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Present Day

I t’s entirely possible that being on death row is worse than death. I can’t say for sure, since I haven’t yet experienced death (will have an update on that soon), but I have experienced death row, and it’s hard to imagine anything much worse.

The worst part about death row is the seclusion. Prisoners on death row are kept isolated from the rest of the prisoners. We get a single cell, and we don’t eat in the dining hall with all the rest of the prisoners. When we go out in the prison yard, it’s always alone with a guard.

You might think, hey great, who wants to share a crowded cell with a bunch of other women? When I first heard that I’d be avoiding gen pop, I didn’t think it sounded so bad. I had heard horror stories about maximum security prisons. I imagined being beaten or raped or stabbed with a shiv while the guards were looking the other way.

But no, this is worse. Much worse.

Currently, I am lying on the bed in my cell. I spend twenty-three hours of the day in this cell, which is roughly the size of a parking space. Humans are not designed to be locked in a cage for 95 percent of the day. I have a small bed that is really just a metal slab attached to the wall, covered by a thin mattress. Actually, calling it a “mattress” is a stretch. It’s more like a thick blanket that has been folded over a couple of times. There is a small desk with a stool that is also welded to the wall. And of course, a metal toilet and sink.

If I roll to my side on this sorry excuse for a bed, I can just barely see the one tiny window, only slightly larger than my hand, which is close to the ceiling. I’d have to stand on my bed in order to see outside, although there’s not much of a view, which Noel always says is the most important thing about picking a place to live. That was what he used to say, at least, before he was murdered.

Occasionally, I get to shower—a rare treat—but I often wash my body at the sink with a rag and chemical-smelling soap. The only people I ever talk to are the guards, and it’s not like we’re having any great conversations. Visitors are rare. Usually, it’s just my lawyer, Clarence Bowman.

Whenever I leave this cell, I am shackled. I am allowed to go into the yard for one hour each day, although I am put in a different cage within the yard. They treat me like a wild animal that could turn on them at any time. But I suppose if they really think I’m a murderer, that makes sense. Who knows what I’m capable of?

“Kemper.” A voice jerks me from my self-pitying thoughts. “Food.”

I sit up from the faux mattress, my back screaming in pain. It’s supposed to be good for the back to sleep on a hard, flat surface, but there’s nothing good about this bed. There’s also nothing good about the food delivered to my cell, which is slid through a narrow slit in the door. Breakfast is delivered at six in the morning, lunch at eleven, then dinner at four thirty.

“It’s dinnertime,” the voice adds. It’s Correctional Officer Rhea Clark. I’m supposed to call COs by their last names, the same way everyone calls me by my last name, but she introduced herself to me as Rhea, so I feel I have license to call her that.

“Thank you,” I say as she passes my tray to me through the gap. My voice is hoarse, because I hardly use it anymore and don’t drink enough water. Sometimes when I try to swallow, it feels like there are glass shards in my throat.

I take the tray to my desk and sit on the stool to eat. I read somewhere that the state pays less than fifty cents per meal for each prisoner. When I look down at my tray, I believe it. My dinner consists of a fish patty, which was almost certainly recently frozen (and still sort of is), and a pile of soggy green beans from a can. When I bring my face too close to the plate, the smell turns my stomach.

Noel wouldn’t have minded prison food as much as I do. He lost his sense of smell when he was younger during a game of peewee football. He broke his nose during a tackle, and that was all it took to shear the delicate olfactory nerve fibers transmitting scents to his brain.

“I didn’t know you were allowed to tackle other kids during peewee football,” I said to him when he told me the story for the first time.

He winked at me and tapped the bump on the bridge of his nose. “Oh, the way I used to play it, you did.”

Sometimes I fantasize about a greasy fast-food burger with a side of crisp french fries. After years of prison food, I don’t fantasize about filet mignon or lobster—mostly just fast food. I wonder if I could ask for a Big Mac for my last meal.

I’m meeting with Bowman tomorrow about my appeal. Sometimes he calls me, but this time he wants to meet in person, which means whatever he has to say is important.

I am naively hopeful about the appeal, although I am always hopeful. How could anyone think that I killed Noel? I had no motive—he was the love of my life. And most of all, I have an alibi.

Yet here I am, about to be executed for his murder.

And the worst part of it all is how much I miss him.