Chapter 9 - The Prison Visit
One year later.
The Federal Correctional Institution in Allenwood, Pennsylvania, sat behind three layers of high razor-wire fencing.
Inside the visitor room, the air smelled of floor wax and stale coffee. Heavy plastic partitions separated the visitors from the inmates.
Nathaniel sat on a cold metal chair on one side of the glass.
He wore a faded green prison uniform with his registration number stamped over his left pocket. His hair was shaved short, his skin pale, his hands calloused from his daily assigned work shift in the prison laundry room.
Across the glass sat his mother, holding a plastic telephone receiver to her ear, weeping softly.
"Oh, Nathaniel..." his mother sobbed. "You look so tired, my boy."
"I'm okay, Mom," Nathaniel said quietly through the phone, his voice hollow, stripped of every trace of his former swagger. "The laundry shift starts at 5:00 AM. It keeps me busy."
"I... I brought some money for your canteen account," his mother said, wiping her eyes. "It's not much, but—"
"Keep it, Mom," Nathaniel interrupted softly, shaking his head. "You need it for your mortgage. I don't need anything in here."
He looked past his mother, staring at the blank white wall of the visiting room.
"Have you... have you heard anything about Teresa?" Nathaniel asked, his voice barely audible over the static of the receiver.
His mother hesitated, looking down at her hands. "She... she moved down south, Nathaniel. She’s running a regional task force now. She bought a house near the ocean."
Nathaniel remained quiet for a long time. A single tear escaped his eye, tracing a path down his cheek.
"She was right, Mom," Nathaniel whispered into the phone, his voice cracking with unbearable regret. "She offered me a real home, a real life... and I traded it all for a bottle of expensive bourbon and a woman who didn't even know my mother's name."
"Nathaniel..."
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"I thought I was a conqueror," Nathaniel laughed bitterly, staring at his rough, calloused hands. "Turns out I was just an idiot who didn't know what real strength looked like until she used it to lock me in a cage."
He hung up the receiver, stood up slowly, and walked back toward the heavy steel door where a guard was waiting, vanishing into the gray corridor of his five-year sentence.
