scanned the room.
“Have they been here at all?” I asked.
“The last time she came was a couple of weeks ago, but I wouldn’t see her. She’s been here several times and brought the kids with her, but I just couldn’t bring myself to come out. I can’t bear the thought of them seeing me like this.”
“You’re not serious!” I exclaimed.
“It’s not right,” Donnie interjected.
“What’s not right is you closing your family out of your life. That’s got to be the most self-centered thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Self-centered? I’m doing it for them, to keep them from having to go through this shit like me.”
“Oh, come on,” I quipped, “you’re doing it for yourself. It’s not them; it’s you and how you feel about being in here. You can’t cut the people who love you out of your life because things aren’t turning out the way you’d like. If the tables were turned, would you stay away? Well, would you?”
“Probably not, but that’s different,” he said.
“Oh, really? How so?”
“You know.”
“No, I’m sorry, I don’t. You’ll have to explain it to me.”
“Alan, stop it. You know how hard this is. How could I put them through this?”
“Whether you like it or not, they are going through this. But because you’re being a fool, they’re going through it without the one person who could help them the most… you. You need to rethink your position on this issue, my friend. You’re wrong—way wrong—and you’re hurting the very people you claim to care about most.”
“If you were in here, would you let Linda and Laura visit you?” Donnie asked.
“Absolutely,” I said. “I love them way too much to keep them outta here. We’d get through it, and we’d get through it together. For better or worse, remember? So things are pretty bad right now. How does cutting your family out of your life make it better? Things will only get better if you work together and keep each other strong. You’re making a huge mistake. Don’t be stupid. You’re going to get out. Why should your family suffer more than they have to while waiting for your return? Because of some misguided sense of—what? Pride—what? I don’t get it.”
“I’m sorry, Alan. I thought it would be best, but maybe you’re right. Would you stop and tell her it’ll be okay if she visits?”
“No, I won’t. You tell her. You told her not to come, didn’t you? It’s your responsibility to tell her you were wrong and to set things right. I’ll bring her to see you and help in any other way I can, but I’m not doing that.”
“You’re right, you’re right. I’ll fix it. Thanks, thanks for being frank with me, yeah, thanks for that.”
“Now tell me how you’re really doing,” I said.
“Not good at all,” he admitted. “I’ve been having nightmares about the accident. I wake up in the middle of the night and I see their faces. How can that be, Alan? I was unconscious and never saw anything, but I see their faces just as plain as day and I hear someone crying. I think it’s him, you know—Elliot. He’s always pretty far off, way off, but I can hear him moaning and it tears at my soul. Then it starts to rain. It’s a slow, steady rain and I’m listening to him sobbing and I see their faces as I walk through this meadow of tangled grasses and these weird flowers. They’re kind of yellow like dandelions, but brighter and prettier. They have long smooth stems that seem too delicate to hold the flowers up, but somehow they do. The wind is blowing just a little and the entire field sways this way and that, back and forth. All the while I’m struggling through the field, it continues to rain. It seems like I walk for days, yet it never stops raining. Sometimes it rains harder and sometimes it’s just a drizzle, but it won’t stop.
“The meadow is really pretty. Those little flowers are all over it and they’re beautiful. In the dream, I have this overwhelming awareness that they’re flowers, but they’re not. For some reason, that seems really important. I don’t know why, but it does. Then I stoop to touch one of the flowers and it disappears. The whole damned field disappears and I’m standing in the middle of nothing…a great, dark, open nothingness. When I wake up, I’m covered with sweat. I usually can’t go back to sleep after that. God, Alan, what have I done?”
Donnie put his head in his hands and began to weep. We just sat there for a while, with the noise of the visitation room filling our ears. I thought of Linda and Laura and my heart bled for Donnie, but I didn’t know what to say. I put my hand on his shoulder and we sat for a while in solitude, my presence being his only consolation.
After a time, Donnie sat up. Wiping the water from his eyes and forcing his composure under control, he said, “Sorry about that. I’ve got to figure out how to make something good come from this. Too many people have been hurt. I’ve got to make it better. I know I can’t undo it. I can’t bring that mother and her daughter back, and I’ll never be able to make it right for Elliot, but there has to be something…”
Then, without any emotion, he said, “A guy got stabbed last night. I don’t know what started it. He was standing there one minute and laying in a pool of blood the next. They took him to the infirmary. I think he’ll be okay. It was a shank made from a rusted piece of bed frame. The guy that stabbed him just left him and it lying on the floor and walked away. The guards don’t know who it was. But everyone else does.” Then he got quiet again.
“I don’t know how to fight, Alan. And if you do, you go to the hole. These guys keep stalking me and I know it’s going to happen, but I don’t know how to fight. They say everyone has to sooner or later, but I don’t know how.” Water welled in his eyes again and I could feel his helplessness, but I didn’t know what to say. “I don’t know how,” he whispered again under his breath. “I don’t know how.”
After several moments and a difficult struggle to regain his composure, Donnie said, “Alan, I need to cash out my investments. We’re getting close to losing the house. I don’t have much in savings, but perhaps it can keep the family going for another six months or so. Could you take care of that for me? I’d appreciate it. I’ve given my wife power of attorney so she can sign whatever you need. She has a job, you know. She wrote me and told me about it the other day. She doesn’t make enough to keep things going, though. Maybe this’ll help. You’ll take care of it, right?”
“Sure, Donnie,” I responded, “I’ll take care of it. Are they eating okay?”
“They’re all right for now. Things are just getting a little tight,” he said. It wasn’t too long after that when a guard announced that visiting hours were over. I told Donnie to hang in there, and gave him another hug. He smiled and told me thanks for being his friend. He said that not everyone he’d thought was a friend still was.
As I drove home that afternoon, all I could think about was Donnie and how difficult things were for him and his family. It dawned on me that the entire time we spent together, he hadn’t once called Barbara by name. He kept referring to her as “my wife” or “she.” He also hadn’t used any of his children’s names. I wondered if perhaps that was a survival mechanism. Donnie had to adjust to living in an extremely harsh and unforgiving environment with a whole new set of rules. I could only pray he could do whatever was necessary to keep
