Normally, the idea of seeing my Tyler for real would have been just wonderful. I had dreams about bringing him home and just sitting on the couch and watching him while he sat. But this time, I mean, I knew why they were doing it. A little mercy for a mother who was about to lose her only child. That was the long and the short of it. I can’t describe how much I needed the pity those guards showed me, or how terrible that pity made me feel.
Still, the last time we’d talked on the phone, Tyler’d made me promise that when I saw him the next time that I wouldn’t cry. I always cried. Every time I saw him. Every time we spoke, I cried. But Tyler said that he didn’t want to see that. He said he wanted to remember a happy time with me the last time. He wanted me to… remember him being happy. And so when the guard entered the little cinderblock room and Tyler walked on in after him, I sucked in my breath hard and bit my lip. I could feel the tears in my eyes, stinging and itching, but I fought them off. I fought them off and I looked at Tyler.
He looked different than I remembered him. It was so strange to see his full body without any glass in between us. It was like seeing someone from TV live and in person for the first time. Tyler was tall, maybe six two or so. But built like a bean sprout, like my own daddy’d been. His arms and legs were long and spindly. He walked with his shoulder stooped slightly. His face was thin and his cheeks was real sunken in. His hair was shaved down next to nothing and it made his big ears look even bigger. He still had them soft brown eyes I could remember forever.
“Hey mama,” he said when he stepped into the door. I felt my breath catch in my throat and I nodded to him.
“Alright ma’am,” the guard said as he began to unshackle my son, “I am going to leave you be. You take your time, just remember that visiting ends at 3:30. You need something, knock on the door and I will come in.” And with that, he turned and closed the black door behind him. I heard it lock. I was alone with my son.
I was sitting at the table in the middle of the room, looking at him. Tyler stood in front of the door, looking all nervous over in my direction. Neither of us said anything or moved for a long time. I didn’t know what to do or what to say. I couldn’t believe how good it felt to actually be in this same room with him. I couldn’t believe how terrible it felt to know the reason why it was happening.
“How are you doing, mama?” Tyler asked and I felt my stomach dropped down into my knees. Everything my boy was facing and the first thing he wanted to know was about me. I stood up from my chair and walked across the room. It was all I could do to keep myself from running. I crossed the distance between us in second and wrapped my arms around my boy. I squeezed him so tight that I heard him made a sort of “oof” noise. But then I felt his arms wrap around me too. And I stood there, hugging my son for the first time in years.
That was the most bittersweet moment of my entire life. I could feel my son’s hands on my back, his arms at my side. I could feel his chest against my cheek and I could smell the soap under his prison jumpsuit. He was there, in the flesh. And I got to hold him like I’d always done when he was little. And now he could hold me back. And that had been the one thing I’d always wanted to do, all these past seven years. Was to hold him and let him know that I was still his mama.
But I could feel the tension in him too. I could sense the weight that he was carrying in his shoulders. It sounds horrible… and it was… but I could feel death sitting on top of him. It sort of dripped out of him like sweat from his skin. I could smell it, underneath of the soap. It was heavy and thick and it made my throat feel tight. I had this feeling come over me when I sensed it. A feeling I hadn’t had since I was a little girl and I saw them lay my daddy out in a pine box. The feeling that the body of the person I loved was right there in front of me but that the person was somehow gone.
I shuddered and I pulled away from the hug. I looked up at my son’s brown eyes… just to make sure that he was really there. He was. For a little while longer.
“I love you, Tyler,” I said, just whispering.
“I love you too, mama,” he said. I hugged him again, just because I could. It was different this time. I don’t know… it didn’t have that not-real feeling about it this time. We broke the hug entirely and I took him by the hand and led him over to the table in the middle of the room. We sat down facing one another. We were quiet again for a long time. I was just looking over him. Seeing how much he’d aged in just a couple years. He was a man now. But a broken man. My heart ached for him.
“How’re you feeling?” I asked finally. I knew what he’d do before he did it. He shrugged.
“Same old, same old,” he said. What he always when I asked him. We talked a little then, like we normally did. I told him about the people at work and about the trouble I had with my landlord. He told me about what he was reading and the things he was thinking about it. Usually, when I visited, that was all we got a chance to say. It was so hard to talk about anything else. Anything real would just make it impossible. But that day, no one came and interrupted us. No one told us that we was out of time. And after a while, there was no more small talk to make. And we got quiet again.
“I’m sorry mama,” Tyler said after a long time. I had been looking down at my fingers on the table and my head shot up quick. Tyler was looking at his own hands, his neck bent forward far.
“What’re you sorry about?” I asked, “Not your fault its quiet. I should be the one bringing in stories…”
‘No mama, not that,” Tyler said, looking up. I know my jaw dropped open. I ain’t seen it in years, but Tyler’s eyes was red and there were tears in them. Not dripping down, just settling there. Tyler never cried. Not from the time he was a little boy. Lawyer told me that he thinks that was part of the reason he got such a rough time. Jury thought he was hard. But now I saw him and I could barely understand it.
“Tyler, I don’t want you to be sorry,” I said, my voice croaking. Tyler shook his head violently.
“I’m sorry about what I did,” he said, “I really am mama. I never wanted no body to get hurt. That’s the truth. Boyd, he told me that he didn’t even have any bullets in the gun… but that don’t matter. What I did do was bad enough and that is the truth. I am sorry that I did that. I am sorry about that man that got killed. I wish every day I could take it back. I play that moment over in my head every minute of every day and I wish I could stop Boyd. But I didn’t. I am sorry. And I am sorry for you mama. You don’t deserve this,” he said, the tears, for the first time, streaking down his cheek. He waved his arms around the room.
“Honey…” I started.
“I am a man now. I should be having a job and giving you grandkids. I’m your only son and I let you down mama. And I so sorry,” he said.
“Don’t you ever apologize to me Tyler Jessup,” I said, my voice coming out firmly. I didn’t even intend to speak. It was the voice of my motherhood, talking without me, “I didn’t even want no son but you. And I wanted you good or bad. Don’t you apologize to me or wish you were a different man. You’re my son. And I love you,” I said. Tyler rubbed his hands through his short hair and went quiet again. I felt my heart thrumming and my head felt light. How could he think such a thing?
“You don’t worry about me. I will be okay,” I said to him after another pause, this one shorter. Then I spoke more quietly, “I am only sorry about you. You’re right. You should have a job and you should have a wife and you should have children. You deserve those things, Tyler. I wish I could give them to you… but I can’t,” I said. Tyler shrugged.
“I don’t even really understand that life, mama. I never really knew what it was. Even when I was little, I’d see kids with their brothers and sisters and their pets and their lives… and it never made any sense. I couldn’t ever see myself there. How can I miss out on something, when I don’t even know what it is? I just know those things are important to you,” Tyler voice was cracked and defeated while he spoke.
I could tell by the way he said it that Tyler meant it. I know he wasn’t trying to hurt me then. He didn’t say it just to make my stomach knot up or just to make my tongue go dry. But that is what happened. I felt like he’d hit me, I almost doubled over holding my stomach. What kind of boy doesn’t know what it is like to have a real family? What kind of boy can go through his whole life and not imagine himself having a home and being happy? Tyler was just being honest. He couldn’t help it. That was my fault.
That, I guess, is when I really realized it. That’s when is topped thinking about the convenience store, and the law, and the judge, and the jury, and the lawyers. Hell, that is when I really stopped thinking about Tyler. That’s when I stopped thinking about all the terrible things this world has done to me. And I thought about the things that I done. The things I was responsible for. I looked across the table at my son, at his red, tired eyes and his bony frame… and I realized that this was what I’d done with my life. I got pregnant early, I refused help, I went out with my friends and left my son alone, I smoked and drank and fucked strangers… I had put all of this wrong out into the world and it had turned around and come back on me.