Prometheus, Tracy had read, had been condemned by the gods to have his liver perpetually eaten by an eagle. But then Hercules rescued him. Tracy presumed that goes to show that there is always hope.
Those ancient Greeks, Tracy decided, were given to exaggeration. Having your liver eaten by eagles was quite unnecessary. Modern incarceration was enough of a living hell. The drab institutional surroundings, the dull routine, the petty jealousies and the petty revenges, and then the misery, individual and collective! And rescue was most unlikely. She had to wait another ten years just to become eligible for parole.
Sometimes Tracy would play a game where for a few minutes, she could soothe and entertain herself, still knowing that it was all a lie. In this daydream, she was to be released any minute—some error or other in court procedure. All she had to do was not get mad at anybody and be a good girl. The game was comforting, but not for very long. For a short while, Tracy would make a mighty effort at gentility. Not that gentility had ever been part of her outside world.
Sam had hit her freely, with every little argument. She’d had the hardest time swallowing her shame and would give some awkward excuse at work for her black-and-blue marks. She hadn''''t wanted anybody to know that her husband beat her. At one time he would hit her only when he was drunk, and that was frequent enough. Then it became more often, although she couldn''''t really tell; he just may have been drinking all the time. It would have been worse if they’d had children. She would have been caught in a vise even more painful than the one she was in. She would have been trapped for life.
Any time Tracy touched on those memories, that terrible day of her life flashed through her mind. As painful as her memories were, there was no way of blocking the images.