Chapter 2

Gabriela was trying and failing to sleep. Normally, she had her routine. She’d cook dinner—chili, or curry, or casserole, something hearty and protein-rich—, have her second cup of tea for the day, and read in bed before going to sleep at an entirely reasonable hour. Now, she was lying on a cold, hard mattress. She’d had only a lump of mashed potatoes for dinner. There had been some sort of meat with it, too grey and featureless to determine, but she hadn’t touched it. She wasn’t that desperate yet. She wondered if they had a vegetarian option. Somehow, it seemed stupid to ask.

She was thinking about the boy from earlier. Young man, probably. He looked young, but not underage, at least if the things he was saying were any indication. She groaned, rolled over. She should stop thinking about him. He was just some creep.

It was hard not to wonder, though, what he’d done to end up here. Gabriela knew that most crimes were less dramatic than in the movies. You were far more likely to find someone in for drug possession than a card-carrying cannibal. Drugs were a possibility for him too, she supposed. There was certainly something in his eyes— pale blue, almost unnatural against his other features— which made him seem not all there.

She frowned, switched to lying on her other side. It was too hot here. She felt sweat drying sticky on her skin. God, what was she going to do? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t considered going to prison. She wasn’t stupid. Every step of the way, from building the bomb to planting it in Richard Brian’s garden shed, she’d thought about it. She’d worn a loose pair of overalls and wide-brimmed hat that day. She’d walked straight onto his pretty, manicured lawn and seen his pretty, manicured wife sipping mimosas on their porch. It was only 10 AM, but his wife was already half-drunk.

Gabriela had waved and exaggerated her accent to the point of caricature, “Garden! Here to garden!”

Richard’s wife had just smiled blankly and given a little, tepid wave as if to say— Yes, I’ve seen you, now hurry out of my sight.

Gabriela was happy to oblige. She went into the shed to get a rake and shovel, and when she stepped out she left the bomb behind, tucked behind a rack of ponchos. It was set to blow in two hours. She finished gardening in ninety minutes, waved goodbye to his wife— still sipping mimosas— and drove back in her truck, blaring The Kinks on max volume.

The wife had lived; that was the problem.

Gabriela didn’t know whether she’d wanted her to die or not. Murder wasn’t her goal. She’d wanted to send a message. Richard Brian was the CEO of a pharmaceutical company. Last year, he’d raised insulin prices by 20%. When Gabi was a little girl, her tía could get a 30 day supply of insulin for $90. Too much, even then. Now, it cost her nearly $500. She couldn’t afford it, and Gabriela couldn’t do shit to help her.

Nothing, maybe, except making freaks like Richard Brian afraid. She wanted to remind him that with all his money, and with all the rooms in his ugly, too-large house, any random lady in ratty overalls could come by and blow his shit up. Then the wife had lived, probably with a story to tell about the gardener woman that morning and how I didn’t recognize her, Richie. I thought maybe she was new, and everything had gone to hell.

At this point, she didn’t have many options. The smart thing to do would be to plead guilty. Maybe she’d get lucky, get away with ten years. She could play nice in prison, be out by her early thirties, and have a real life after. But that felt like groveling, and Gabriela Rodriguez didn’t grovel.

That morning, Gabriela stood in the cafeteria line like a sleepwalker. Marion County Jail housed both men and women, but the housing units, rec yards, and canteens were segregated. The women around her had stern, sallow faces. The cafeteria workers slopped scrambled eggs and burnt potatoes onto one tray after another. Every woman was dressed the same, eating the same, talking the same. It smelled like bleach and unwashed human. She smiled wide at the woman behind her, “Hey, the food as bad as it looks?”