Chapter One

Karen

On Wednesday, they begin to get ready for the Satan Killer, who is due to arrive after lunch. They order a lamp and a radio from the commissary, and charge them to Tiffany's account. Karen makes the bed in the empty cell with clean sheets. All the women on Death Row, who had been using the cell as a storage room, have removed their belongings to give the Satan Killer a fresh start.

Lifting the sheet in the air and snapping it tight over the mattress, Karen remembers the pure relief that flooded through her when she first saw her own cell: bare, clean, and smelling of ammonia. It was almost five years ago.

Tiffany takes two books from the bookshelf, Women Who Kill and The Jane Fonda Workout. She puts them by the Satan Killer's bed. "There," she says.

It is four-thirty in the morning. Breakfast is over, and there is the long, pre-lunch stretch ahead of them. Tiffany stands outside the vacant cell, one thin arm around her stomach and the other against her chin. "Should I, like, draw her a picture or something? It looks so sad."

"Leave it alone," says Karen.

"But it looks pathetic," says Tiffany. She shakes her Farrah Fawcett hairdo, and it settles back into place. Underneath her white jumpsuit, her limbs are strong. Tiffany runs in place and does sit-ups and push-ups inside her cell. She takes recess daily, has made a dusty path the shape of the number eight in the small, fenced yard. She believes that she will be set free, and the belief makes her restless. Karen recognizes the sharp hope, like a piece of gravel in a shoe. The knowledge of time, and of missing out. When you let go of the hope, there is a dull, numb peace in its wake.

"Leave it alone," says Karen.

They live in a row, in Mountain View Unit. They share the television and the table bolted to the rectangle of cement in front of their cells. During the day, they are locked into the cage, where they work. Unlike the rest of the prisoners, they are not taught skills for the future. Instead, they make dolls called Parole Pals, which prison employees can special-order, choosing hair color, skin color, an outfit. All afternoon in the cage, the women paint faces on the Parole Pals, and make tiny clothes and shoes. Sometimes, Karen wakes in the night and sees the naked, faceless dolls that hang above the sewing machines. She has to remind herself that they are not babies, and not alive.

Veronica agrees with Tiffany. She says, in her low, hoarse voice, "That cell certainly does need something. Something decorative." Veronica has been on Death Row the longest, and has a manner that commands respect, something about the way she holds her shoulders back and peppers her statements with words like "certainly," "absolutely," and "indeed." She is sixty-three years old, and wears her white hair in a bun. Her skin is loose, and she is fleshy, wide at the hips.

She rises from her cot and wraps one of her veined hands around a metal bar. Although they are no longer allowed cigarettes, Veronica has retained a smoker's way of speaking, pausing between statements, a pause that should be punctuated by a deep inhale and elegant exhale of smoke. They wait, and Veronica decrees, "Art."

"Excuse me?" says Karen.

"Art," says Veronica. "Everyone find something or make something. Some sort of art."

"Let her do it herself," says Karen. She points to Veronica's cell. "You don't want someone else's crap on your wall, you know?"

Veronica turns to look at her cell, which is filled with yellowing photographs. She has wedding pictures of herself with all her husbands: Allen, Grady, Bill, Patrick, Stephen, another Bill, Chuck. In the earliest pictures, she is small-boned, engulfed in dresses like cakes, layered and creamy. Over the years, her body grows solid and her wedding dresses become darker and more spare. Patrick is the last husband for whom she wore a veil. Veronica's face goes slack looking at the photographs. She is lost in one of her wedding days, spinning on a dance floor while the band plays "Starlight Melody" and her new husband presses his warm lips to her forehead.

Tiffany jumps in. "I wish you had put something in my cell. It was so horrible, being dragged here and dumped like a bag of garbage!" Her voice goes shrill, indignant. Tiffany insists that she is innocent, that somebody else drowned her daughters, Joanna and Josie. Somebody else took them to the pond behind Tiffany's house and put rocks in the girls' matching sleeping suits. Somebody threw them in, held them under until they drowned, and watched them sink. Their open mouths, throats filled with water. Eyes open to stinging darkness. In Tiffany's cell, she has twenty-six shades of nail polish, lined up in a gleaming row.

Karen tries not to roll her eyes. Jackie looks up from her sewing. "What about one of my quilts?" she says. "It would add some color, anyway." She brushes her hair from her freckled forehead with a quick motion, and something in her jaw snaps. Jackie is filled with mean energy. She moves fast, talks fast, has bony elbows and knees. To keep her hands moving, she sews: quilts, pillows, the dress she will be executed in. The dress is red, with sequins she orders from a catalog.

They will only let her have one dull needle, so her sewing goes pretty slowly. Although "Mountain View Quilts" seemed like a good idea for a business, Jackie has only sold one through the Web site her sister maintains. Jackie used to be a hairdresser, and likes to do everyone's hair. Obviously, she can't cut anything, but she brushes it around and sprays hairspray. Also, she does Tiffany's nails. She is due to be executed in a month ...

Excerpted from Sleep Toward Heaven © Copyright 2004 by Amanda Eyre Ward. Reprinted with permission by Perennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.