The Office of Historical Corrections

Vera is on a bus from Missouri to New York City. She was working at a record store that also sold drugs, but she decided she needed a new start. She has a bag with cocaine in it and instructions to deliver it to a man who will give her $10,000.

A woman drops a young boy in the seat next to Vera and asks her to watch him. Vera guesses he is around two. They travel together for several stops and onto the Jersey Turnpike. At her stop in New York, Vera realizes that the little boy’s mother is gone. She leaves the bus with him and attempts to find her but is told by another passenger that the woman got off somewhere in New Jersey. She considers calling the police but realizes that she can’t do so with the drugs in her bag. She checks the boy’s clothing and finds his name, William, written on his shirt tag. Feeling as though she has no other choice, she takes William with her.

Vera finds an apartment in New York. The next day, she takes the drugs to the address she was given. She meets Derek and Adam, who run a delivery service, mostly legal things but also drugs. Vera uses the $10,000 to furnish her apartment over the next couple of weeks. When she runs low on money, she realizes that she needs a job and a babysitter for William. While playing in the park, Derek comes up to her and offers her a job at their delivery service as a receptionist. He promises that she will be dealing with couriers and scheduling deliveries. She accepts when he agrees to allow William to come to work with her.

While Vera works at the office, she also begins “wiping her old life clean” (149). She deletes her social media and changes her email and phone number. Although she calls her mother each week, she does so from a payphone and gives her very little information. In November, she stays the night in Derek’s loft above the business because of a snowstorm. The two kiss, and she slowly begins staying in his loft instead of her apartment. At the office Christmas party, Vera realizes how happy she is with Derek and William. She calls her mother and tells her that she will be calling her less frequently but assures her that she is happy.

Shortly after Christmas, one of their 19-year-old delivery boys, Jacob, is hit by a truck. His parents attempt to sue Derek’s business, arguing that he has poor safety measures in place and promises delivery times that are too fast. Derek gets scared when they insist on seeing his financial records. He informs Vera that they are moving to California. He gives her fake identification for her and William.

Meanwhile, Jacob’s death causes Vera to pull away from Derek. She regularly thinks about Jacob and his parents and sobs uncontrollably as she thinks of how she would react if something like it happened to William. She tries to find information about William, and after going through pages of missing children’s reports, she finds a post from William’s father. She calls him and pretends to be a reporter. He explains that his mother took him to move to Jersey, then overdosed and died before he ever got more information on him.

Instead of leaving with Derek, Vera goes to Chicago and stays with a friend while she tries to find William’s father. She watches William’s father’s house for hours and sees him come out with an old woman whom she assumes is William’s grandmother. She realizes that William is missing out on a life with his family. She returns to her friend’s house and burns William’s fake birth certificate so that she will not change her mind, then writes a letter to William’s father. She tries three times—destroying the first two because she sounds too defensive and then too cruel as she explains what has happened so far in William’s life. Instead, she decides to be matter-of-fact, explaining why she has William and assuring his father that William has been safe.

Vera leaves William at her friend’s apartment with a note with William’s father’s address. Vera then leaves her friend’s apartment, convinced that she needs “to be lost forever” in the world (162).