Page 130 of Behind the Bars

I didn’t say aword.

“Look, I know…there’s nothing I c-can say to…” He tripped over his words, couldn’t connect his thoughts, and it was a feeling I knew all too well. When he was finally able to grasp a few words, he looked up at me with glassy eyes and said, “I’m so sorry,Elliott.”

Then he looked back down at hishands.

“I forgive you,” I said, making him shoot his stare back up. Tears swam in his eyes. “What?”

“I forgive you. Not for me”—I nodded toward my mom—“but for her. I forgive you forher.”

He broke down into uncontrollable sobbing, and I watched as he struggled to breathe. “Thank you, Elliott. Thankyou.”

I remained still as I spoke the last words. “I never want to hear from you again,” I told him. “This is it. This is theend.”

He nodded and continued to fall apart. As we stood up, Marie shook behind us, as she stared down at Mom’s hand still in mine. Then she looked to her own son, who was trapped behind that glass. She was unable to hold him, unable to reach out and comfort him as he fell apart. So, she did all she could do: she fell aparttoo.

She covered her mouth as she sobbed heavily into the palm of her hand. Her tiny figure shook nonstop, and she was seconds away from falling to the ground with the heaviness of her heart. I watched it in her; I watched her soulburn.

She kept apologizing over and over again. She kept saying words I was more than familiar with. She kept blaming herself for what had happened six years before. She probably blamed herself for her husband taking his own life,too.

Her son sat behind bars, but the truth was, Mrs. Clause was living in true imprisonment. She was completely alone. She had nothing and nobody, not even one hand to hold for comfort during the hardest days of her life. As her legs were about to give out, as her breaths were dissolving, I rushed in and held her close. I held her close and she cried into me, falling apart while my arms did their best to keep hertogether.

I didn’t know why I saidit.

I didn’t know why the words left mymouth.

I wasn’t even certain I believed it, but I told her what she needed tohear.

I held her close, and whispered that it wasn’t herfault.

The way she howled in sorrow afterward was enough to break my ownheart.

We stayed with Marie until she was able to gather herself, and then we left as she sat down to speak with her son. I watched her place her hand against the glass partition, watched him place his opposite hers, and I released abreath.

I wrapped my arm around my mom’s shoulder and kissed the top of her head as we walked away. “Thank you,Mom.”

“Forwhat?”

“For never letting mego.”

* * *

That nightshe prepared dinner for the two of us, cooking all of Katie’s favorite side dishes. We talked all night long, real conversation with laughter. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard my motherlaugh.

“I’ve missed this,” she told me, making two cups of coffee as we sat at the table. “Some of my favorite memories were spent around thistable.

“Same with me,” Iagreed.

“Is it hard for you? Without your sisterhere?”

“I actually think it was harder for me to be alone, than it was for me to behere.”

She nodded. “You thought you deserved to be alone. You don’t think that anymore,right?”

“Yeah, not at all. You all really helped me.” Her eyes watered over, and I laughed. “Come on, Ma. Don’tcry.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s just… I’ve missed you somuch.”

“I’ve missed you, too. You have the greatest heart in this world. You see things in the way that most wouldn’t. What you did for Marie today…most people would’ve let hersuffer.”

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