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the day Linda Sue died. With Marianne I seem to leave as much unsaid as possible. I’ve always wondered if Marianne knows more about that night than she’s told me. If she’s visited me in prison out of some complicated sense of guilt. Not that she knows who killed Linda Sue, but I’ve wondered if she knows something. Once, in the buildup to my trial, Paul remembered a detail I’d almost forgotten: The day after Linda Sue’s murder, Marianne and Roland weren’t around at all. Several of us tried calling, but hung up, unsure of what sort of message to leave. When they finally heard the news, they seemed genuinely shocked and then preoccupied by other matters the rest of us knew nothing about. They’d always been like that—a family with secrets the neighbors didn’t pry into.
    Sitting in her car now, headed to her house to live with the husband she may or may not be separated from, it occurs to me how little I know about this woman. For many years she never worked beyond projects like me and Neighborhood Watch. Recently, she’s parlayed her old safety obsession into a part-time business of selling personal security devices out of her home. We used to joke about this before Linda Sue was murdered. Then, of course, we stopped and wondered how prescient she was.
    For now, Marianne says she doesn’t recall any cat. “Of course I was never inside her house, though. You remember how funny she was about that. She wouldn’t let anyone in. I tried, ” she says, as if even after twelve years she were still a little hurt by it.
    I was inside Linda Sue’s house twice and it looked just the way we imagined it might from our glimpses through her window. Empty. It’s hard to guess what she was afraid we’d see. “She probably felt a little self-conscious. She didn’t have much furniture.”
    Marianne looks at me. “What was I, Martha Stewart? Did I go around telling people they had to buy sofa sets and matching curtains?”
    “No.”
    “She thought I didn’t like her. I did, though. I was interested in her. We were all interested in her.”
    Marianne is right. We were all interested in Linda Sue. We drive for a little while in silence. “So, no, she never mentioned a cat to me.”
    She’s already told me there’s a party waiting for me back at her house. “Just a few of your old friends,” Marianne says, which makes me more nervous the closer we get. Which of the many friends who never wrote or visited me in prison will be there? Which of my coworkers whose testimony helped to convict me? The potential for awkwardness is so rife I turn and stare at the draining light of day. In twelve years, I’ve ridden only in the back of a Corrections Department van, ankles shackled, going to and from the courthouse. Now I’m surprised by odd things. The cars on the highway seem bigger than I remember. Twice, we pass people talking on the telephone as they drive, which I’ve never seen before. It’s dark by the time we get to Juniper Lane and I can’t see much on the block except that the trees are taller than I’d even imagined.
    Inside about half of the twenty people gathered shout “SUR-PRISE!” when we walk in; the rest look confused and surprised themselves. Jeremy warned me to expect this because the news coverage of my case still runs twelve-year-old photos. “Some people won’t recognize you. They think hair dye might have been available in prison.”
    Before I left CCI, I used a staff bathroom and saw myself in a full-length mirror for the first time in more than a decade. I examined the ways I’d aged—the lines around my eyes, my new hair so short and white I almost look blond. But the biggest change was in my body. I am thinner now, with muscles in my arms and legs. Even the features on my face look more pronounced, my eyes bigger, my jawline sharper. For twelve years I’ve exercised two hours a day because Wanda insisted it would stop the suicidal thoughts, and to some extent she was right. She taught