I gather the food from the saddlebags and carry them up the driveway.
“Dinner as promised,” I tell her, holding up the bags.
“Are you feeding the neighborhood?” She raises her eyebrow.
“I figured you could take some for your lunches this week. It’s not peanut butter and strawberry jelly but brisket sandwiches are good, too.”
Her teeth dig into her lower lip. “I love brisket.”
“There’s smoked chicken and sausage in there as well. Harley didn’t know what you liked best.”
She looks over her shoulder, checking for Harley’s location before turning back around to press her mouth to mine for a quick but sweet kiss. “You’re amazing, you know that?”
I grin against her mouth. “You make it easy, sweetheart.”
Chapter 9
Lucy
“You know the drill,” the guard says as she hands over the two visitor passes. “One hug upon hello, one upon leaving. No contact in between.”
I nod in understanding, handing over my limited personal belongings. We don’t bring much with us when we come to visit Robbie. I don’t want to risk anything getting stolen out of the car, and we aren’t allowed to carry anything on our person but change for the snack machine during visitation. That change is in case Harley wants a snack, but he seldomly asks. Robbie has never asked, and the one time I did try to put money on his commissary, he refused it. He never wanted my help. He feels guilty enough for using the money he makes working inside for his own personal needs, but I completely understand. He has to survive. He swears he’ll help when he gets out, but I’m more nervous about him staying clean and out of trouble. He struggles with that a lot. I’ve never been to prison but having a lot of freedom in an unstructured environment never worked for him before. It’s going to be the true test for him.
“Daddy!” Harley yells when he sees Robbie, but our son knows not to run through the room.
We walk slowly toward the table we’ve kind of claimed as ours.
Harley throws his arms around Robbie and they squeeze each other for a short period of time, releasing the other before the guards get involved and tell them to split up. There are visits where Robbie has had harder months, and he holds on a little too long to his son, and it draws more attention. He must have had a good month because this isn’t one of those times. He gives my shoulder a quick squeeze as we sit.
Smiles are easy all around the table.
“How have you been?” he asks me.
“Good,” I tell him honestly because I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.
I’m nervous. I know Harley is going to mention Micah, and although I thought about asking him not to mention him, I knew it wouldn’t be fair to ask a child to keep secrets from his father. I don’t know how Robbie is going to react.
“How have you been?”
“Living the dream,” he says, but there’s no animosity in his tone.
After the first year or so, Robbie accepted his fate and has tried to see his sentence as a time to grow and get better, to get clean and work on himself in a way that when he’s released, he’s a better person. He’s honestly found himself, and I think he was looking for that man when he turned to drugs all those years ago. It took getting sentenced to prison and getting sober to actually get there. It could’ve gone either way. I know there are days he struggles. He’s mentioned in his letters to me more than once how easy it is to get drugs, how there are temptations everywhere he turns.
It gives me hope that he can be successful on the outside, that it won’t be such a culture shock for him.
“How are you doing in school, Harley?”
Our son scowls, crossing his arms over his chest.
“That good, huh?” Robbie says with a laugh.
He looks to me, and I shake my head, letting him know that he still isn’t making friends.
“I got to ride a motorcycle!”
I honestly thought I’d have a little more time than five minutes into our visit.
Robbie’s eyes dart to mine. It’s been almost a week since Micah picked him up from school, and he hasn’t stopped talking about it. He’s been a little disappointed each day when he saw my car outside the school instead of that bike. Micah sends laugh emojis each time I text him about it, offering to pick him up, but I don’t want to burden the man.
“It was a very slow ride,” I assure Robbie.
“Was this like a carnival thing?”
Robbie keeps his eyes locked on mine as he shifts his weight on the metal bench across the table from me. He’s getting agitated.
“It was Micah’s bike.”
“Who’s Micah?” His eyes are still on me.