People like Ledger.
We park in the visitor lot and walk toward the release area. There are other families waiting—wives, children, parents. All of us here to reclaim someone we lost to the system.
At exactly 9:00 AM, the doors open.
And prisoners start walking out.
I scan each face, looking for the one I’ve been dreaming about for two years. Older men. Younger men. Men who look defeated. Men who look relieved.
And then I see him.
Ledger.
He looks the same but different. His hair is longer, touched with more gray at the temples. He’s leaner, like prison food didn’t agree with him. There are lines on his face that weren’t there before, carved by stress and time apart.
But his eyes—when they find mine across the parking lot—his eyes are exactly the same.
“Ledger!” I’m running before I can think, Dante bouncing in my arms.
He’s running too, closing the distance between us in seconds. And then his arms are around us both, holding us so tight I can barely breathe.
“Savannah.” He says my name like a prayer. “God, Savannah.”
“You’re here. You’re really here.”
“I’m here. I’m coming home.”
Dante is squished between us.
Ledger pulls back slightly and looks at our son. “Hey, Dante. Hey, buddy. Remember me?”
Dante stares. Then slowly, tentatively, he reaches out one small hand and touches Ledger’s face. “Dada?”
Ledger’s face crumples. “Yeah. Yeah, buddy. I’m Dada.”
And Dante, who doesn’t remember his father, who’s only seen him in pictures and brief prison visits, leans forward and wraps his little arms around Ledger’s neck. “Dada home.”
“Yeah.” Ledger’s crying now, tears streaming down his face. “Dada’s home.”
I’m crying too. We’re all crying—me, Ledger, even Alexi, standing a few feet away watching the reunion.
“Dad.” Alexi steps forward. “Welcome home.”
Ledger pulls him into the embrace, one arm around his oldest son, the other around me and Dante.
Elena hangs back, uncertain. Ledger notices and extends his hand. “Thank you for being there for my family while I was gone.”
“They’re my family too now.”
We walk to the car together, Dante refusing to let go of Ledger’s neck. In the back seat, I sit pressed against my husband’s side while our son babbles at him, telling him stories in his toddler language that only occasionally make sense.
“He talks a lot,” Ledger says, wonder in his voice.
“Constantly. He learned it from me.”
“And he’s so big. When did he get so big?”
“Gradually. Then suddenly. That’s how kids work.”
