Chapter 9
The phone receiver was warm against my ear when Lena said, “Nia walked today.”
For a second, I watched the fluorescent lights tremble in the scratched plastic divider between the phones. The reflections broke into thin white strips, then settled again.
“Walked?” I asked.
“She let go of the couch.” Lena’s voice carried a smile that didn't quite reach the rest of her. “Just stood there, looked at me, and took three steps.”
I pictured Nia in her light-colored onesie, curls falling over her forehead, her arms lifted for balance. I pictured Lena crouched in front of her, holding out both hands.
“She fell?”
“Onto the rug. She laughed.” Lena breathed out softly. “Then she got mad because I picked her up.”
I smiled before I could stop myself. “That sounds like her.”
“It does.”
A silence opened between us. On the other side of the phone area, a man coughed. Someone dragged a chair across the floor. I pressed my thumb into the receiver cord and waited for Lena to tell me something else.
She didn't.
I had missed her first words, her first birthday, and every small change in the shape of her face. Now she had taken her first steps while I sat in a place where the only things moving were guards, doors, and reflected light.
“Did you get a video?” I asked.
“No. My phone was on the counter.”
“Take one next time.”
“Next time might be in front of you.”
The words sounded hopeful until they reached the end. Then they became careful.
I looked at my own reflection in the divider. Orange fabric. Shaved head. Dark eyes that looked older than they had that morning.
“I’m going to get out,” I said. “When the hearing happens, when the records are—”
“Malik.”
I stopped.
“You talk like the case is the only way you can come home.”
My fingers tightened around the phone. “It is the way I come home.”
“No,” she said. “It’s the way you challenge what happened to you. That matters. But Nia doesn't need you to become useful only after a judge signs something.”
I stared at the reflections. “What am I supposed to do from here?”
“Be her father now.”
The answer hurt because it was plain.
That afternoon, I asked for paper from the unit desk. I wrote Nia’s name at the top of the page, then sat for several minutes without moving. I finally told her about the way I counted the reflections in the visitation glass when I missed her. I told her I remembered her hand against mine. I didn't write that I was afraid she would forget my face. I wasn't ready to put that fear in her hands.
The next week, Lena brought Nia to visitation.
The glass was between us as always. Nia stood against Lena’s knees, gripping the edge of the table. Her curls had grown longer, and one white clip held them away from her eyes. When she saw me, she leaned forward so fast Lena caught her under the arms.
I lifted my hand.
Nia lifted hers.
Her palm landed against the glass, not quite matching mine this time. She looked down at our hands, then back at me, confused by the distance. I smiled anyway. Lena watched my face instead of the baby.
“I got your letter,” she said.
“Did you like it?”
“I read it twice.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the answer I have.”
I nodded. She sat with Nia on her lap. For a while, we communicated in small pieces: Lena pointed to Nia’s shoes, Nia slapped the tabletop, and I tapped my finger against the glass until she copied the rhythm.
Before the visit ended, I said, “Let’s write every week.”
Lena’s expression tightened. “Even if there’s nothing from Jonah?”
“Especially then.”
She looked down at Nia. “Honest letters?”
“No pretending everything is fine.”
“And no making every letter about the case.”
I swallowed. “I’ll try.”
“Trying isn't the same as doing it.”
“I know.”
She looked at me through the glass for a long moment. Then she placed her hand beside Nia’s.
“Every week,” she said.
Two days later, Jonah called from his office. His voice was measured, as if he were setting documents into separate piles while he spoke.
“The records are enough to support a request for an evidentiary hearing,” he said. “Enough to make the argument responsibly.”
“That sounds good.”
“It is not the same as saying the court will grant it.”
I sat on the edge of my bunk, the letter to Lena folded beneath my hand. “What happens if they deny it?”
“We decide what can be challenged next. But I don't want you confusing a strong request with a guaranteed result.”
I looked at the first line of my letter. I had written that Nia could probably outrun me now.
“Send it,” I said.
“The request?”
“The request. And tell me the truth when it gets hard.”
Jonah was quiet for a beat. “I will.”
That night, I finished the letter. I told Lena I was proud of Nia. I told her I was sorry I had made the case carry everything I couldn't carry myself. I told her I wanted to know about ordinary things—the groceries, the weather, what made Nia laugh—even when no court had moved.
May you like
I folded the page carefully.
For the first time, the glass in my mind didn't look like the end of fatherhood. It looked like a boundary I had to keep reaching across, one honest week at a time.
