'D Block' by Jeff Kemp

We communicate through glass.  I’m used to it.

Is he?

I wonder, driving away, this month’s visit done.

Routines.  “Sign in here, Mrs Findlay.”

“There you go Sandra.”

Turn left out of the entrance, right onto the motorway, boredom and danger.

Boredom or danger?

“I was bored, mum,” he told me the first time he was brought back.  Aged eight.  The cop was kindly.  “Keep an eye on him, missus.”

As if I could.  If his father was around.

It would have been worse.

Nothing after that for a while.  Grey tarmac, turn off signs too early to check.

Ten, the next police visit.  “It could’ve been really serious, Mrs  …” looking at his note book.

And eleven, twelve, clear by then how it would be.

Talking across a table those first low security visits.  

The last arrest.  The real one, grey tarmac, junction twenty two, getting close now, there was no attempt at levity.  Charge read out, cops not engaging with me, one knocking the picture of the cat over, no apology, just a nod, “yours?”

“When he,” nodding at my boy being led away,” was seven.”  A memory that made me shudder.  “I didn’t get another pet after that.”

Is he used to talking through glass?

“Life means life in cases like this,” I was told at the last sentencing.  “Some things are beyond … ”

As if I didn’t know.

Back next month.  It’ll be, “how’s things?”

“Yeah.”

Last month I asked him about the fight.  It was on TV.

“He died,” said with a shrug.  

This afternoon, as usual.  “Food okay?”

“Okay.”

“How’s the laundry?”

“Warm.”

“Love you,” I said on leaving, as I always do.

He looked down and turned away as he always does.

Always did.

Always will.