Free Beyond Innocence by Carsen Taite

confront Cory about what she considered mild flirtation. By calling attention to it, she’d have to discuss it. What would she say? Are you a lesbian? Is that why you took me to a lesbian bar for a business meeting? Are you attracted to me? Is that why you keep touching me, with your hand, with your smile?
    What if Cory thought her questions were crazy? Even she thought her questions were crazy. Better to ignore these subtle actions than make a fool of herself. Still…
    “I was cute. Cute dress, cute bow in hair. Besides, little girls are less trouble. At least that’s the prevailing theory.”
    “Good one. So you were adopted and Eric wasn’t.”
    “I was not only adopted, but I was adopted by a family in Florida. Eric was still in the boys’ home when it happened. We never even got to say good-bye before I got on a plane for the very first time in my life and flew away from everything that I knew.”
    “But you kept in touch.”
    “Letters, an occasional phone call. I saved every letter. The phone calls were usually laced with anger. Eric became hostile. I was living the privileged white life with my white parents in white America.”
    “Hardly fair. It wasn’t like you had a choice. You were too young.”
    “And he was too young to realize he wasn’t being fair. He softened up later. When he started getting into more serious trouble.” Serena considered her next words. She’d only discussed Eric’s past with the Clarks, and then only what was necessary to disclose. She considered his past private, like her own, and kept shared details to a minimum. But Cory would have to know everything if she was going to represent him. She may already know the outcome of Eric’s transgressions, but she didn’t know the details behind his wayward path, and that was why Serena was here in Dallas, instead of dispassionately phoning in her help from Florida.
    “He was seventeen the first time he was arrested as an adult. He burglarized someone’s home. With his juvenile record, the public defender gave up without trying. Eric took his first trip to the pen.”
    “I don’t think that a pen time plea recommendation was out of line. Probation is usually reserved for first time offenders.”
    “Don’t you tell me that there aren’t tons of seventeen-year-olds offered probation, no matter what they did as children. Shoot, a seventeen-year-old is still a child in my book.” Serena folded her arms. “Here’s what I think. I think the system wrote Eric off—aged out of foster care, problems with authority. That court appointed lawyer told Eric he didn’t have a choice. He didn’t even bother to fight for him.”
    Serena shuddered at the memory. She’d received a letter from Eric, return address one of the state correctional facilities. She was only thirteen when she received it, but smarter about the system than any teenager should be. Eric explained what had happened. He’d aged out of foster care. Homeless and jobless, he got in with the wrong crowd. He’d been the lookout for a couple of other guys who’d broken into a house and stolen whatever they could carry out in one trip. Instead of his past mitigating his culpability, the court system viewed him as a lost cause. He got the minimum, but the minimum was two years in the penitentiary. He did a year before he was released on parole. At thirteen, she’d been angry about the sentence, at thirty-three, she was indignant.
    “That began the downward spiral. A felon on parole can’t find a job, so he either steals to earn a living or he does drugs to forget his troubles. Since he can’t afford to buy drugs without a job, he steals. Either way, he’s doomed. Seventeen is awful young to realize you’ve hit a dead end.”
    “There are alternatives.”
    Serena heard the trace of judgment in Cory’s otherwise gentle tone. She knew Cory was right and she’d ultimately come to that conclusion herself, but she didn’t need a stranger to tell her how she should