Laundry duty.
Lunch.
More work.
Dinner.
Lights out.
He would not mention his birthday.
He would not think about Sarah.
He would not imagine Lily's face.
He would not wonder whether Leo remembered.
He would survive twenty-four hours.
That was all.
Just twenty-four hours.
But Arthur had learned something during eighteen months behind walls.
Sometimes twenty-four hours could be longer than a lifetime.
Arthur's connection to his family existed almost entirely inside the visitation room.
He hated that room.
He hated the bright lights.
The cameras.
The guards.
The thick bulletproof glass.
On one side sat the inmates.
On the other sat the people who still loved them.
Black telephones were mounted to the wall.
Arthur would sit down.
Sarah would sit across from him.
Then he would pick up the receiver.
“Hi.”
That single word had become the beginning of his entire family life.
Hi.
Not a kiss.
Not an embrace.
Not Lily running toward him.
Not Leo asking for help with homework.
Just a telephone.
Hi.
The first time Sarah brought the children, Lily had pressed her hand against the glass.
Arthur would never forget it.
Her palm was tiny.
He placed his own hand against the opposite side.
For a second, their hands almost touched.
Almost.
Only an inch of reinforced glass separated them.
But Arthur had never felt farther away from anyone.
“When are you coming home, Daddy?”
Lily's voice crackled through the receiver.
Arthur swallowed.
“Soon, sweetheart.”
It was a lie.
He knew it.
She knew something was wrong.
But she was too young to understand.
“Daddy just has to finish some work here.”
Leo had stared at him.
Leo was older.
Ten when Arthur entered the facility.
Now almost twelve.
He understood enough to be angry.
Arthur could see it.
The boy had once looked at his father as if Arthur could solve anything.
Now he looked at him like the world had proven him wrong.
That hurt more than Lily's tears.
Sarah was always the strongest.
At least in front of Arthur.
She came carrying a notebook.
School grades.
House repairs.
Bills.
The neighbors.
The broken washing machine.
Leo's soccer practice.
Lily's nightmares.
She spoke quickly because thirty minutes was never enough.
She tried to fit an entire month of living into half an hour.
But Arthur saw everything.
The dark circles beneath her eyes.
The trembling fingers.
The exhaustion.
Sarah was working two jobs.
She was raising two children.
She was paying bills.
And she was carrying the invisible punishment of being the wife of an incarcerated man.
Arthur wanted to apologize every time.
But there were some apologies too large for words.
Eventually, they made a decision.
The children would stop visiting regularly.
The visits were hurting them.
Lily cried in the car afterward.
Leo became quiet for days.
Sarah found Lily waking at night, calling for her father.
Arthur agreed because he loved them.
But every time he imagined their empty chairs in the visitation room, he felt something inside himself disappear.
Today there would be no visit.
Sarah had tried to request special permission.
The facility denied it.
The schedule was full.
“Don't get your hopes up, Artie,” she had told him on the phone.
He could hear her trying not to cry.
“We'll celebrate when you come home.”
Arthur had forced himself to laugh.
“It's just a birthday.”
But it wasn't.
Not today.
Today, he wanted to be selfish.
He wanted Sarah's arms around him.
He wanted Lily to climb onto his lap.
He wanted Leo to roll his eyes and pretend not to care.
He wanted to hear his family breathing in the same room.
Instead, the morning bell rang.
Arthur stood.
Smoothed the wrinkles from his uniform.
And prepared himself for the bleakest birthday of his life.
Officer Marcus Miller stood near the entrance of Block D with a paper cup of bitter coffee.
Twenty years in corrections had taught Miller many things.
How to recognize fear.
How to recognize manipulation.
How to recognize the difference between a man who was dangerous and a man who simply wanted everyone to believe he was.
Over time, Miller had learned to maintain distance.
Distance was survival.
You could not become emotionally attached to every inmate.
If you did, the job would destroy you.
But Arthur Pendelton had always been difficult to categorize.
Miller had watched him for eighteen months.
Arthur never complained.
He worked extra hours.
He tutored younger inmates preparing for their GED exams.