Guilty

The white woman across from the desk was small and neat, a bit prim in her long denim skirt and baggy jumper. Silvester could tell she was nervous at being alone with him - it showed through the patina of professionalism in the way she kept fiddling with her papers, her glasses, the styrofoam cup of cold, bad coffee from the guards' workstation. She cleared her throat.

'Silvester. We have made a lot of progress here in the last few months. The parole hearing is tomorrow.' She folded her hands on top of the official report, and, with an obvious effort, looked him in the eye. 'What are you going to tell the parole board?'

In response, Silvester folded his own large hands in his lap. Unconsciously settling down in the aluminium chair - he knew how intimidating his size was, six foot six, broad-shouldered, muscular - he returned the social worker's look with as much sincerity as he could muster.

He spoke clearly in his rumbling bass voice. 'I'm going to tell them that I am sorry for what I did to that woman...'

'Mrs Ingram,' the social worker corrected him gently. 'She has a name.'

Silvester nodded solemnly. 'Mrs Ingram. I can show them the letter she wrote back, when I wrote her. I told her I was sorry.'

The social worker nodded encouragingly. 'And what did Mrs Ingram say, Silvester?'

Silvester smiled ruefully. 'She said she could find it in her heart to forgive me, because she was a Christian. She said she would pray to Jesus to turn my heart around.'

The woman looked embarrassed. 'Do you feel that your heart has been turned around, Silvester?'

Silvester considered this, cocking his large, shaven head to one side. 'Yes, ma'am, I truly do. I'll tell them that, if you think it helps.'

The social worker collected her papers briskly. 'I think it will. And I believe my recommendation will help, as well. I believe you have a different attitude toward women now, Silvester.' She stood up, and with sudden decision, reached out to shake his hand. 'Good luck - and don't disappoint me.'

Silvester took her hand in his, carefully. 'Thank you, ma'am, and no, I won't let you down.'

That night, Silvester waited in line to make a collect phone call, the only kind allowed, to his half-brother Calvin, a respectable bookkeeper. It was not a happy phone call. They argued, back and forth, as they had been arguing for months now. Silvester won the argument, as usual, although he knew it would start again the next time they spoke.

The parole hearing went well. The board were impressed with the supporting documentation, convinced of Silvester's repentance, and - in a matter of days, to Silvester's surprise - the convict was released as rehabilitated.

Standing in front of the state penitentiary, in his own clothes after five years, a paper parcel in his hand, Silvester breathed in the fresh air, so different from the smell on the other side of the wall - the smell of sweaty bodies, the smell of disinfectant, the underlying acrid smell of fear. Here, apart from the disapproving stare of the guard at the front gate ('I don't want to see you around here again, boy'), there was nothing to remind him of the recent past, just a clear spring day... and Loni climbing out of her car, running to throw her arms around him. Silvester gasped.

Not because he wasn't expecting her - she'd promised to pick him up. And not because of her new-model car, a Ford Focus he hadn't seen before. But because, just to surprise him, his girlfriend was wearing a leather miniskirt that would have raised eyebrows where she worked. It certainly raised the eyebrows of the guard at the gate.

She flew into his arms, and he hugged her tightly, strong arms around her slim waist, breathing in the scent of her, the touch of patchouli she always wore. He murmured, 'Honey, what would the principal of Woodrow Wilson High School say if he saw that outfit?'

Loni laughed her throaty laugh as she looked up - way up, in spite of the high heels - into his face, searching for changes, although she'd seen him a week ago on visitor's day. 'Ain't wore this for him,' she chuckled. 'Wore it for you, don't you like it?'

Silvester laughed as they headed for the car. 'Baby, you look fine. Let's get on home.'

Home turned out not to be the next stop, however, but his grandmother's house - Silvester had urgent reason to go there, of course, but he'd sort of planned on putting it off until the next day, when he felt more sure of himself. Loni insisted.

As soon as the front door opened, and he saw the balloons and heard the shouts of 'Surprise! Welcome home!', Silvester understood why. Calvin was there, most of his friends from his old insurance office, even Rev White from Beulah CME. But the lady he wanted to see was in her parlour, holding court like a queen, waiting for him to come to her.

So he did.

The tiny, wizened woman in the flowered dress rose with visible difficulty, but stretched out skinny arms to reach for him. Silvester hugged her gingerly, careful of her frailty, and then looked down at her with tears in his eyes.

'You're looking good, lady,' he said. This was patently untrue - although Akeesha from the beauty parlour had obviously been over to set her hair, and she was wearing her best jewellery, the dark circles under her eyes and the pallor of her usually rich skin belied the frippery. The old lady chuckled, an echo of her huge grandson's bass rumble.

'I don't look good, and you know it, Silvester McComber. Didn't I teach you never to lie?'

Silvester helped her gently back to her easy chair. 'Yes'm, you did, and I'm not lying now.' He patted her arm as a lady friend came up with an afghan for her lap and a cup of tea for her dry throat. 'You look awful good to me.' With that, she was satisfied, and Silvester chatted with his grandmother for a few minutes, until her eyelids became heavy and she drifted off into a nap, exhausted by the excitement of his return. He nodded his thanks to the kind churchwomen, and tiptoed off to rejoin the party that was, after all, being held in his honour.

There was laughter - not all of it easy - and music, and news of this and that. There were promises of help, phone numbers written down. The Rev White shook Silvester's hand regally, welcomed him back into the world, and opined that he would see him on Sunday. With that, he took himself off in his Lincoln, in order to allow the younger folk to break out the liquor without losing any of his dignity.

Loni was busy in the kitchen with the food - somebody had ordered barbecue, and the women had brought side dishes - so Silvester took a tall glass of C-and-C and went out onto the screen porch for a private talk with his brother.

Calvin, a foot shorter than his half-brother and thin, sharp-faced, almost the image of their grandmother, had come over from work, and was still in his business suit, his loosened tie his only concession to the relaxed atmosphere of being in the home he'd grown up in. He glared at Silvester through his wire-rims.

'Sly, what in blazes are you doing here?'

Silvester blinked mildly. 'I'm enjoyin' my freedom, Cal. Don't mess it up.'

Calvin set down his ginger ale in order to pound his thin fist on his grandmother's side table. 'You know what I mean! You gave in, Sly. You knuckled under. I know as well as you do that you didn't do no rape. Why didn't you fight 'em?'

Silvester looked at his brother sadly. They had been through this before. 'I couldn't prove it, Cal,' he said for what seemed the hundredth time. '"I was in the library working on my night-school paper" isn't much of an excuse, when nobody saw me.'

Calvin snorted. 'I done sent you that man's email address. The one from the Innocence Project. They coulda proved it. They coulda got them people to admit how sloppy them DNA labs was.' He looked at his brother helplessly. 'Why didn't you try? Why did you let 'em do it to you? Now you can't vote, you can't finish school, you can't get a decent job, you can't even buy a gun...'

Silvester laughed. 'I never owned a gun. Don't want one. And if I can't vote here in Virginia, well, I can't. I can breathe. I'll get work.' He leaned forward, studying his brother seriously. 'Cal, if I'd done what you asked, if I'd waited...' He glanced toward the kitchen door, and lowered his voice. 'She might have been gone. I couldn't, not to Gramma. Not to the woman who raised me and you, all by herself... you know all this. You know what the man told me... it would have taken years to get out... if I kept claiming I was innocent.'

Calvin shook his head stubbornly. 'It ain't right. You're my brother.' He stared at Silvester, his face twisting. 'You are also the finest man I have ever known. You ain't never disrespected nobody in your whole life.'

Silvester reached over and hugged him fiercely, whispering into his ear, 'Listen to me: if I'd held out, I might have been in there for ten more years. Gramma would have been gone. And what would I have had? Nothing. They don't do nothin' for you if you're innocent. Just toss you out the door.

'This way, I get help. I tell 'em, "Sure, I'm guilty, guilty as sin, but I'm sorry," and they'll help me find a job. Help me get a place. Help me get a driver's license...' He held Calvin at arm's length, looking him in the eye, wishing he could wipe away the frustration in his face, the way he'd wiped away his tears when they were boys together. He still didn't raise his voice.

'Cal, some things are worth fighting for - a future, respect, your life.' Silvester's eyes were sad. 'But sometimes, the price is too much to pay. Because it's being paid by the wrong people.'

When Loni came out to call them to supper, she found her man sitting in the porch swing, a burly arm around his little brother's shoulders, rocking in time to the blues from inside the house.