“You give your dad a hug and you give him a hug right now,” Ma says to Sis.
Sis, still staring at Dad, shakes her head.
“It’s all right,” Dad says. “It’s all right. She just doesn’t like to come up here and I don’t blame her at all. This isn’t a nice place to visit at all.” He smiles. “Believe me I wouldn’t be here if they didn’t make me.”
Ma asks, “Any word on your parole?”
“My lawyer says two years away. Maybe three, ‘cause it’s a second offense and all.” Dad sighs and takes Ma’s hand. “I know it’s hard for you to believe hon — I mean practically every guy in here says the same thing — but I didn’t break into that store that night. I really didn’t. I was just walking along the river.”
“I do believe you hon,” Ma says, “and so does Tom and so does Sis. Right kids?”
I nod. Sis has gone back to staring at the floor.
“Cause I served time before for breaking and entering the cops just automatically assumed it was me,” Dad says. He shakes his head. The sadness is back in his eyes. “I don’t have no idea how my billfold got on the floor of that place.” He sounds miserable and now he doesn’t look jaunty or young. He looks old and gray.
He looks back at Sis. “You still gettin’ straight A’s hon?”
She looks up at him. But doesn’t nod or anything.
“She sure is,” Ma says. “Sister Rosemary says Ellen is the best student she’s got. Imagine that.”
Dad starts to reach out to Sis again but then takes his hand back.
Over in the red section this couple start arguing. The woman is crying and this little girl maybe six is holding real tight to her dad who looks like he’s going to start crying, too. That bitch Mona has put on her mirror sunglasses again so you can’t tell what she’s thinking but you can see from the angle of her face that she’s watching the three of them in the red section. Probably enjoying herself.
“Your lawyer sure it’ll be two years?” Ma says.
“Or three.”
“I sure do miss you hon,” Ma says.
“I sure do miss you too hon.”
“Don’t know what I’d do without Tom to lean on.” She makes a point of not mentioning Sis who she’s obviously still mad at because Sis won’t speak to Dad.
“He’s sure a fine young man,” Dad says. “Wish I woulda been that responsible when I was his age. Wouldn’t be in here today if I’da been.”
Sis gets up and leaves the room. Says nothing. Doesn’t even look at anybody exactly. Just leaves. Mona directs her to the ladies room.
“I’m sorry she treats you this way hon,” Ma says. “She thinks she’s too good to come see her dad in prison.”
“It’s all right,” Dad says looking sad again. He watches Sis leave the visiting room.
“I’m gonna have a good talk with her when we leave here hon,” Ma says.
“Oh don’t be too hard on her. Tough for a proud girl her age to come up here.”
“Not too hard for Tom.”
“Tom’s different. Tom’s mature. Tom’s responsible. When Ellen gets Tom’s age I’m sure she’ll be mature and responsible too.”
Half hour goes by before Sis comes back. Almost time to leave. She walks over and sits down.
“You give your dad a hug now,” Ma says.
Sis looks at Dad. She stands up then and goes over and puts her arms out. Dad stands up grinning and takes her to him and hugs her tighter than I’ve ever seen him hug anybody. It’s funny because right then and there he starts crying. Just holding Sis so tight. Crying.
“I love you hon,” Dad says to her. “I love you hon and I’m sorry for all the mistakes I’ve made and I’ll never make them again I promise you.”
Ma starts crying, too.
Sis says nothing.
When Dad lets her go I look at her eyes. They’re the same as they were before. She’s staring right at him but she doesn’t seem to see him somehow.
Mona picks up the microphone that blasts through the speakers hung from the ceiling. She doesn’t need a speaker in a room this size but she obviously likes how loud it is and how it hurts your ears.
“Visiting hours are over. You’ve got fifteen seconds to say goodbye and then inmates have to start filing over to the door.”
“I miss you so much hon,” Ma says and throws her arms around Dad.
He hugs Ma but over his shoulder he’s looking at Sis. She is standing up. She has her head down again.
Dad looks so sad, so sad.
“I’d like to know just who the hell you think you are treatin’ your own father that way,” Ma says on the way back to town.
The rain and the fog are real bad now so I have to concentrate on my driving. On the opposite side of the road cars appear quickly in the fog and then vanish. It’s almost unreal.
The wipers are slapping loud and everything smells damp — the rubber of the car and the vinyl seat covers and the ashtray from Ma’s menthol cigarettes. Damp.
“You hear me young lady?” Ma says.
Sis is in the backseat again alone. Staring out the window. At the fog I guess.
“Come on Ma, she hugged him,” I say.
“Yeah when I practically had to twist her arm to do it.” Ma shakes her head. “Her own flesh and blood.”
Sometimes I want to get really mad and let it out but I know it would just hurt Ma to remind her what Dad was doing to Ellen those years after he came out of prison the first time. I know for a fact he was doing it because I walked in on them one day little eleven-year-old Ellen was there on the bed underneath my naked dad, staring off as he grunted and moved around inside her, staring off just the way she does now.
Staring off.
Ma knew about it all along of course but she wouldn’t do anything about it. Wouldn’t admit it probably not even to herself. In psychology, which I took last year at the junior college, that’s called denial. I even brought it up a couple times but she just said I had a filthy mind and don’t ever say nothing like that again.
Which is why I broke into that store that night and left Dad’s billfold behind. Because I knew they’d arrest him and then he couldn’t force Ellen into the bed anymore. Not that I blame Dad entirely. Prison makes you crazy no doubt about it and he was in there four years the first time. But even so I love Sis too much.
“Own flesh and blood,” Ma says again lighting up one of her menthols and shaking her head.
I look into the rearview mirror at Sis’s eyes. “Wish I could make you smile,” I say to her. “Wish I could make you smile.”
But she just stares out the window.
She hasn’t smiled for a long time of course.
Not for a long time.