Left for Garbage

Charlie in Albuquerque, a special blessing on you and yours tonight.

Denise Brown
    (Fibber McMom herself)

    My baby is dead. Deeley is in heaven, at peace, and will never have to suffer the horrible ways of the world ever again. I will miss her forever with all of my heart, and I will never forget the pain of learning this horrible news. My baby is really gone. I wish I could be home with my family to help comfort them. I can only imagine what they’re going through.
    The Lord says we should forgive all sins, but this is impossible to ever forget, so as I will try to forgive seventy-times-seven, I may not get there, but what this means for me now, which in some ways is a lot worse than what has happened to Deeley, is that I am facing the death penalty. They’ve been wanting to put that on me, and now, even though they don’t have anything concrete about what happened to Deeley, it’s me they’ll come after more forcibly than ever before.
    Things had been looking up, too, but now I will never get out of here until this entire thing goes to trial, and that’s only a fifty-fifty shot. What isn’t a fifty-fifty shot in life? Things go one way or the other, and in my case, things usually go wrong, like a big black cloud that follows me everywhere.
    Salvatore has been here every day since this new development. In fact, he was here when I was told about the discovery, only they made a point to send in the chaplain to tell me while Salvatore went off to the bathroom. That was terrible, leaving me alone with news like that. They don’t treat Salvatore fairly. They watch us like hawks. They even wrote Salvatore up three times for touching me. What’s the big deal that he sometimes reaches out to comfort me, like I don’t deserve to be touched and comforted like real people do? Like what, I’m sort of a thing, like that stupid fucking snake they keep mentioning on the news?
    I might add, while I’m thinking about it, that it was rather upsetting for me to learn from the news too that Salvatore’s wife is pregnant, which may be why I reacted so strongly to it when I found out. Later I explained to Salvatore why I had seemed so angry with him about it. I mean, I’ve really been Salvatore’s sole focus since my arrest, and now my case is bigger than ever. And although I’m happy for him and his wife, of course I am, I love children, but I can also see that this may disturb his focus at a time when I need all of it. I simply can’t have anything interfering with the attention my case deserves, especially now, and as I told him, I was a little hurt too to think that this was the time, of all the times, when they had decided to have a baby. I mean, it’s pretty insensitive and self-absorbed, given how I have had a missing, and now dead, child of my own to think about, which is what I told Salvatore when I apologized for my earlier outburst.
    Salvatore assured me he understood.
    Since DNA testing has confirmed it’s Deeley who was found in the woods, Salvatore sort of mentioned the possibility of a plea bargain, but I’m not ready to agree to spending years of my life in prison. I can barely stand the months I’ve been in here already, let alone decades. Salvatore said we’ll talk about it later. He also mentioned that the trial will probably be postponed. We were supposed to start just a few months from now. Is that fair, that I should be punished because the prosecution can’t get their act together?
    This past week has really been extra-hard. Thank God I’ve made a new friend in here, someone I can pass the time with. We’ve become extremely close, and I’m comfortable telling her things I’ve never told any other girlfriend. I call her ‘Honey Bun’ and she calls me ‘Cupcake’, our endearing code names we use when we sneak letters to one another.
    And now, of course, I also have Penelope. She’s joined my defense team because Salvatore said we had to have someone onboard for the death penalty phase , which I have to say is a very defeatist attitude, but despite the ominous role she has been assigned, I really love her and I’m already feeling her warmth and care for me. She’s fast becoming like a second mother to me.
    Speaking of mothers, I know this is an upsetting time for my mother, but maybe now she will cool it with all her media connections. That’s one good thing that might come out of this new closure for all of us.
    But I am distraught over something I’ve heard about my mom.