8. Piper
Piper
P iper wasn’t sure exactly what made her get on the northbound bus instead of the one that would take her back into Grimm Falls.
Angry wasn’t really the word for what her boss would be if she missed her shift, and she’d had to beg Hunter to take care of Josh for her.
It was incredibly irresponsible to go anywhere other than straight back into the city.
But the state penitentiary wasn’t all that far from Abby’s house – or at least, it was thirty minutes closer than Piper usually was to Jed.
She didn’t come out this way much, through the rich neighborhoods, and a quick detour to another bus would get her on the road to see her husband in under an hour.
She’d promised Hunter that she wouldn’t visit him again. That was six months ago, after visiting Jed got Piper in a bit of hot water, and she’d kept her word.
It was tempting now, though. It always was when things were looking desperate, and despite Hunter’s new job, they weren’t doing well. Jed could help – Piper knew that. And as long as she came up with a good enough excuse to explain her absence to her boss, no one would ever have to know.
So Piper called him, said that Josh was contagious and she had no choice but to take him straight home to bed, and then she switched busses and headed to the prison.
She’d be there and home before Hunter knew anything was wrong, and maybe she’d even have a solution to their financial problems that didn’t involve her poor sister working eighty hours a week.
The bus wove through the woods for a long time while Piper worked through her guilt at secretly visiting Jed.
By the time it emerged on the other side of the forest, where a long, flat highway stretched with nothing for miles around, she was feeling a little indignant.
Jed was her husband, the father of her children.
Sure, he’d made bad choices in his life and he’d gotten her mixed up in something that she regretted… but she loved him.
How could Hunter ask her to just let him rot in his prison cell all alone?
He wrote to Piper sometimes. That was something that Hunter never found out about, and Piper made sure to keep it a secret because she knew her sister wouldn’t approve.
She watched the mailbox like a hawk all the time, just in case a letter addressed in Jed’s careful handwriting arrived when she wasn’t expecting it.
He did things like that sometimes, writing her just because he missed her.
Piper kept all the letters in a shoebox at the back of her closet, except the most recent one. That she kept folded up in her wallet so that she could read it until it was memorized and then wait for the next letter to come.
She took the latest love note out during the bus ride and read it for the hundredth time.
Baby doll,
I miss you so much. It’s killing me I’m not there to protect you and the boys. You can’t possibly do it all on your own, but you have to wait for me. Don’t forget me.
Bring Josh and Andrew to see me soon. I miss their faces, and yours. The three of you need me and I’m not there – it’s awful. I’ll figure out something soon, I promise.
Love,
J.
Piper’s heart ached every time she read one of Jed’s notes. No one loved her like he did, and no one ever provided for her and took care of her like he did. Hunter hated him pretty much from day one, and that was because she just never understood what he’d done for them – both of them.
The prison rose up on the horizon after about forty-five minutes on the bus. It was a large, square building with barbed wire all the way around it, the only visible thing in the flat farm country surrounding it.
Piper got off the bus along with a few other visitors and a couple of guards coming on for the afternoon shift.
They all passed through metal detectors, holding their arms out from their sides for the guards to scrutinize the monitors as they passed.
Piper hadn’t been here as often as she would have liked, but she knew the routine well enough – through the metal detectors, down the hall to the visitor’s area.
Sign in and wait, then go through the door to the partitioned room and wait some more.
She sat down at the farthest booth in the row and then waited with her hands in her lap as she watched the inmates’ side of the glass.
There were about a half-dozen other visitors all doing the same thing, their eyes on the door where an armed guard stood at attention.
Then it opened and the inmates marched in.
Jed looked harried, with more gray in his wild mane of hair than the last time she’d seen him. He shuffled into the room with his shoulders hunched, but when he saw who was waiting for him, he straightened up and grinned wide at her, showing his teeth.
“Baby doll,” he said as he sat down. Piper could make out the words through the glass, but not well. Jed picked up his end of the phone mounted to the divider to his right and Piper did the same. His voice was clearer now and it made a lump form in Piper’s throat as he said, “You came.”
"I missed you,” Piper said.
Then Jed’s expression clouded over and he said with a disappointed scowl, “You didn’t bring the boys with you.”
Piper shook her head sadly. He’d been asking to see the boys ever since he went into the prison but Piper couldn’t bring herself to do it.
They were so young, she didn’t want them to know what it was like to visit someone in prison – especially not their father.
She’d rather they not see him at all during his sentence than have to see that orange jumpsuit when they thought of him.
Jed disagreed with that decision and he wasn’t shy about it.
“I asked you to bring them,” he said.
“I just don’t think it’s the right time,” Piper said.
“They’re my sons,” Jed pointed out. “I want to see them.”
“Josh is sick today,” Piper said, trying to guide the conversation. She’d never been much good at that – not with Jed, anyway. “He couldn’t have come regardless.”
“His sugar levels?” Jed asked.
“No, a fever,” she said. “He’ll be fine.”
“You could have brought Andrew at least,” Jed said, his eyes burning into her so that she’d know just how disappointed he was.
“He’s in school,” Piper said. She looked at the glass instead of into Jed’s eyes.
She always felt so small when Jed looked at her like that.
The glass was dirty and scratched and she wondered if the guards ever bothered to clean it.
She could still feel Jed’s eyes on her, hungry for an admission of guilt, a promise to bring the boys next time.
Instead, she said quietly, "Hunter doesn't want me visiting you. She says you’re a bad influence. "
“Yeah, well, I feel bad for Hunter,” Jed said, sitting back in his chair.
He seemed to relax a little, so Piper let her eyes slowly creep back up to his face.
The anger was gone and she felt relieved.
Criticizing Hunter was one of Jed’s favorite pastimes, and he went on.
“She never could see the world the way it really is. She thinks everything is sunshine and rainbows, and that all you have to do to get ahead is work hard.”
“She does work hard,” Piper said.
“And where has that gotten her?” Jed sneered. “Changing old people’s diapers, that’s where. And she has the nerve to judge me, when all I ever do is provide for my family.”
“She might not have to do that much longer, actually,” Piper said, trying to come to her sister’s defense.
She didn’t like it when Jed went after Hunter any more than when Hunter tried to convince her that Jed was no good.
Why couldn’t they all just get along? She told him, “Hunter got a new job recently. It’s a really good one, and her employers are rich. ”
Jed leaned forward in his chair, his teeth showing again as he asked, “Is that so?”