Reunion

People tell Jana to expect Inmate 144416 to need time, space. They encourage her to take him camping when he gets paroled. Have The Inmate breathe in forest air, press his fingers against sticky bark, look at paw prints in the cool dirt. Take him canoeing. Watch him stop paddling as a loon skims the algae-stained lake.

Jana’s best friend advises her to treat Inmate 144416 like a feral cat. Be all open palms and slow gestures and food, food, food. Shower him with chickens and steaks and dairy. Jana thinks that’s a terrible way to talk about someone fresh out of prison, but a hilarious way to talk about a husband.

People warn her not to ask Inmate 144416 about the things he had to do to get through his time. They say grand things about doing whatever it takes to survive, they talk about the ethics of the US Prison system as if they really, really knew what they were talking about rather than half-remembered facts from other people’s Facebook posts. They tell her he only did it so they could have a better life. That his heart is still good. They talk freedom. They tell her how hard it’s going to be for him to stay out. They tell her to let home be like a blanket, a soft place where he doesn’t have to think. Just curl in tight and rest.

Jana ignores them. Inmate 144416 has already told her everything. What he did and didn’t do. They write letters for the first time ever in their relationship. He speaks daisies and silk sheets as if everything between them is brand new. He neatly writes all his fears as if clear, even printing makes them more manageable. In a way, Jana thinks, they have never been closer. Between the blue lines on his paper, he can’t hide.

She hates how people act like she hasn’t been visiting him. As if they had been across the solar system from each other. Like Jana hasn’t heard the soft voice he only uses for her during the past two years. Hasn’t stared at the one-inch space between their fingers as they sat at metal tables and ached to feel even just the side of his large palm.

The first night home, says her Aunt Tina who had a boyfriend come and go, come and go, should be no talking about there. No touching. Take him to a bar. Play some pool. Flirt. Act like it’s any other day. Jana imagines them in a bar. People around them leaning in close, lips to ears. His hands guiding the stick and using clever geometry to knock all the stripes off the table. I know, Jana sees herself thinking and gulping the thought down with her beer. Balls falling into the pockets and thunking into wooden passages beneath the table’s long green plain.



On the car ride home, Inmate 144416 is quiet. He looks at all the leaves turning orange, red, watercolor yellow. The blur of the highway. Jana keeps expecting him to say something profound about life. The only thing he says is, “All the songs on the radio feel the same.”

When they’re home, Jana welcomes him with sex on the freshly mopped linoleum floor; even though he smells like airplane. Tomorrow, his family will come over. They don’t pray, but they’ll celebrate his return with roasted chicken and long hugs. She lets Inmate 144416 pull her legs up. Jana points her toes toward the ceiling. And when they shift again, slow and sweet he kisses her and they laugh together at what they’re doing. They laugh that they’re in the same time, the same place. He’s David again. The boy she met in eleventh grade. She was new in town and he took her to a dance where the feeling of his body pressed to hers made everything possible. And they kissed after, just like they are kissing, beneath the large tree in her backyard. Then he moves again and his fingers are on her mouth to dampen the sound. David’s fingers are calloused and larger than she remembers. Jana presses her lips to them. Hopes it’s enough.