In the short/long weeks between when I got news that I was leaving until I actually left, Walter hardly slept at all, talking through the night, 1,001 life lessons for the recently unincarcerated. “Remember,” he said, “your woman has been in the world this whole time.”

“You don’t know her,” I said. “How are you going to tell me what she’s been doing?”

He said, “I can’t tell you what I don’t know—which is what she has been up to. I have no idea, and neither do you. The only thing I know for sure is that everyone else’s life has moved forward, just not yours.”

According to him, the key is to wipe your mind clean. The future is what I should think about. But he never explained how I was supposed to not pine for what I used to have. Walter didn’t understand because there is nothing behind him but missed opportunities and regret. For him, the chance to start anew would be a reprieve, but for me it would be the mother of all setbacks.

Until they slapped a twelve-year sentence on me, I had hit everything I aimed for: a job that more than paid the bills, a four-bedroom house with a big lawn I cut myself on Sundays, and a wife who lifted me up like a prayer. My job was good, but in a couple of years, I would look for a better one. Our place on Lynn Valley Road was a starter house. Next on the agenda was children. It takes being together to another level when you go to bed for a purpose larger than your own feelings. Even after what happened next, I’ll never forget that night and all our sweaty intentions.

“Walter, you tell me to forget what I had and to focus my mind on what I want going forward, but for me, it’s the same thing.”

“Hmm,” he said, buckling his face like he was thinking some deep Ghetto Yoda thoughts. “Well, somebody in your situation needs to look at life like a newborn baby. Pretend like you have never been in the world before and you’re waiting for it to show you what’s what. Keep your head in the right now.”

I surveyed my pitiful surroundings. “You can’t tell me to live in the present when the past was so much better.”

He clucked his tongue. “You know what you have right now? Right now you have to clean that sink.”

Even in prison where everything is upside down, I could see how weird it was—him giving me chores. My Biological threw a small sponge at me and I caught it. “It’s your turn,” I told him, tossing it back.

“Fathers don’t have a turn,” he said, batting it back in my direction.

I rubbed a little bar of soap against the yellow sponge and started wiping down the sink, which wasn’t really that dirty.

“Country Yoda,” I said.

“Watch your mouth.”

What Walter didn’t tell me was that innocent or not, I wouldn’t be allowed to leave through the front door, a modest expectation from a man who should have known better than to expect much. Banks warned me not to look for any kind of formal apology, no envelope outfitted with the state seal. Hell, I didn’t even know the names of the officials I should have demanded this apology from. I wasn’t getting any restitution other than the twenty-three sorry dollars that everybody gets when they walk out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary. But was it unreasonable for me to think that I, as an innocent man, having paid somebody else’s debt to society, would be allowed to exit through the front door? I pictured myself making my way down a big marble stairway with the sun shining on my face, entering a little grassy lawn where my whole family would be waiting for me, even though Olive was two years dead and Celestial was two years gone. Big Roy would be there. This much, I could take to the bank. But for true, only a woman can truly welcome a man back home, wash his feet, and fix his plate.

Knowing that I wasn’t walking out anyone’s front door, my father waited in the back parking lot, leaning on the hood of his Chrysler. I walked toward him, and Big Roy straightened his collar and ran his palm over his hair. As I shielded my eyes against the late afternoon sun, his face broke into a smile.

A dozen of us were released that day. For a young cat, no more than twenty, a family waited with metallic balloons shaped like Christmas ornaments; a little boy wearing a red rubber nose squeezed the bulb on a bicycle horn, somehow causing the nose to glow. Another dude didn’t have anybody. He didn’t look left or right but walked straight to the gray van that would carry him to the bus station, as though pulled by a leash. All the rest were picked up by women: some mamas, others wives or girlfriends. The ladies drove to the gate but made sure to let the man take the wheel as they left. I was the last one out the door on that bright winter day. My shoes felt foreign on my feet—leather wingtips. My dress socks got lost somewhere, so I settled my feet in the shoes raw. The texture of the asphalt was rough beneath the leather soles as I walked to my father. Father, what a clumsy word now, as I approached Big Roy, afraid to want anything at all. Not that I would ask for much. When I was in high school, too old for Roy to punish me for cutting up, the way boys do, he would say, “Listen here, boy, get yourself arrested, don’t call me. I’m not into prodigals. I don’t do welcome-back parties.” But that was when we thought incarceration had something to do with being guilty or at least being stupid.

If anybody deserved a party, it was me, the other son, the one that didn’t get the fatted calf. Or Job. Or Esau or any of the many people in the Bible left hanging. When I went to fill a bucket with ice on that fateful night, every smart decision I’d made suddenly became irrelevant.

Somebody raped that woman—that was clear from her shaky fingers twitching in her lap—but not me. I remember feeling tender toward her when I met her that night at the ice machine. I told her that she reminded me of my mother and she said she always wanted a son. Walking to her room, I spilled my guts, telling her about my stupid fight with Celestial, and she promised to light a candle for me.

At the trial, I was a little sorry for her as she marched her way through her awful story, ruining my life. She spoke carefully, as though she memorized her statement, using textbook terms to describe her own body and what had been done to it. She stared at me in the courtroom with a mouth quivering with fear but also with hurt and rage. In her mind, I was the one who did it, just after she prayed for me and for my marriage and the baby we were trying for. When they asked her if she was sure, she said she would know me anywhere.

Sometimes I wonder if she would know me now. Would anybody who knew me then recognize me today? Innocent or not, prison changes you, makes you into a convict. Striding across the parking lot, I actually shook my head like a wet dog to get these thoughts out of my mind. I reminded myself that the point was that I was walking out the door. Front door, back door. Same difference.

So this is me. A free man, as they say. Don’t nobody care about shiny balloons, cognac, or fatted calves.

Big Roy didn’t rise from his place leaning on the fender and run across the lot to meet me. He watched me approach, and when I was in striking distance, he opened up his arms and pulled me in. I was thirty-six years old. I knew I had a lot of years left, but I couldn’t stop counting those I’d forfeited. I bit down on my lip and tasted the hot flavor of my own blood as I rested there, feeling the weight and safety of my father’s arms. “Good to see you, son,” and I enjoyed the feel of the word, for the truth in it.

“You, too,” I said.

“You’re early,” he said.

I couldn’t help but smile at that. I didn’t even know what part of early he was talking about. Was he talking about the five-day bump-up that was announced three days ago? Then, of course, there was the fact that I got away with putting in less than half of a twelve-year bid. So I said, “You the one who taught me that five minutes early is late.”

He smiled, too. “Glad to know you were listening.”

“My whole life.”

We settled into the Chrysler, the same car he drove when I went in. “Want to go visit Olive? I haven’t been there today yet.”

“No,” I said, because I wasn’t ready to confront the rectangle of land with my mother’s name scraped deep into cold marble. The only “her” I wanted to see was Celestial, but she was in Atlanta, 507 highway miles away, and she didn’t even know yet that I was free.

Big Roy let his shoulders fall. “I suppose it’s all right. Olive ain’t going nowhere.”

I believe he meant it in an offhand way, but the words burrowed in deep. “No, she’s not,” I said.

We drove the next mile or so quietly. To the right, the casino’s neon lights competed with the sunshine and won. Cars ant-hilled around, looking for parking. Up ahead, a highway patrol car’s nose stuck out from a stand of bushes, speed trap, the same as always.

“So when you going to see her?”

This time her was Celestial. “In a couple of days.”

“She know you coming?”

“Yeah. I sent a letter. But she didn’t hear that the date was moved up.”

“How would she hear it if you didn’t tell her?”

I didn’t really have much to say back but the truth. “Let me get my constitution straight first.”

Big Roy nodded. “You know for sure she still your wife?”

“She didn’t divorce me,” I said. “That’s got to mean something.”

Big Roy said, “She’s doing well for herself.”

I nodded. “In a way, I guess.” I almost added that an artist can only be so famous in America, but I didn’t want to sound jealous or petty. I added, “I’m real proud of her.”

My daddy didn’t look up from the road. “I haven’t seen Celestial since your mama’s funeral, with your friend Andre. It was good to see her there.”

I nodded again.

“That was two years ago, actually a little more. No sign of her since.”

“Me either, but she put money on my account,” I said. “Every month.”

“That’s something,” Big Roy said. “I won’t disrespect that. When I get home, I’ll show you the magazine with her picture.”

“I already saw it,” I said. Posing with a pair of dolls that look like her parents, Celestial smiles like she never suffered a day in her life. I read the article three times. Twice silently and once aloud to Walter, who conceded that the article didn’t mention me, but he also observed that there was no mention of another man either. Still, I was in no hurry to see the magazine again. “They have a subscription to Ebony, the jail does. Jet, Black Enterprise. The whole trifecta.”

“Is that racist?” Big Roy asked.

“Maybe a little.” I laughed. “My cell mate liked to read Essence. He would fan the magazine and say, ‘There are a lot of women out there in need of a man!’ He was an older cat. Walter was his name. He looked out for me.” An emotion I hadn’t booked on shook my words.

“He did?” Big Roy lifted his hand from the steering wheel like he was going to adjust the rearview, but then he scratched his own chin and set his hand back on the wheel. “That’s a blessing. A small blessing.” The light changed, but Big Roy hesitated. Behind us, cars beeped their horns, but timidly, like they didn’t mean to interrupt. “I’m glad for anything or anybody that helped to get you home alive, son.”

The drive to Eloe was only about forty-five minutes, plenty of time for a man to get things off his chest, but I didn’t share any of the news that had been bouncing off the walls of my skull for the last three years. I told myself that the story wasn’t like a carton of milk; it wouldn’t go bad if I kept it to myself a little longer. The truth would remain true for a week, for a month, for a year, ten years, however long it was before I felt like talking to Big Roy about Walter, if I ever did.

Big Roy drove the car up into the yard. “It’s getting bad around here,” he said. “Somebody tried to steal the Chrysler. Came in the yard with a tow truck when I wasn’t home, told the neighbors that I asked them to do it. It was lucky that my partner, Wickliffe, was home from work and run them off with his pistol.”

“Wickliffe is what? Eighty years old?”

“You’re as young as your gun,” Big Roy said.

“Only in Eloe,” I said.

It felt strange coming home with no bags to bring in. My arms felt useless as they swung by my side.

“Hungry?” Big Roy asked.

“Starving.”

He opened the side door and I stepped into the living room. Everything was laid out the same way—sectional situated so that every seat provided a view of the television. The recliner was new, but it was placed where the old one had been. Above the couch was a large piece of art that Olive prized, showing a serene woman wearing an African head scarf, reading a book. Olive bought it at the swap meet and paid extra for the gilded frame. The room was so clean that a faint lemony smell rose up from the vacuum tracks in the carpet.

“Who fixed up the house?” I said.

“Your mama’s church ladies. When they heard you were coming home, they came over here like a cooking-cleaning army.”

I nodded. “Any one church lady in particular?”

“No,” Big Roy said. “It’s too soon for all of that. Come in. Go on in the bathroom and wash up.”

While I was lathering my hands in the sink, I thought of Walter washing his hands in his obsessive way. I wondered if he had a new cell partner by now. I gave Walter everything I owned—clothes, hairbrush, my few books, and my radio. I even left my deodorant. What he could use he would keep, and what he could trade or sell would be swapped or sold.

The hot water felt good, and I left my hands under the faucet until I couldn’t stand the heat.

“On your bed are some essentials. Tomorrow you can go to Walmart and get whatever else you need.”

“Thanks, Daddy.”

That word, Daddy. I never used it with Walter even though I think he would have liked it. He even said it himself a couple of times, “Listen to me. I’m your daddy.” But never did I let the word escape my lips.

Once I was washed up, Big Roy and I heaped our plates. It was the same fare they brought out when somebody died—baked chicken, string beans boiled slow with ham, clover rolls, macaroni and cheese. Big Roy placed his dinner in the microwave, pushed a few buttons, and the plate revolved under the light. Sparks flew as the metal rim popped like a cap gun. Using oven mitts, he removed his food, covered it with a paper towel, and held his hand out for mine.

We sat together in the living room with our plates resting on our laps.

“You want to say the blessing?” Big Roy asked me.

“Heavenly,” I began, choking again on the word father. “Thank you for this food that will nourish our bodies.” I tried to find other things to say, but all I could think about was how my mother was gone forever and my wife wasn’t here either. “Thank you for my father. Thank you for this homecoming.” Then I added, “Amen.” I kept my head down waiting for Big Roy to echo. When he didn’t, I looked up to find him rocking slightly with his hand over his mouth.

“All Olive wanted was to see this day. That was all she ever asked for and she’s not here to experience it. You’re home and we’re sitting here eating other women’s food. I know the Lord has a plan, but this isn’t right.”

I should have gone over to him, but what did I know about comforting a grown man? Olive would have sat beside him, pulled his face into her chest and shushed him in a woman’s way. Even though I was hungry, I didn’t pick up my fork until he was able to pick up his. By then, the magic of the microwave had worn off, leaving the food tough and dry.

Big Roy stood up. “You tired, son? I would like to go to bed early. Start fresh in the morning.”

It was only seven o’clock, but in winter the days are short, if not warm. I went to my room and dressed in the pajamas Big Roy or maybe the church ladies set out for me.

Five years was a long time in real-life time. In inside life, it wasn’t forever. It was a stretch of time with an end you could see. I wonder what I would have done differently if I had known that five years was all I was looking at. It was hard being behind bars when I turned thirty-five, but would it have been so hard if somebody told me that the next year I would be a free man? Time can’t always be measured with a watch or a calendar or even grains of sand.

“Celestial.” I did this every night, chanting her name like a plea, even after her letter written on paper the color of the palms of my useless hands. Even when I did the things that it embarrasses me to recollect, I was always thinking of her, wondering what I would tell her about what I had done, what was given me, what was stolen, who I touched. Sometimes I thought she would understand. Or even if she didn’t, she would come to empathize. She would know that I thought that I was gone away forever.

Celestial was a tricky woman to figure out; she almost didn’t marry me, although I never doubted her love. For one thing, I made a couple of procedural errors with my proposal, but more than that, I don’t think she planned on getting married at all. She kept this display she called a “vision board,” basically a corkboard where she tacked up words like prosperity, creativity, passion! There were also magazine pictures that showed what she wanted out of life. Her dream was for her artworks to be part of the Smithsonian, but there was also a cottage on Amelia Island and an image of the earth as seen from the moon. No wedding dress or engagement ring factored into this little collage. It didn’t bother me, but it bothered me.

It’s not that I was planning a wedding like a twelve-year-old girl, nor was I some clown fantasizing about fathering ten sons, handing out cigars every eighteen months. But I pictured myself with two kids, Trey and then a girl. Spontaneity and playing it by ear is fine for those who can afford it, but a boy from Eloe had to have a strategy. This was something that Celestial and I had in common; neither of us believed in letting chips fall where they may.

About a year ago, in the throes of hopelessness, I destroyed every letter she ever sent me, except for her carefully composed Dear John. And yes, Walter warned me against wadding all that scented paper into a ball and plunking it into the metal commode. Why I chose to save the one letter that hurt me most, I don’t know. But now, on my first night of breathing unfettered air, here I was about to read it again.

If I could have stopped myself, I would have. Unfolding the page carefully so that it wouldn’t give way at the softened creases, I ran my fingers under the words, feeling for the hope I sometimes found sheltered there.