Prologue

“We’re at a dead end.” The lawyer leaned back in his chair and clicked his briefcase shut. To Jean Guerra, the plastic case looked like a piece of luggage, stuffed with her hopes and dreams. To this man, it meant something else—closing a case he’d probably given up on a long time ago. And there was nothing Jean could do about it. This man, the best in the business, everyone said, held her husband’s future in his hands. After all the money and time she’d invested in gaining her husband’s freedom, was this the end of the line? It couldn’t be.

She smoothed her hands across a placemat at her kitchen table where they were sitting. Her nail traced the edge of a peach on the placemat. Jean’s eyes followed her hand, but all she could see in her mind was her husband’s face. “So, it’s over? Just like that?”

The man shrugged his shoulders. As he’d said many times, he thought Jean should keep her money and move on with her life. He’d never come out and said he thought her husband Nigel was guilty of armed robbery as he’d been accused, but lately it certainly seemed as though he thought the verdict was deserved. “I suppose we could appeal again, to a different judge. I could file the paperwork on Monday to get things started but—”

“How much?” Jean wiped her hands across the mat in front of her. Then she grabbed the edges of the table, as much to brace herself for the reply, as to pull herself to her feet. The beautiful men’s suits Jean had cut today, the beautiful people she’d been with, blurred across her mind. At work, she was part of that world. Untouchable. At home, there were lawyer bills and prison calls. Need.

“Five hundred would get things rolling,” the man said, averting his eyes.

Jean fixed her weary gaze on him. If she was going through this again, he could at least look at her. For the five years Nigel had been in prison, Jean had gone from shock to advocacy. Fierce advocacy. Her husband hadn’t robbed the liquor store. He never went near the place except to talk to some vets he knew from the war. When they’d returned from Saigon, people weren’t proud. They were angry. Many of the vets got angry too and stayed that way. Nigel, who came back to his tailor shop job to find his services not needed, did odd jobs, sold fruit, and sought out the men who’d served in Vietnam.

Jean told her husband to stay away from the places where the vets hung out. “Go to the tailor shop. Let them see that you’re okay. That you’re ready to work anytime.” Nigel only kissed her and shook his head, saying that he wasn’t okay, that he couldn’t be okay with so many men who’d served their country disappearing into the streets. So Nigel sought out the men he’d served with, praying with them, listening to their stories and telling his. What hurt Jean most was that he never asked what had happened to her in the army hospital where they’d met. Did her silence make him think that she wasn’t hurting too? And now this, five hundred dollars more. Her daughter’s birthday money.

The briefcase snapped a second time as the lawyer flipped the metal tabs closed. “Well, I’d better be going. You seem preoccupied. Give me a call when you decide.”

Jean held up a hand for the lawyer to wait. Her husband’s words during their last conversation replayed in her mind. “My time will come. God will get me out of here, just like he did for Joseph. Trust me. Trust God,” he had said. She’d tried to trust her husband, but he seemed more concerned with converting the entire prison than getting home to his family. As for God, well, while she didn’t begrudge her husband’s belief, her own bullet-riddled faith wasn’t going to just come together now even if she did say a prayer for her husband each night. No, trusting God—and man—had gotten Jean nothing but a cold bed and a bunch of bills. She was going to have to handle this herself.

“I have the money,” Jean said.

The lawyer fumbled in his pockets, again not wanting to watch as Jean pulled her last dime from the jar on the counter. The money he required was almost exactly the amount she’d set aside for her daughter’s quinceanera, the fifteenth birthday celebration traditional to their community. The amount was a pittance compared to what the other girls’ families would spend, but after the household bills, the phone calls, Nigel’s canteen, the bus trips and hotel stays upstate to visit him, the lawyers . . . There just wasn’t much money left after all that. Jean’s savings seemed to slip through her fingers. Like now.

She walked to the cabinet and dumped out a mug that read “#1 Dad.” Had Jean subconsciously been planning to spend the money on her husband all along? The half-finished birthday gown she’d been going to work early and staying late to work on for her daughter said something different. For once, she’d wanted for something to be just about her daughter Monica. She extended the wad of bills to the lawyer. Maybe next time. “Here. Go ahead and start the appeal. Thanks for coming and explaining what’s going on.”

The lawyer paused, then closed his hand around the money. “No problem. I’ll be in touch.”

Jean sank back into the chair, overcome by weariness.

The man prepared to leave, then stopped and spoke again. “Look, you seem like a nice lady and you’ve paid me a lot of money. The years are passing. Maybe it’s best if you just let your husband do his time. Maybe you need to think about moving on. I know that everyone wants to think the best of the people they love, but—”

Jean shot to her feet, sucking back her fury. “Nigel didn’t do it.” This wasn’t the first time she’d heard this. Friends, neighbors, even family had said as much. Jean refused to believe it. “He couldn’t have. He doesn’t even drink. The only time he ever went to that liquor store was to be with his friends, VA vets who hung around there.”

The man cleared his throat. “Exactly my point. Many of those men have been convicted of crimes since. A few days before, your husband was seen near—”

“Can you help us or not? If you can’t, maybe I should take my money back.” Her voice sounded steady, but inside, Jean’s heart was quivering. Was the issue really Nigel’s innocence? Or was it Nigel’s faith that was on trial? She’d seen many men with crosses on their necks and Bibles in their pockets changed by the guns in their hands. She’d seen a side of herself during the war she hadn’t thought existed. But Nigel had found something else. Someone else. Jesus. Had Jesus been bigger than that gun they said had Nigel’s fingerprints on it? She didn’t know anymore. “Maybe we should forget the whole thing.”

The man crossed his arms. It was obvious he knew Jean wouldn’t make good on the threat. It’d be even harder to pull a new lawyer into Nigel’s case now. He was the best and he knew it. “I’m going to go now. I’ll file the paperwork. I’m sorry if I upset you. It’s just that I’ve worked cases of inmates who were wrongly accused. Your husband doesn’t fit the profile. He’s too . . .”

“Joyful?” Jean said before turning her back to wipe a tear. Why did all of this have to hurt so much? Why did it have to be so hard? Five years and it hurt like yesterday. She turned back to face the lawyer. “What you see in my husband isn’t guilt, sir. It’s faith. Something you will probably never understand.”

Jean spoke the words with conviction that she herself lacked. Despite the accusation in the man’s tone, she knew her husband’s Christianity was no jailhouse conversion. Nigel had found Jesus on a bloody battlefield in Saigon. A few miles away, Jean’s faith had buckled under the weight of dead teenage boys and living needy men. Though she might not be found in church every week, she still believed in something. Her family. And she’d do whatever it took to keep it together.

“I’ll be in touch.” The lawyer headed for the door.

Jean’s daughter entered as the man left, giving her mother a questioning look about the lawyer’s presence before mumbling hello. Jean swallowed hard at the sight of Monica—red-rimmed eyes and dark curls tumbling into her face. Now she had to do this too, to tell her daughter there would be no big fancy birthday party for her, no big white dress. Tell her that, like always, Daddy needed their support.

Monica would pretend to understand, though she’d long since stopped trying to. The girl had done well with Nigel’s incarceration the first few years, but once the teen years hit, she drifted a little farther away each day. Now Jean had to disappoint her . . . again. She opened her arms to her daughter. They both needed a hug. “Come here. I need to tell you something.”

Her daughter’s back straightened. Her curly hair fell forward into her eyes. Eyes so much like her father’s. She was the best of both of them, this girl. Now her chest heaved with anger, her fists clenched in disappointment. She was the worst of both of them too.

“You don’t need to tell me anything.” Her eyes flashed. “I know what it means when that lawyer comes. Beans and rice. Always beans and rice, just like you like it.”

Jean’s arms dropped to her sides. Her daughter could be a little saucy at times, but not like this. This wasn’t about money or Nigel. Monica was covering something. Something big. It would be a long night if she didn’t get to the real problem.

“So, you in trouble too?”

Monica paused before answering. She stuffed her fists into the pockets of her jeans. “Not really. I just need for you to give me my birthday money. All that womanhood stuff is stupid anyway. If Daddy was here maybe . . . Anyway, can you just give me the money?” She leaned back on the door now, her elbows pressed against the dark wood.

Jean took a step back to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair to sit down. Suddenly, her husband, the lawyer, the money . . . none of it seemed important. Another question flashed in her brain like a neon light. What would her daughter need with half a grand? The truth came to her in images of long shirts and loose pants. It came and sucked her breath away.

“Oh,” Jean said to no one in particular. She folded her hands in her lap.

Her daughter raked her hair back from her eyes, revealing a worried look. “Why did you say ‘oh’ like that? Just give me the money. I’m fine.”

Jean let herself fall forward a little. “How far along are you, and why didn’t you tell me?”

The girl went limp. She slid down to the floor and hugged her knees. “Miguel said it’s not too late, that I can still get rid of it. But I don’t know. Will God forgive me if I do that? It’s a baby, right? That’s what Daddy told me when Tanisha said she gave her baby up for abortion. He said that meant she killed it.”

Jean was on her feet now, then on the floor beside her daughter. Guilt washed over her, the kind only mothers know. She’d been so worried about her daughter’s grades, about making sure Monica spent time with her father so she wouldn’t get into trouble like the other girls. She’d done all she could, but here they were. In a mess.

Tears wet through Jean’s blouse. Her one goal had been to keep her family together. Somehow she’d torn it apart. “Monica, forget about the money and the boy. We can get through this, but we’ll have to stick together.”

“Okay.” Her daughter sobbed into her neck. “But I’m scared.”

Jean nodded but didn’t answer out loud.

Me too, she thought, not wanting to add to her daughter’s fear.

The ring of the phone broke their embrace. Jean reached for the receiver out of habit, always wanting to be there in case her husband called. Until now, anyway. Now everything had shifted. Changed. “Hello?”

After a short silence, an automated voice responded. “You are receiving a call from an inmate at—”

Jean hung up the phone and turned back to her daughter.

The girl wiped her eyes. “Who was that?”

“A wrong number,” Jean said, staring straight ahead, bracing herself against the uncertainty of the choice she had just made. Numbing herself to the sacrifice of the love of her life.

Excerpted from Tangerine © Copyright 2012 by Marilynn Griffith. Reprinted with permission by Revell. All rights reserved.