A few more minutes, and the prison appeared within a big sunburnt clearing.
It was less imposing than I’d pictured, the few times I’d pictured it. It had a sprawling, suburban look to it, could be mistaken for some regional offices of a refrigeration company, maybe a telecommunications headquarters, except for the razor wire that curlicued around the walls. The looping wire reminded me of the phone cord that Ben and my mom always fought over toward the end, the one we were always tripping on. Debby was cremated with a little starburst scar on her wrist because of that goddang phone cord. I made myself cough loudly, just to hear something.
I rolled into the lot, the poured-tar surface wonderfully smooth after an hour of potholes. I parked and sat staring, my car crinkling from the drive. From just inside the walls came the murmur and shouts of men, taking their rec time. The vodka went down with a medicinal sting. I chewed a piece of hardened spearmint gum once, twice, then spit it into a sandwich wrapper, feeling my ears get booze-warmed. Then I reached under my sweater and undid my bra, feeling my breasts woosh down, big and dog-eared, to the background noise of murderers playing hoops. That’s one thing Lyle had advised me on, stuttering and careful with his words: You only get one chance to get through the metal detector. It’s not like at the airport—there’s no wand thing. So you should leave everything metal in your car. Um, including, um, with women, uh, the, I think is it underwire? In the bras. That would be, could be a problem.
Fine, then. I stuck the bra in my glove compartment and let my breasts roam free.
In the interior of the prison, the guards were well mannered, as if they’d seen many instructional videos on courtesy: yes ma’am, right this way ma’am. Their eye contact was without depth, my image bounced right back at me, hot-potato. Searches, questions, yes ma’am, and lots of waiting. Doors opened and shut, opened and shut, as I walked through a series of them, each shifting in size, like a metal Wonderland. The floors stank of bleach and the air smelled beefy and humid. Somewhere nearby must be the lunchroom. I suffered a nauseous wave of nostalgia, picturing us Day kids and our subsidized school meals: the bosomy, steamed women, yelling Free Lunch! toward the cash register as we came through with a dump of stroganoff and some room-temperature milk.
Ben had good timing, I thought: Kansas’s disappearing-reappearing death penalty was in moratorium when the murders happened (here I paused at my jarring new mental phrasing, “when the murders happened,” as opposed to “when Ben killed everyone”). He was sentenced to prison for life. But at least I didn’t get him killed. I now stood outside the smooth, submarine-metal door of the visitation room and then stood longer. “Nothing to it but to do it, nothing to it but to do it.” Diane’s mantra. I needed to stop thinking family thoughts. The guard with me, a stiff blond man who’d spared me small talk, made an after-you overture.
I swung the door open and shoved myself inside. Five booths sat in a row, one occupied by a heavyset Native Indian woman, talking to her inmate son. The woman’s black hair speared down her shoulders, violent-looking. She was muttering dully to the young guy, who nodded jerkily, the phone close to his ear, his eyes down.
I sat two booths away, and was just settling in, taking a breath, when Ben shot through the door, like a cat making a break for the outside. He was small, maybe 5’6”, and his hair had turned a dark rust. He wore it long, sweeping his shoulders, tucked girlishly behind his ears. With wire-rim glasses and an orange jumpsuit, he looked like a studious mechanic. The room was small, so he got to me in three steps, all the while smiling quietly. Beaming. He sat down, placed a hand on the glass, nodded at me to do the same. I couldn’t do it, couldn’t press my palm against his, moist against the window like ham. I smiled milkily at him instead and picked up the phone.
On the other side of the glass, he held the phone in his hand, cleared his throat, then looked down, started to say something, then stopped. I was left looking at the crown of his head for almost a minute. When he looked up, he was crying, two tears from both his eyes trickling down his face. He wiped them away with the back of a hand, then smiled, his lips wavering.
“God, you look just like Mom,” he said all at once, getting it out, and coughed, wiped more tears. “I didn’t know that.” His eyes flickered between my face and his hands. “Oh, God, Libby, how are you?”
I cleared my own throat and said, “I guess I’m OK. I just thought it was time I came and saw you.” I do sort of look like Mom, I thought. I do. And then I thought, my big brother, and felt the same chesty pride I’d had as a kid. He looked so much the same, pale face, that Day knob of a nose. He hadn’t even grown much since the murders. Like we both got stunted that night. My big brother, and he was happy to see me. He knows how to play you, I warned myself. Then I set the thought aside.