Free Close to the Broken Hearted by Michael Hiebert

Correctional Institution in Talladega, the rest up in Birmingham at the Work Release Center. He was being let out just under three years of the full twenty he got handed down for manslaughter after killing little three-year-old Caleb Carson.
    After a period of silenced panic while Leah’s mind raced over ideas about how to handle damage control on this event, she finally came to a realization. “Sylvie doesn’t know,” she said. “Does she?”
    â€œWell, she’s not supposed to,” Ethan said.
    That was an odd thing to say, Leah thought. “I don’t see this as bein’ a huge problem, to be right honest, Ethan,” she said. “Sylvie doesn’t know, and the man’s done his time. In the eyes of the law, he’s no longer a criminal. Besides, she might never find out. He probably won’t ever return to Alvin. After all that happened it’s the last place I’d think of headin’ back to if I were him.”
    There was a slight chuckle in Ethan Montgomery’s voice when he responded that Leah didn’t like one bit. “Go turn your television set on,” he said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œTurn on your TV, Leah. Channel six. The ten o’clock news.”
    â€œCaroline’s watching the goddamn TV,” she said. “Just tell me.”
    â€œGo turn the channel,” he said and hung up.
    â€œOh dear Christ.” She set down the receiver. Pulling back the covers of her bed, she swung her legs over her mattress and slid her feet into her slippers. Even though it was July, the hardwood floors of the bedrooms still managed to somehow get cold at night.
    She padded down the hallway, through the kitchen and dining room, and into the living room where Caroline sat curled up on the sofa just as Leah had expected, wrapped in the yellow blanket she’d had since she was about ten years old. The thing was ridiculously worn, with tattered corners and even holes in some places, but Caroline refused to give it up, even when Leah offered to replace it with a new one.
    She was watching some situational comedy Leah hadn’t ever seen. Before Caroline even had a chance to complain, Leah walked over to the television and started turning the dial.
    â€œHey!” Caroline yelled. “What are you doin’? I was watchin’ that!”
    â€œPolice business,” Leah said. “Now shush.”
    Leah got to channel six and stopped turning the dial. On the screen, a reporter was at the Birmingham Penitentiary interviewing a very old-looking Eli Brown. His face was even more creased than it had been the last time Leah had seen the man, when he was transferred up to Birmingham. He had less hair and what little he had was pure white.
    â€œMother,” Caroline whined from the sofa. “Please turn it back to my show?”
    Leah shushed her again and turned up the volume. “So,” the reporter asked the old preacher man, “after seventeen years, how do you go about stepping back into your life?” The reporter was a young dark-haired kid in a gray blazer.
    Eli Brown was wearing an orange prison outfit. Leah couldn’t help but think it kind of suited him. “Just the way I left it, I s’pose,” Eli said, his voice more hollow and broken than ever. “I’ll find my way back to God and back home to Alvin. For me it’s really about picking up the thread right where it started to unwind.”
    The phone immediately rang again. And this time, Leah had no doubt when she picked it up whose voice she was going to hear at the other end. It certainly wouldn’t be Police Chief Montgomery. Not this time.
    Staring at the screen, she let the phone ring once more as two words came out of her mouth. One was “Oh.” The other was “Shit.”

C HAPTER 5
    A s Leah had imagined, the telephone call was a disaster. It was Sylvie, of course, and she’d been watching the same channel six news