“He had a good day. Cake, presents, lots of attention.”
“Did he like the train set?”
“Loved the wrapping paper more than the train. Typical one-year-old.”
Ledger laughs, and the sound makes my chest ache. “I wish I were there.”
“I know. Me too.”
“One more year,” I say. “One more year and you come home.”
“One more year.”
We talk until the automated voice announces that our time is up. Then I hang up and sit in the darkness, listening to Dante breathe through the baby monitor.
One more year.
I can do one more year.
On release day, I wake up at 5:00 AM even though I don’t need to leave for another three hours.
Today is the day. Two years. Seven hundred and thirty days. Seventeen thousand, five hundred and twenty hours.
But who’s counting?
I shower and dress carefully. Nothing too formal, but nice. A dress Ledger bought me before everything happened. Heels I can actually walk in while carrying a toddler. Makeup to hide the dark circles that come from two years of single parenting.
Dante wakes at six, babbling in his crib. When I go into his room, he’s standing up, gripping the rail, bouncing on his toes.
“Dada,” he says. It’s his newest word, learned from pictures I’ve shown him every single day for two years. “Dada today.”
“Yes, baby. Dada today. We’re going to see Dada.”
I dress him in the outfit I bought specifically for this—khaki pants and a button-down shirt that makes him look impossibly grown up. At two years old, he’s tall for his age, all lean limbs and boundless energy.
He looks like Ledger.
Alexi and Elena arrive at seven thirty. Elena is carrying a basket of something that smells like fresh muffins. “Thought you might not have eaten,” she says.
“I haven’t. Too nervous.”
“He’s going to be so happy to see you both.” She looks at Dante, who’s examining the muffins with intense focus. “And this little guy has gotten so big.”
“He’s not little anymore. He’s a full toddler now. Running everywhere. Talking constantly. Into everything.”
“Sounds exhausting.”
“It is. But it’s also amazing.” I grab my purse. “We should go. I don’t want to be late.”
The drive to the federal facility takes forty minutes. Dante chatters the entire time from his car seat, pointing at things outside the window and naming them with his limited vocabulary. “Car. Tree. Bird. Dog.”
“That’s right, buddy,” Alexi says from the driver’s seat. “Very good.”
“Dada?”
“Yes. We’re going to see Dada.”
The facility looks like a college campus more than a prison. Low buildings. Manicured lawns. Fences, but not the towering razor-wire kind. This is minimum security, designed for white-collar criminals and people who don’t pose a flight risk.
