Chapter Text
Kim walked across the parking lot, toward her rental car, her back ramrod straight, her steps measured and controlled. It reminded her of how she’d walked across the stage the day she graduated law school. She had no one in the audience cheering for her; her mother had broken her promise to be there once again and her father? Well, neither of them had seen him since Kimmie was 5, so it was no surprise he wasn’t in a chair, looking up at her with tears of pride in his eyes.
It didn’t matter. She didn’t need anybody. She had done it, and she would walk precisely up to receive her diploma with dry eyes and a clear head. Just as she was walking now, many years later, across the parking lot of a federal penitentiary.
She reached the car and clicked to open the door, sliding inside and throwing her briefcase on the seat. It wasn’t even leather, but some discount store imitation that had seemed perfectly appropriate for her role today as a imitation lawyer. It was all too perfect; after all the work she’d put in, after all of her struggles, here she sat – an imitation lawyer in a rental car who’d just been to see her felon ex-husband.
Kim flipped the briefcase open and pulled out her wallet. She took out her bar card and looked at it for a long moment. No expiration date, but if someone had taken the time to look her up on the State Bar of New Mexico’s web site, they’d have seen her status as inactive since 2004. Many attorneys went inactive – health reasons, family reasons, sometimes just going through a phase where they opened a flower shop and refused to look at one more set of form interrogatories. They just as often reinstated after realizing their brain was turning to mush at home with a child, or having vanquished whatever form of cancer had temporarily possessed their bodies, or just realizing they missed the paychecks enough to forget the stress. It wasn’t hard to do.
She’d never been convicted of a crime. She’d never even been indicted.
Was this how her mother felt, every time she tried to stay sober, staring at a vodka bottle? Telling herself that this time she’d handle it differently? This time it wouldn’t take over her entire life and destroy everything and everyone she came into contact with?
She should start the car. Drive away. Go back to Florida and make an excuse about her absence. Apologize to her boss. It wasn’t that weird for women her age to have a mild breakdown. It could be easily blamed on hormones.
Kim looked back at the building. It was huge, a fortress with high fence and barbed wire and armed guards at the high corners.
She wondered if he was still standing there.
Every single time she’d needed someone or something, it ended in disaster. It was clearly for the best to go back to Florida, to a life where she neither needed nor wanted anything or anyone that she had. Six years had passed, with no disasters. What more proof did she need?
She should start the car.
She tapped her foot, thinking.
She didn’t have to go back to any of that, but she didn’t have to jump off a cliff, either. She could quietly move to her own apartment, get admitted to the bar in Florida and work at Legal Aid. At least she’d care about what she was doing, and there were so many people who needed the help. Wasn’t that a more appropriate level of atonement than wasting her legal skills because they reminded her of Jimmy McGill and all the great and horrible things that they had done together?
She started the car, proud of herself for not looking back, and drove away down the road. The prison was out in the middle of nowhere, with a cluster of a few gas stations and fast food joints designed to lure the endless parade of visitors. A tiny little town for those unfortunate enough to have a loved one behind the concrete walls of ADX Montrose.
Kim glanced down at the dash, realizing she needed gas herself and that her mouth was dry after the cigarette she’d smoked with Jimmy. She pulled into a Shell station and got out. Kim left the car filling up with gas and walked away (breaking the rules already, didn’t take you long, did it?) to roam around the station, picking up bottled water, another pack of cigarettes, and a snack pack of pistachios. Further down the aisle, a family browsed, the kids picking up bags of chips while their tired looking mother reminded them they could only have one item each.
They headed for the line at the register and Kim followed. The youngest, a little girl with sandy brown hair, stood with her back to her mother, staring at Kim.
“I’m Payton. What’s your name?” the child asked.
Kim was taken aback for a second before she remembered that she had not done anything wrong, she wasn’t on the run, and it was absolutely fine that she was here in this gas station buying snacks and cigarettes. She was free.
The thought made her sad and she pushed that away.
“I’m sorry, I was daydreaming. My name is Kim.”
“Hi Kim! My dad lives over there, so we come visit him.” She pointed to the penitentiary.
“Oh my God. Payton.” Her mother whipped around, looking embarrassed and apologetic. “I’m sorry, she didn’t mean to bother you.”
Kim smiled reassuringly. “She’s not bothering me.”
The woman took in Kim’s dress pants and heels. “You a lawyer? You don’t look like a visitor.”
“I – I am a lawyer,” Kim admitted, saying nothing more.
Outside again, Kim tossed her purchases on the passenger seat and went to hang up the nozzle. She looked at Payton’s mom, who was in the process of organizing three kids and their snacks into a minivan that had seen better days, and looked beyond that to a half-empty strip mall across the street.
The few businesses that occupied the space all looked poorly-funded. There was a bail bond company, a hair and nail salon that Kim guessed catered to wives wanting to look their best for their visit, a dollar store, and a Chinese restaurant. The names of the businesses were lined up on a faded sign that stood alongside the road, the lowest notch containing a hand-painted sign said “RETAIL – OFFICE – FOR RENT” above the phone number to call. Kim stood there motionless, just watching, as the minivan drove away. For a moment, she imagined the mall with an inflatable Statue of Liberty rising above it, blowing back and forth in the wind.
She looked back along the road she’d come from. Kim could just barely see the penitentiary; it was getting dark. She got back into the car and took a long drink of her water before lighting another cigarette. Her hands were trembling again, as they had done in the cell.
For six years, she had known exactly what was going to happen next. She had set it up that way – precisely, deliberately. It was comforting at times, but it was not enough, and she realized she’d known that even before she left Florida, which she couldn’t go home to because it had never been her home in the first place.
Kim picked up her cell phone and, squinting at the sign across the street, dialed the number.