Free Blame: A Novel by Michelle Huneven

scholarship. If we examine Jesus’ life as historians and we look into
all
contemporaneous sources, she’d say in lectures, we are able to establish exactly three facts. Jesus was born, he ate some meals with people, and he died—possibly by crucifixion.
    She’d wait for the murmur of discomfort, the hiss of disbelief, the secular titters, then add—And
that’s it
.
    •
    In the hot, rank afternoon, the air heavy with stockyard fumes, Patsy left off reading and sank into a sticky near-sleep, where once again she dreamed of taking the big, sweeping left turn to home, only to see in the old Mercedes’ headlights the two in their white blouses and dark skirts, the mother’s mouth round in surprise. Then the booms and thumps, a spray of stars, a veering off, leaves brushing metal, a small white hand sliding off a dark fender.
    Jesus fucking Christ. Patsy kicked her legs to wake up, opened her eyes, took more breaths, then turned on her side. In the heat and ricocheting noise, she sought another route to sleep and this time wandered past mansion after mansion under towering elms along broad, deserted streets.

6
    Unlike her mother, who would not accept the extravagantly surcharged collect calls when her father wasn’t there, eternally broke Brice never once turned down the prison operator. Would you do me a favor? Patsy asked him. Would you find out about Mark Parnham?
    What about him?
    General stuff. He wants to see me, and I want a sense of him first. Don’t talk to him or anything. But if you could check him out somehow, find out if he’s as nice as he seems.
    •
    Long, loud, too-bright clanging days passed. The deputy warden offered her a job teaching high school history and English geared to the high school equivalency test. She met nine students three times a week for two-hour sessions. Half her students, including Larena, read at or under fourth-grade level. Twenty-seven cents an hour was deposited in her commissary account.
    Lying on her bunk in sticky October heat, what Gloria said drifted back to her, about drinking till you were done.
Done.
Could
she
ever be done with alcohol? All that fun! Collapsing into a chair with a good stiff drink. Starting to make dinner by pouring herself a glass of red wine—was there a better moment in the day? If a drink was large enough and strong enough, the very first sip relaxed her, filled her with well-being. Could she ever be done with such fast, effective relief?
    Her father’s sobriety had been such an effort, such an event, the great life-changing hinge in the whole family history.
Before
, all was shouting, late-night smashings, and creepy-wet bourbon-scented bedtime kisses.
After
was the incessant low talking and intermittent laughter of men in the house at night, the phone always ringing with calls fromsponsors, sponsees, strangers trying not to drink, a whole household industry of sobriety. And meetings, meetings for everyone, for her dad, her mom, even meetings for Burt and her. How she hated those church classrooms with the small chairs, the too-kindly adult, the other children weirdly eager to describe their parents’ cruelty and misbehavior.
    Sobriety was her father’s greatest accomplishment. How pathetic!
    But
drinking till you’re done
—the phrase implied a natural cessation, no force or rupture. How appealing to think she might one day have had enough, and walk away into the rest of her life without craving or a thundering sense of loss. The idea offered release, and the mental clarity of a thin, clean pane of glass.
    Possibly, she was already done. Hard to be sure. At Bertrin no little jars appeared, no tempting, cloudy tinctures distilled from rotting cornflakes.
    Afternoons, before final count, she’d see women in the meeting room, their chairs in a ragged circle. They were laughing in there.
    •
    Brice was escorted into the visiting hall. A few low whistles greeted him, and he waved jauntily to the whistlers. Stop it, Patsy whispered as he