“I ain’t afraid this time.  I ain’t some kid don’t know shit from Shinola,” my father hollered as he stood in the driveway. In the curve of his chest, pressed tight against the denim of his overalls, he clutched a black revolver.

Rose drove her father’s old Plymouth across the state, moving northeast toward Joliet, toward the Stateville Correctional Center where her father lived.  She stared at the highway, rolled out like a flat, gray carpet, and felt the ring heavy and foreign on her finger.