Excerpt: 10 Minutes before Sleeping

I shouldn’t be sitting here before you right now. We had such great plans for our future, so I have to wonder, how did I end up like this? How did we end up like this? Why am I even bothering to speak with you? Does it even matter? I mean…how could it ever make a difference after all that’s been said and done?

My life is over. I became a failure the moment I was conceived by adults who cared nothing about me. A father who was ashamed of me and a mother who had “better” things to do with her life than raise her only child. My kids might be okay in spite of it all, but how will I ever know? Are you willing to help me or is this just a story for you to tell — straight from the horse’s mouth?

There was a slight clearing of the throat from somewhere within the large, scantily-filled room, but other than that, one could hear a pin drop. The woman sitting opposite Eva in a cold, steel chair with the rounded seat simply looked on, unaware for the first time in her career of what her response to a mere question should be. But Eva was clearly different from all the others she had spent her valuable time with. This thirty-one year-old Cuban-Haitian was no regular detainee. This woman had a story to tell and Trina Hines – undoubtedly sophisticated and classy in almost every sense – would step on anyone or anything to ensure that she was the first one Eva would tell it to.