Free When She Woke by Hillary Jordan Page A

imagine how it would be to see him again. To lie with her head cradled in the hollow of his shoulder while he stroked her hair and spoke of random things—a dream he’d had the night before, a sermon he was struggling with, an idea he hadn’t shared with anyone else. But the fantasy stuttered and halted, just as their conversations all too often had when one of them inadvertently said the wrong word, puncturing the fragile membrane that sheltered them from the outside world. “Home” conjured Alyssa in the bed between them. “Church” raised the specter of discovery and scandal. “Tomorrow” or “next week” led to thoughts of a future together that they could never have.
    For there was no question of Aidan’s leaving his wife. He’d told Hannah so bluntly that first night, as he was getting dressed. “I can never offer you more than this,” he said, waving his hand to encompass the rumpled bed, the generic room. “I love you, but I can never leave Alyssa. I can’t bring that kind of shame on her. Do you understand? You and I will never be able to love each other openly.”
    “I understand.”
    “You deserve that, with someone,” he said. “A husband, a family.”
    Lying in the damp bed with his scent on her skin and her body aching from their lovemaking, she couldn’t imagine being with another man. Even the thought of it was repugnant.
    “I don’t want anyone else,” she told him.

TWO

PENITENCE

S UNLIGHT BOUNCING OFF concrete, glinting on razor wire and steel, bathing her face in warmth. Cool wind buffeting her skin and stirring her hair, vivid blue of sky piercing her eyes. Sounds of cars whizzing past, a snatch of song from a radio, the tweeting of birds, the chirping of locusts, the crunch of two pairs of feet on gravel. The sensory input was dizzying, overwhelming. Hannah stumbled, and the guard walking beside her took hold of her upper arm to steady her. As he did so, his fingers brushed against the outside curve of her breast. Intentionally? She gave him a sidelong glance, but his wide brown face was impassive, and his eyes were staring straight ahead.
    They approached a large, windowless building six stories tall: the prison. As they passed beneath its shadow, Hannah felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. Only the most violent felons were kept behind bars—first-degree murderers, serial rapists, abortionists and other offenders deemed incorrigible by the state. Most of them served life sentences. Once they went in, they almost never came out.
    As they neared the gate, it began to move, sliding into the wall with a mechanical groan.
    “You’re free to go,” the guard told Hannah. She paused on the threshold. “What’s the matter, pajarita, you afraid to leave the nest?”
    Giving no indication that she’d heard him, she squared her shoulders and stepped through the opening, into the world.

    She stood in a short driveway leading to a parking lot. She walked to the edge of the drive and scanned the lot, one hand shielding her eyes against the morning sun. There was no movement, no sign of her parents’ blue sedan. She fixed her eyes on the entrance, willing the car to appear, telling herself her father was just running late.
    “Hey, gal.” The voice, a man’s, came from behind her. She turned and saw a small booth she hadn’t noticed to one side of the gate. A guard was leaning against the doorjamb with his arms folded over his chest. “Guess your friend ain’t coming,” he said.
    “It’s my father,” Hannah said. “And he’ll be here.”
    “If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I’d be rich as an A-rab.” The guard was tall and skinny, with a smug, pimpled face and a protuberant Adam’s apple that bobbed convulsively when he swallowed. He looked like he was about sixteen, though Hannah knew he had to be at least twenty-one to work at a state prison.
    She heard the sound of a vehicle. She spun and saw a car pulling into the lot, but it was