Free Retirement Plan by Martha Miller

money.
    In all this time, Ruby’s only communication had been with her ex-boyfriend and her ex-cellmate. Brian had called often when he first got paroled. Then he met another girl on the outside and that was the end of that. Tia Johnson, who’d shared a cell with Ruby for almost three years, wrote and called her several times for fifteen months after she earned parole. Tia had to use the name of Ruby’s mother when she contacted Ruby. Ex-cellmates were forbidden contact.
    In the beginning, Ruby had planned to throw in with Tia. They’d get a little two-bedroom apartment and go to AA Meetings and work, and they’d take more classes at City College. Ruby was proud of the fifteen college hours she’d earned in the prison’s education program, but over the years funding had been cut, and the prison no longer offered enough classes to make up a two-year degree. Ruby had also enrolled in Gateway, the drug-rehabilitation program, several months ago; she’d started this to look good to the parole board. But something had snared her, and now she planned to keep going to meetings after she was released.
    However, lately, as Tia Johnson had become more invested in things on the outside and less interested in things on the inside, her calls had grown shorter and further apart. Then the last time Tia called, she’d been strung out. She denied it, but Ruby could tell. Women who went back to drugs eventually resumed the crimes that accompanied drug use. Ruby had often seen inmates return to prison despite their best intentions.
    The security door buzzed, then a tall, slender woman came inside. Her short pewter-colored hair was, as always, curled in a ruthless perm. She looked around the room as her eyes adjusted to the bright lights. Ruby waved, and Sophie walked toward her.  
    Sophie awkwardly climbed over the red bench that was attached to the picnic table and sat down.
    Ruby said, “They have some coffee if you want some.”    
    Sophie shook her head. “I see you’re still smoking.”
    Ruby looked at the cigarette between her fingers as if she was surprised it was there. Had she written to Sophie that she intended to quit? She couldn’t remember. What she did remember was the last time she saw her mother and Sophie. They’d told her they would testify against her. She’d stolen their joint-savings passbook, forged a signature, and disappeared with roughly sixteen thousand dollars. The state could send a
    handwriting expert from its own forensic lab to testify against her. In the end, with the help of the public defender, she’d negotiated a plea. Due to mandatory sentencing she received fifteen years, including the time she’d already served in jail. It had been heroin that time.
    Ruby shrugged. “Everybody said they were quitting when the price went up last time, but I suppose this is better than the other shit I’ve put in my body.”
    Sophie placed both elbows on the table and stared at her. “You look older.”
    “I am over forty, now.”
    After an uncomfortable silence, Sophie asked, “What do you want, Ruby? What can’t you put in a letter?”
    As if the absurdity of the whole thing suddenly hit Ruby, she stammered, “I guess I wanted you to see that I’ve changed.”
    Sophie snorted.
    “I’m in a program now. I really want to stay sober. I have a thousand plans—”
    “Is one of those plans to pay your mother and me back for draining our savings?  Or how about the TV—jewelry—or, for that matter, anything of value that we owned?”
    Ruby put her head in her hands. At length she said, “You guys are all I’ve got.”
    “And what, pray tell, makes you think you’ve got us?”
    The space between them seemed vast, yet when Ruby answered, it was in a whisper. “Family is a place where you go, and no matter what, they always have to let you in.” Hot tears seared her cheeks. The trouble with sobriety was she felt everything.
    Sophie reached into her purse and passed a tissue across the