with a sigh.
‘Thanks again,’ said Alex.
The woman nodded and walked over to the door beside the guard’s window. Alex watched her wait for a buzzer to sound and then the woman sighed, pushed the door open and went in. Alex shifted in her seat, sitting on top of her clammy hands, and waited for her number to be called.
The time dragged, and no one offered any explanations. Although she was not used to being treated rudely, Alex realized that she would accomplish nothing here by causing a fuss. Patience, she reminded herself. You don’t want these people looking askance at you. Finally her number was called. She waited for the buzzer, opened the door and entered. The guard told her to stand in front of a scanner and empty her pockets. Luckily, she had been forewarned.
‘I just have this card for the vending machines,’ she said.
The guard nodded disinterestedly. He ordered her to pass through and, when she got to the other side, directed her to a room across the hall. ‘In there,’ he grunted. ‘Sit down at a table. Doesn’t matter which.’
‘Thank you,’ said Alex politely. She wanted to ask if Dory was already in there, but she didn’t dare. She walked across the hall and entered the room, which was mainly empty. Her companion with the romance novel was seated at the far end across from a young woman with a rag tied over her hair and deep circles under her eyes. A tray of food rested, untouched, on the tabletop between them. Neither woman looked up at Alex.
Alex glanced around the room. She picked a table away from the others and sat down. It was Saturday and she had expected the place to be teeming with visitors but, in fact, it was almost eerily empty and silent, except for the constant barrage of announcements over the PA system.
She sat down, her heart pounding, and watched the door. She did not have long to wait. A guard came in with a prisoner in a dark blue jumpsuit. The minute Alex set eyes on her sister, she realized, with a start, that there was no doubt.
Dory Colson was tall and slim with frizzy, reddish-blonde hair in a ponytail and pale eyelashes. Her face was covered with a thin veil of freckles. She could have been a younger, slimmer and more beautiful version of Alex’s mother, Catherine Woods.
Dory looked around the room and her vacant, gray-eyed gaze settled on Alex. She stared at her, unsmiling.
Alex stood halfway up in her seat and raised her hand. Dory spoke to the guard who had accompanied her and came gliding toward Alex. Alex stepped out from behind the table. She felt a sudden panic that she didn’t know what to do. She felt as if she should embrace this person who was her sister, but she didn’t want to. Then again, it seemed too weird to shake her hand. Dory settled the problem for her. She nodded abruptly and sat down in the chair across from Alex. Relieved, Alex resumed her seat.
‘So,’ said Dory in a low murmur, ‘you found me.’
Alex was startled by those words and felt compelled to protest. ‘Well, not me. Not really. My attorney has an investigator who . . .’
‘I meant the prison,’ said Dory.
‘Oh,’ said Alex, feeling flustered. ‘Yes. It wasn’t hard to find.’
She couldn’t stop staring at Dory’s face, at once so alien and so familiar. Unlike her mother, Dory’s eyes were flat and lusterless. That wasn’t the only difference. Where Catherine was warm, Dory was cool. There was a distant quality to her voice and her fleeting smile. But the ineffable resemblance in the arrangement of their features was uncanny. Alex felt almost angry at this prisoner for resembling her mother so closely. It seemed wrong, somehow. As if she had a claim to their mother that Alex never would.
Now that they were face-to-face, Alex suddenly struggled to think of what to say. Her brain felt utterly empty of any thoughts, except for an urgent desire to get out of this place which smelled of stale fried food and disinfectant. Then she remembered the card which she was squeezing in her hand. The corners of it were cutting into her palm. ‘I got this card,’ she said. ‘Would you like to get something . . . from one of the machines?’
Dory gazed at the array of vending machines with a flicker of interest that faded immediately. ‘No. No, thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m watching my figure.’
‘Really?’