"You carded Ms. R. You carded Sean's Ms. R. In the lobby of the Parole Board. On the morning of his hearing." She closed her eyes. When she opened them they were bright and hard. "Fifteen years. Fifteen years he's been in there, and this is the one person in that whole place who ever—" She stopped herself. She put her gloved hand over her mouth and held it there.
"I know," he said.
"No, you don't," she said, through the glove. "You don't, Neal. That's the trouble. You never know until after."
He did not answer. A woman in a red raincoat came up the walk from the lot with a girl of about twelve, and Neal held the outer door for them and they went through the vestibule and into the lobby, and he watched them go through the detector, and the woman did not look at him, and he understood after a second that they were nobody, an inmate's family for the afternoon hearing who had gotten the time wrong, and he felt the machine in him start up at the sight of them anyway, idle a moment, and settle back down.
"There was a letter," he said. "I didn't tell you. In August."
Maureen took her hand from her mouth. He told her about the letter, too. He told her about the lined paper and the little torn teeth along the edge and the blue ballpoint. He told her he had kept it in the glove box. He watched her take it in, and something in her face, which had been set against him a moment ago, came undone and went tired.
"You should've told me," she said.
"I didn't want you to—"
"You didn't want me to what? Be scared? Neal, I've been scared since the night of June the eleventh, two thousand and eleven. I've been scared so long I don't know what the other thing feels like." She took his arm. "Is she out there? Sheila?"
"Not yet."