Chapter 1
The officer’s glove stayed on my shoulder until the visitation room disappeared behind the closing door.
I kept my head turned as long as I could. The last thing I saw was the glass, cloudy with fingerprints and reflected fluorescent light. Nia’s small hand had been pressed against the other side. Her fingers were spread wide, not quite lining up with mine anymore. Lena held her against her chest, but her eyes stayed fixed on me.
Then the door shut.
The corridor smelled like disinfectant and old concrete. My shoes scraped once before I remembered to walk. The officer said nothing. Neither did I. My throat felt tight from holding back words that had nowhere to go.
At the first turn, I looked down at my own palm. The skin looked ordinary. Dry. Creased. Empty.
I could still see Nia’s hand over it.
In the housing unit, I sat on the edge of my bunk while the other men moved around me. A television muttered from somewhere near the common area. Someone laughed, then lowered his voice when an officer passed. The sounds came and went, but I stayed inside that room with my daughter’s fingers against the glass.
Nia had said, “Papa.”
The word kept returning in her baby-soft voice, even though she hadn’t repeated it. I heard it in the pipes, in the metal doors, in the sharp click of the lock behind me.
I tried to picture her face after Lena carried her away. Instead, I saw Lena’s expression.
It hadn’t been only grief. She had looked frightened, but not in the loose, helpless way she sometimes looked when the visit ended. This fear had been contained. Deliberate. Her lips had pressed together after she looked toward the corridor, as if she were making sure no one else could read them.
She had been trying to tell me something without saying it.
A guard called my name from the doorway and handed me the belongings I had surrendered before visitation: my identification card, a small plastic comb, and the folded visitation notice. The paper had a new date stamped at the bottom, several weeks away. The next visit would have to be approved again, and Lena would have to arrange transportation, childcare, and time away from work.
I flattened the notice against my knee.
“Everything there?” the guard asked.
I nodded.
He left before I could ask whether Lena had been stopped, questioned, or made to wait. I didn’t know what I wanted the answer to mean.
That night, I took out the paper again. The fluorescent light above my bunk flickered once. I read the date, then read it again. Weeks was a long time for Nia. At twelve months, she changed every time I saw her. A new sound. A different way of standing. A face that seemed to belong to both of us and neither of us.
I folded the notice carefully and slid it beneath my mattress.
The next morning, I waited through breakfast for a chance to use the phone. When my turn came, I dialed Lena’s number from memory. It rang long enough for me to imagine her moving through the apartment with Nia on her hip, searching for the phone while trying not to make noise.
She answered without speaking.
“Lena?”
For a moment, there was only breathing. Hers, quick and shallow. Mine, too loud in the receiver.
“You got home okay?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“And Nia?”
“She’s here.”
I closed my eyes. I wanted to ask whether Nia had slept, whether she had reached for the glass after they left, whether she had tried to say my name again. Instead, I listened to the quiet behind Lena’s voice.
“You looked scared yesterday,” I said.
She didn’t answer.
“Not just sad.”
“Malik, I have to go.”
“You left with something.”
The silence changed. It became careful.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes, you do.” I lowered my voice as a guard walked past the phone bank. “What are you afraid to tell me?”
Her breath caught. Then she said, “I’m trying to keep things steady.”
“For who?”
“For us.”
The line clicked softly, and I imagined her looking over her shoulder.
“Lena,” I said, “please.”
“I said I have to go.”
The call ended.
I held the receiver until the dead tone stopped. Then I placed it back in its cradle.
She had not denied being afraid. She had only refused to name the thing.
Far from me, Lena would leave the prison with Nia and carry whatever she had hidden beneath her coat. I didn’t know what was inside the envelope I had noticed in her hand, only that she had kept it close and never let me see it.
May you like
But I knew what I would do next.
I would ask her again. I would keep asking until she trusted me with the truth, even if the truth made the distance between us harder to survive.
