Year 6. Mom died. He cried at the funeral. I wanted to scream.
Year 11. Saw a man at the Kroger who looked like him and had to leave my cart.
Year 17. My daughter turned nineteen today.
Year 19. I started the letter again. Threw it away again.
Year 22. He’s sick. God forgive me, I’m counting down.
The last entry was dated the morning she called the public defender.
It said: Year 23. Nobody left to be afraid of.
I’ve been out thirty-eight days as I write this.
I have a studio apartment in Hartsville with a mattress on the floor and a kitchen table somebody from a church donated. I have a phone I still can’t really work. I have an appointment with a therapist who specializes in exonerees, which is apparently a specialty, which tells you something about this country.
The state owes me compensation under a 2019 statute. The filing takes eighteen months minimum. There is no statute anywhere that covers my mother’s funeral or my father’s last nine years or the children I did not have.
