The Sentence

Content Warning: This section of the book and this guide contain references to illicit drug use and overdose as well as inappropriate handling of corpses.

The narrator, Tookie, receives a dictionary from a teacher while in prison. Tookie looks up “sentence,” a word that has haunted ever since a judge sentenced her to 60 years in prison. Her narration flashes back to the crimes that resulted in her incarceration.

In the flashback, Tookie is with Danae, on whom she has a crush. Danae receives news that Budgie (her former lover) and another woman, Mara, overdosed, and Budgie died. Danae offers Tookie the money from her lottery win if Tookie agrees to pick up Budgie’s body in her refrigerated grocery truck. However, Tookie was recently fired and, though she kept a copy of the keys, doesn’t have access to the truck. Danae writes up a contract for their deal and writes Tookie a check for $26,000.

Tookie steals the truck and drives to the border of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Mara, whom Tookie doesn’t know, greets her and believes Tookie’s story about being from a holistic undertaker agency. Tookie retrieves Budgie’s body and drives to Danae’s house, where she realizes that what they’ve done is wrong.