“Yeah. I get it. I was a cop, remember?” he smiled a bit.
“Still are,” Reesy tilted her head. “Gotta have something to do when you’re back up top, right?”
“Right,” Birdie seemed a bit confused. But she was tired, and it had been a long day, and in all honesty she didn’t really want to get into another discussion. “Um,” she shook her head as if to clear it, “Do you… go up there when you’re done working down here for the day?”
“Yeah,” she replied, looking away for a moment before meeting her eyes again.
“How many of us are there? I mean, up there?”
“On Pritchard’s Island, there are two hundred and eighty-seven of us. Well, eighty-eight, once you’re top-side,” she gave a small smile.
“That many?” she raised her brows.
“It’ll make more sense once you get your briefing tomorrow.”
“Do you have a family?” she asked quickly, though it seemed Reesy was about to turn and leave. “I mean, I know how it works in witness protection. You don’t get to see your friends and family…”
“More than that,” Reesy sighed, resigning to having to explain, though she didn’t want to be the one to do it. She crossed the small space from threshold to dresser, and hopped up to sit on its top. Birdie instinctively took a seat on the cot across from her. “Your friends and family,” she started, “They think you’re dead. To them, you died on that street; shot by a punk kid named Artie Finkle, whom, by the way, was apprehended.” She stalled for a moment, gauging Birdie’s reaction. “They attended your funeral, Birdie,” she continued, “And they’re moving on. Not only can you not see them, but you can never see them again. You can never contact them; not even subtly. You can’t leave Pritchard’s Island. Not unless you have the highest authority’s permission and have someone to accompany you. It’s not safe for you. It’s not safe for any of us if someone were to find out about us; about this place. Do you understand?”
Though her eyes darted around somewhere in the air between them, Birdie nodded. “Yeah,” came out as almost a whisper. And then she straightened and looked Reesy in the eye. “Yes, I understand,” she said, with conviction.
Reesy looked skeptically at the woman in front of her who seemed to be putting on a brave front. “You okay?” Birdie nodded and gave a small smile. Reesy hopped down from the dresser, “Your journals are in the bed-side table drawer. It’s all we could find that you might have wanted to bring with you. Nothing else from your old life could come.”
“My journals?” Birdie cocked her head to the side. “How?”
“You’d be amazed how easy it is to get to someone’s personal belongings when a family is mourning.”
“There aren’t many left to get past,” Birdie interjected.
“There are some clothes in the dresser; stuff to sleep in and a few things for during the day,” Reesy was quick to change the subject. “They’re nothing near fancy, but there’s really no point down here. Once you’re top-side, that’s another story. Jodie and I will take you shopping,” she smiled and headed for the door.
“Jodie?”
Reesy turned as she stepped over the threshold into the hall, and looked back at her. “My wife,” she smiled. “You’ll like her.”
“Your wife?” Birdie considered, for a moment, the only two people she’d met since her waking. “Does rebirth turn you gay?”
Reesy laughed, “Oh god. If you weren’t so adorable, I’d punch you for that.”
“I’m sorry…” she shook her head, embarrassed.
“It’s okay,” she smiled, then raised her brows. “Do you wanna kiss me?”
“What? No!” Birdie looked at her, incredulously.
Reesy shrugged, “Guess you’re not gay, then.”
“I- I’m sorry! I didn’t mean—”
“I was gay before I came here,” she told her. “So was Jodie and Emmett.”
“That was such a stupid thing for me to ask. Please… can you pretend I never said it?”
“Said what?” she smirked.
Birdie let out a relieved sigh. “Thanks, Reesy.”
“Goodnight, sweetie,” she said, pulling the door closed.
Birdie listened to Reesy’s footsteps as they led away from the door, until she couldn’t hear them anymore. She looked around the small space that was her room for however long she had to stay underground. Small spaces usually made her anxious. But she’d been holed up in smaller places on stake-outs when she worked with the DEA. There was a way out, and she wasn’t alone down there. She told herself that everything was fine. As fine as it could be, anyway. The craziness of the day helped to distract her, anyway. She stood and made her way to the dresser.
Reesy hadn’t been exaggerating when she said the clothes were nothing fancy. A robin’s egg shade of blue seemed to be the only color for everything in the drawer; even the day clothes. Ironically enough, she just then noticed that the gown she was already wearing was the very same color.
Birdie pulled out a set of night clothes. The inexpensive cotton didn’t give her much hope in them being comfortable. But the tank top and long pants fit as though they were made just for her. After laying her discarded gown on top of the dresser, she made her way back to the cot and opened the side-table drawer.
There sat her two journals. She hadn’t touched either of them in years. No one really knew about her journals. She’d had the first one since high school. She so rarely wrote in them. Only when something really big happened, whether good or bad, would she think to open it up and write. She was probably in her mid-twenties when she’d run out of room and had to buy another. Her last entry was when she’d made the decision to move to Dagsboro. Since then, they’d sat in a box in her closet, where keepsakes that didn’t need to be out could be kept.
She pulled out the most recent journal and got as comfortable as she could on the cot, adjusting the pillow against the wall so that she could lean back on it. Her silver pen was where she’d left it in the middle of the book on the page she’d made her last entry. She opened to the page and grabbed the pen, preparing to make a new entry.
March 14, 2013
Two days ago, I died. A boy was afraid and shot me in the chest. Today, I was reborn. Either that, or this is some strange dream and I’m in a hospital bed stuck in a comfortable coma. In which case, this entry won’t even be in my journal, so there’s no reason to apologize for it.
Shifting slightly on the cot, something fell out of the journal and into her lap. She picked up the white square of paper she knew was the back of a photo, and flipped it over. It didn’t take but a moment to realize where in the journal the picture had fallen from. It was of her and Brian, taken probably a decade ago at a family reunion. This was before drugs were even a part of his vocabulary. He looked good.
Birdie smiled sadly, absentmindedly running a finger beside the image of his face. She still missed him every day. Looking at that picture made it all come back to her in a rush; the memories of when he’d still been alive, and the ones from that day in his apartment… finding him.
Quickly, she stuck the photo back into the journal and closed it up, swiping a tear from her eye before it had a chance to fall. She shoved the book back into the drawer and sank down into the bed on her side, willing herself to give in to the exhaustion.
March 25, 2013
This marks the end of day ten in what I’ve come to call the dungeon of Pritchard’s Island. I’ve endured plenty of boot-camps in my time. But I suppose rehabilitating from death should probably qualify as the toughest.