Chapter 69
Good News
We hear applause from the dorm—howls, screams, the kind you’d mistake for a rowdy sorority party. Rach and I look at each other. We round the corner fast; the room is buzzing. What could make everyone this happy?
Then we see her. Royal sits in one of the awkward prison chairs, only she’s sitting tall. Grey hair, head wrap, beige jacket over the matching uniform—cool the way Tupac’s mother is cool. Picture a grandmother at a club being adored, except it’s all women, sworn “opps” and besties alike, circling her. Tears stream down her face. Royal was born to lead. Her voice carries clean across a room and lands in your chest before you have time to think. By the time you process it, you’re changed. “And Mr.
Rubin said—God, I love Mr. Rubin, he’s been so good to me—he said, ‘Miss Royal, I couldn’t wait to call. The prosecutor dropped the major charge.’” She pauses, lets it hit. “And he said it’s possible I’m going home. Soon.” Her laugh booms, and the room answers, laughter flocking in.
We make our way through. Royal stands and hugs each of us, one by one. When a miracle shows up in prison, everyone wants to hold it. She wants that, too—that her joy might be catching, even for a minute. “I don’t even know how to feel,” she says, a little dizzy. “I don’t know what to do. I’m just so happy.” She does know what to do, better than most: Let it be felt.
Let the tears come where “cool” doesn’t cry. Let us laugh and cry with her. Hours later, I’m at her bunk. “Nicole,” she says in her usual way, punctuating her sentences with the name of their intended recipient. “Nicole, I need to tell you. I don’t wanna go back…” I blink. “Back?”
“I don’t wanna go back to the streets. I was good for twenty years. I wanna be good. I wanna be there for my grandbabies. For my kids. Nicole, I never known nothin’ but the streets, my whole life. But I wanna do this different. I get a new life, Nicole.” That, I can hear. Everything in me wants it for her. She takes a breath. “But what am I gonna do?
What skills I got? I’ve had two heart attacks and a stroke. I got no house. I can stay with my mother, but how I’m gonna take my grandbabies shopping?” Hope drops into my stomach. The confetti feeling from the dorm gives way to the math of rent, jobs, health.
“I don’t know, Royal,” I say. “But I will give it everything I have to help figure it out. The world needs to know you. You’re rare in a way you don’t even know. These women survive on what you give. We’ll find a path.” She studies me. “I’m starting to believe you, Nicole. People talk a lot of bullshit in here, but I’m starting to believe you.” A seed lands.
I picture a room full of people listening to her the way I have—how her voice would steady them. Then something precious seals it: a woman who’s met more defeat than most deciding to trust, even a little, that a new start is possible. I would do anything to be worthy of that trust.
Royal reaches up and moves a strand of hair from my face. It’s the most tender moment I’ve had in here—two women, strong and tired, lowering their guard, each trying to make the other’s life a little easier.