the wall. “Morning,” I said.
Randy looked up from the pile of papers on his desk and smiled. He wore his white doctor’s coat and a lime-green polo with the collar turned up, channeling a chubby Don Johnson. As usual, his thick shock of red hair was a mess and his cheeks were pink—from exertion or excitement, I couldn’t decipher.
“Jenny! Good morning!” he said. Excitement it was, then, I thought as he gestured for me to enter. “Have a seat.”
Mendez dropped into a wooden bench outside Randy’s door as I complied, setting my elbows on the arms of the chair and linking my fingers together in front of me. “What’s up?”
“Good news! Myer approved my request for you to bring a dog into the facility.” Randy never called where I lived a “prison,” which at first I thought was ridiculous but now appreciated as a kind, humanizing gesture. He treated me with as much respect as he did any of his employees, and required those around him to do the same. I was incredibly grateful not only for his willingness to teach me but for the chance doing this kind of work gave me to feel like a normal, decent person again.
“No way,” I said. Randy had been trying for the past year to get Myer to allow me to keep a service-dog-in-training with me at all times. This was how other service animals were effectively conditioned—living with their trainers for up to two years after they’d been properly socialized and had mastered all other basic obedience commands, working with them tirelessly to learn to ignore their natural instincts in favor of giving their masters what they needed. Until now, I’d only been able to work with a dog when I was at the clinic.
“Way,” Randy said with a grin. “It took some doing, but he agreed to it, as long as I’m willing to sign a waiver for any damage the dog might do to the facility or the other residents.”
I smiled, too. Despite his doctorate and almost two decades as an esteemed professional in the veterinary field, I’d come to understand that, in many ways, Randy was still just a little boy who’d grown up on a local farm, loving animals. His passion and enthusiasm for his work had proved impossible for me to resist. “Do you have a dog in mind?”
“Actually, I do,” he said, handing me a piece of paper. “It won’t be a service animal.”
“What?” I asked, taking the paper from him, but not looking at what it said. “Why not?” Training service animals was what I’d studied so hard to do. I loved the idea of a dog changing the life of a person with special needs. I loved the thought—after everything I’d done wrong, all the damage I’d done—of contributing something so pure and good to the world. It was the one tiny spot of brightness that shone inside me, a living amends for my sin of taking that child in the park from her mother. For the decision I made to give away my girls.
“Well, you know I’ve been working with a local no-kill shelter, trying to help find homes for strays,” Randy said, snapping me out of my thoughts. I nodded and waited for him to go on. He shifted forward at his desk and leaned toward me as he spoke again. “One of our biggest obstacles has been behavioral issues with the animals. Most of them have had no training, or they’ve been mistreated or violently abused, so they’re exceptionally difficult to work with.”
“Right.” I already knew all of this. I drummed my fingers on the tops of my thighs, anxious for him to get to the point.
“So, what I’m thinking is that you could take these unskilled and wounded animals and teach them how to behave so they’ll have a much better chance of finding a home. You’d be providing an amazing service.”
“But what about the service dogs I’m working with? What happens to them?” There were currently two dogs living with Randy and his wife that he brought in to the clinic on the days I worked so I could further their training to be guide dogs. I’d just finished teaching them obstacle avoidance, the most important safety skill dogs must learn in order to lead their masters along the safest route. Over the next several months, I needed to reinforce this skill in them by using repetition and reward. I wasn’t sure I could do this and work with a dog from the shelter.
“You’ll continue with their training when you’re here. Myer also approved you to come to the clinic four days a week instead of three.” Randy grinned, leaned back in his chair, and crossed his arms over his chest. “Not too shabby, huh?”
I shook my head, wondering how the other inmates would react not only to my having a dog with me at all times but to my getting the freedom to leave the prison four days a week. There were other work-release programs in which the women took part—things like highway cleanup and grounds maintenance—but I was the only prisoner who worked for Randy. He’d tried to add another inmate to the program but decided that was too demanding for him and asked that Myer allow me to be the single participant for the term of my incarceration. And because Randy offered to pay for the cost of transporting me to and from the clinic, Myer agreed, as long as I didn’t cause either of the men any problems.
“Come on,” Randy said, standing up from his desk and heading out of his office. “I brought in your first pup this morning. She’s a sweetie, but she’s had a rough time of things. You’re exactly what she needs.”
I followed him as he walked toward the kennel, and Mendez followed me. From the linoleum-lined hallway, I could hear the echoes of the dogs barking, excited as the other vet techs took them out of their pens for their midmorning play sessions in the fenced yard. When we entered the room that housed the animals, Mendez, as he always did, sat down in the chair next to the door, and Randy went directly to the last pen on the right-hand side of the first row. I went with him.
“Here she is,” he said, and I crouched down and looked through the chain-link gate.
The dog was curled up in the far corner, her fluffy, tan tail wrapped around the front of her body like a blanket. She looked to be about forty pounds, and her nose was tucked beneath her hind leg. She was shaking. “Hey, sweetie,” I said, glancing at the tag on the gate to see if she had been given a name, but the space was blank. I made a kissing sound, and she looked up at me, the fear she felt obvious in her big, brown eyes. “It’s okay, baby,” I murmured. “It’s all right, sweet girl.”
“The people at the shelter called her Wendy,” Randy said, “but I thought you might come up with something better. She’s about nine months old.” He handed me the key to the kennel. “I’ve got other clients to see, so why don’t you spend the day with her? Get to know each other a bit. Chandi has everything you need to take with you tonight at the front desk. Food, a bowl, et cetera.”
“You don’t need me to do anything else today?” I asked, straightening back up to look at him face-to-face. “I wanted to check on Winston.” Randy’s face fell, and my stomach heaved.
“He didn’t make it through the night,” Randy said. “I’m sorry, but the infection damaged his heart. He went in his sleep.”
I bit my lower lip as a few tears rolled down my cheeks. Losing animals, bearing witness to their deaths, was part of this job, and yet every time I went through the process, the sorrow I’d worked so hard to push down came rushing back. It never got any easier.
Randy set a comforting hand on my shoulder, gave it a squeeze, and then a moment later, was gone. I put the key in the lock on the gate, and slowly opened it. Again, the dog lifted her head, gazing at me with a worried intensity. Her tail lifted once, twice, wagging a nervous warning. That was something I’d learned early on working with dogs, that when they wagged their tails, it could mean any number of things: fear, excitement, or hesitance. It could also mean they were about to attack.
“Hey there, puppy,” I said in a low, soothing voice. How you spoke to a dog was just as important as what you said. She needed to know I wasn’t a threat, so after I locked the gate behind me, I got down on my hands and knees, to be at her level. “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s all right, sweet girl.”
She tensed, and tucked her tail between her back legs, eyeing me. I was just a couple of feet away, so I lifted one arm, holding my hand out, fingers curled under so she could sniff me. In six years, I’d never been bitten, and I didn’t want to start now. Randy wouldn’t have given me a vicious animal, nor would Myer have approved it.
The dog lifted her head and stood up, tail still tucked between her legs as she took one hesitant step, then two, toward me. “That’s it,” I said, in a singsong tone. “Good girl. That’s a good girl. Come here, you sweet thing.” I kept completely still, allowing her to make the decision to come to me.
Finally, she stretched out her neck and sniffed my hand. She took another step, moving her wet nose to my arm, allowing my fingers access to her neck. When I scratched her, she startled but didn’t pull away, allowing me to move my hand up and over her head, down her back and side to her belly. There wasn’t a dog I’d met who didn’t succumb to a good belly rub, and this girl was no exception. As my hand touched her there, her body softened, and she rolled to the ground, over onto her back to give me better access.
“Good girl,” I said again, looking her over as I loved her up. She was tan with black markings, likely some kind of shepherd mix. Her fur lay flat against her body, and though her tail was full, it had a wiry texture that reminded me of a Labrador retriever.
“What should I name you?” I asked her as I ran my fingers through her fur, giving her a full-body massage. She grunted and wiggled on her back, encouraging me to continue. “Wendy doesn’t work, does it?” I paused, thinking. “What about Jazz? Or Trixie?”
Her ears perked at the sound of the second name, so that’s what I decided to call her. With the long “e” sound at the end, it was similar enough to the name she’d been given by the shelter that she would still respond to it, but Trixie had more personality. More pizzazz.
I smiled until my fingers hit something raised and rough along her rib cage. “What’s this?” I said, using two hands to move her fur out of the way so I could see what I had only felt, and my eyes landed on several thick red scars that ran the length of her left side. My bottom lip quivered, and then I leaned down to rest my face on her warm body. Someone had beaten this poor pup, with something big and hard enough to break her skin.
“It’s okay,” I crooned as I righted myself and looked her straight in the eye. “I’ll take care of you now. No one will hurt you again.”
She looked at me like she’d understood exactly what I’d said, as though she knew that promise was as important for me to make as it was for her to hear. Then she climbed into my lap, sitting on the tops of my thighs while resting her head on my chest. She let loose a low, contented groan, melting her body against mine. I wrapped my arms around her, continuing to pet her, hoping she knew that whatever had happened to her in the past was over, and from this moment on, a new kind of life had begun.
• • •
Within two months of my having Trixie with me twenty-four hours a day, she had lost all signs of quivering shyness and blossomed into a confident, sweet animal who curled up in my bunk with me each night. She took to obedience training as though she’d been waiting for it all of her life. She was a quick study, picking up on the basic training I provided, and even showed signs of having the qualities of a good service animal candidate, something I planned to discuss with Randy later that week.
It was a Tuesday evening in early July, and I was walking with Trixie down the long hall toward my bunk when a voice I didn’t recognize called out to me. “Hey!”
I kept walking, keeping a firm grip on Trixie’s leash. “Heel,” I said in a low tone when she started to trot past me. I gave her collar a quick, gentle tug to the right, and she responded by bringing her pace back in sync with mine.
“Hey!” the woman said again, and I glanced over my shoulder, seeing her lumber toward me. I only knew this woman by reputation—she was serving time for being the getaway driver when her boyfriend robbed a corner store. Since she’d entered the prison a few weeks ago, she’d gotten into two fistfights in the cafeteria and threatened to beat up anyone who came near her in the showers. I’d done my best to stay out of her way, but there I was with her in a side hallway, having just returned from my shift at the clinic with Mendez. There was no one else around.
“I’m talking to you, bitch!”
My heart began to pound, and I took a deep breath in an attempt to calm it. Though my instinct was to run, I stopped, knowing it would be stupid to try to get away from her. Better to try to be friendly—maybe even get on her good side using my connections in the kitchen. If I’d learned anything during my time in a correctional facility, it was to keep my head down and avoid making enemies. O’Brien and I were still friends, and the threat of her wrath kept most of the harder, more violent criminals in our midst away from me, but this woman was new to the prison. She had no idea who O’Brien was or my relationship with her. Even if she did, she likely wouldn’t care.
“Sit,” I instructed Trixie as the woman approached us. “Wait.” Trixie did as I asked, and posed silently by my side, awaiting my further instruction.
“What the fuck is that animal doing in here?” the woman asked, huffing and puffing a bit. She was at least ten years older than me, almost as round as she was tall, likely outweighing me by a good sixty pounds. She had dirty blond, short hair and a mouthful of yellow, uneven teeth. Her blue scrubs were flat against her large breasts and stretched at the seams; blurry, black tattoos traveled up the skin of her thick neck.
“It’s part of my work-release program,” I said with a smile, trying not to display the anxiety I felt. “I train her and do other work with animals at a vet clinic in town.”
“Is that so?” the woman said, crossing her arms over her chest. She stared at me with tiny, round blue eyes, then looked at Trixie.
“It is,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as possible. I glanced around the hallway to see if anyone I knew might step in and discourage this woman from harassing me, but we were alone. Where’s a guard when I need one? “What’s your name?”
“Blake,” she said. She lifted her eyes back to mine, scowling.
“I’m Walker,” I said, keeping my eyes locked on hers. I’d never found myself in this kind of confrontation, but I’d witnessed many of them, and as with dogs, in prison, only the weaker animal looked away.
“Yeah,” she said, and she took a step toward me, putting her face only inches from mine. “You must be pretty special to get this kind of gig.” Her breath was rotten, full of decay; I tried not to flinch. “Tell me. How am I going to get me a gig like that? Leave this shithole a few days a week, just like you?”
“I don’t know,” I said, and I couldn’t keep the tremor from the words. My entire body tensed, and picking up on this, Trixie bared her teeth and growled, a low and deep, gurgling, threatening sound.
Blake’s leg shot out from her body and connected with Trixie before I knew what was happening. The dog yelped, and I screamed, “No!” and then I pushed at Blake’s chest as hard as I could. Trixie strained at the end of her leash, snarling at the woman who had just kicked her.
Blake stumbled backward, and then something dark flashed in her eyes. “Now you’re fucked, little girl,” she said, and she came at me again, her thick fists clenched, and the last thing I remember was Trixie barking and the bright sparkle of pain exploding inside my skull as Blake jumped on top of me, grabbed me by the ears, and banged my head against the floor.
