Second Chance, Third Strike

Prisons have a unique smell—a curious cross between perspiration and despair. Debbie noticed it each time she came to visit Seth. It’s a little like blindness, she contemplated as the guard led her to the visitation room. Debbie had heard how people who had lost their sight would marvel at how their other senses became heightened. It must be like that with freedom, too, she reasoned. Her eyes darted around, noticing every crack and stain on the drab walls as she passed through the locked doors and dingy corridors. Even though Debbie was only a visitor, being behind a fence, led through locked barred doors by men with guns heightened her senses as well. Her heels clicked loudly on the tile floor. Even the air around her felt noxious.. She struggled to breathe it in.

“How are you doing, kiddo?” Debbie asked Seth as soon as he picked up the prison phone. In so many ways the question was as ridiculous as it was unnecessary. Seth’s face was gaunt, his beard gray, his eyes glazed. He looked twice his twenty-three years and his voice was gritty, the result of a boy becoming a man behind bars.

“Same,” Seth responded, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Have you heard anything?”

His original sentence was fifteen years, of which Seth still had nine to go. Debbie had been coming to see Seth for the last four years. She started just after Seth’s mother had passed away. At first she came every few months, then she came monthly, now she was a weekly visitor. She’d become used to the question.

“Yes,” Debbie answered, allowing a smile to come over her face. “The judge has finally relented. You should be out of here in about ten days.”

“What are you talking about?” Seth gasped, dropping the phone, standing up and turning his back to Debbie. When he turned back tears were welling in his suddenly bright eyes. “Are you serious?’ he shouted before realizing his mistake and picking up the phone. “Are you serious?” he repeated. 

“Serious as a heart attack.”

The two sat silently, eyes fixed on each other, cheeks flooded by tears. They hadn’t contemplated the possibility, they hadn’t allowed themselves to hope, and now the future, for both of them, seemed unclear.

“Where will I go? I don’t have anyone,” Seth mumbled both to himself and to Debbie. For the first time he had to think about what came next. The thought terrified him.

“You have me,” Debbie reassured him, placing her open palm against the thick glass that separated the two. “You can come home with me.”

“But.”

“But nothing,” Debbie replied. “You can stay in Alan’s room. I think he’d like that.”

Seth’s eyes filled with tears at Debbie’s offer, he mouthed the words “thank you,” his voice suddenly lost. “You’re welcome,” Debbie mouthed back with a smile.

The visit ended with Debbie promising to pick Seth up when he was released. Seth stood and was led out of the room by a guard and Debbie turned to leave as well.

“I don’t get it," one of the guards said to Debbie as she left the room. 

“He has nothing and no one. He needed someone to help him through this and, after all, Seth was Alan’s best friend. I did it for my son. Every story, even the most horrific, needs an ending, and I didn’t want Alan’s story to end this way.”

As the guard watched Debbie pass through the last door he marveled at her capacity to forgive. Seth, the young man she had fought so ferociously to free, had been driving drunk on a license that had already been suspended for driving drunk when his car hit a tree. Her precious son, Alan, had been killed instantly. Two lives were forever changed in a single night. There was no hope for Seth and no peace for Debbie but now, because of her, he was going to walk free.

* * * * * * * * * *

The drive home was comfortably silent. Seth’s eyes darted from left to right as if he were seeing the world for the first time. Things he hadn’t noticed before—like how red the stop signs were and how calming it was to see branches swaying in the cool breeze—now transfixed him. Debbie’s eyes darted as well, only hers went from Seth to the road as she tried to contemplate all that had happened to bring her to this point. 

Seth looked markedly different than just ten days prior. He was clean-shaven and with a fresh haircut. He wore a blue polo shirt and knee length khaki shorts. Debbie couldn’t help but wonder if this was what Alan would have looked like had he lived. The two boyhood friends were often mistaken for brothers and, in fact, up until that horrible night Seth had always called Debbie Mom. 

The smiles that adorned Debbie and Seth’s faces changed in an instant when the car settled into the driveway of Debbie’s one story suburban home. It looked eerily similar to the last time Seth had been there—the fateful day he picked up Alan for the party. It still looked like it belonged in a picture postcard with the yard freshly mowed, the rose bushes in full bloom, and the picket fence surrounding it all. Painted white, of course.

“Are you ready to go in?” Debbie asked, purposely trying to break up the silence which had turned uncomfortable.

“I don’t know, Mom …” Seth stopped mid sentence and slapped his hand over his mouth.

“It’s ok, kiddo,” Debbie responded as she hugged Seth. “You’re here, where you should be. You’ve been in my home a thousand times before. What say we make it a thousand and one?”

Seth couldn’t help but smile. He had one person who cared about him, a person who had every right to hate and didn’t. He grabbed his duffel and followed Debbie up the steps and in through the front door.

“Should I take my bag to Alan’s room?” Seth asked, as he walked into the house for the first time in six years.

“That can wait,” Debbie answered. “We should celebrate. Follow me.”

Seth followed her into the kitchen. “Have a seat,” Debbie said as she pulled an open bottle of champagne and a two liter bottle of Coke from the refrigerator. She placed both bottles on the kitchen table and retrieved two glasses from the cupboard.

“Your choice, Seth,” she said as she placed the glasses in front of him. “Should we toast your freedom with champagne or soda?”

“Champagne,” Seth answered without hesitation. “It’s been six long hard years. We need to do it right.” He then poured two full glasses, taking one for himself and handing the second to Debbie.

“What should we toast?” Debbie asked.

“To new beginnings,” Seth replied, raising his glass to Debbie’s.

“And to happy endings,” she replied as she clinked her glass against his, watching as he downed the champagne in a single gulp.

“Why did you have to pick the champagne, Seth?” Debbie asked, placing her full glass back on the table.

Seth opened his mouth to answer, but his throat was becoming increasingly tight.

“It’s the poison, kiddo,” Debbie said, noticing his difficulty in speaking. “It won’t take long now.” Seth tried to stand, but only succeeded in falling on the floor, his glass smashing into a thousand pieces.

“I was willing to forgive. All you had to do was choose the Coke,” Debbie said as she watched Seth’s eyes close for the last time. Debbie then waited patiently as Seth’s breaths grew shallow, eventually stopping all together.

Her job was finished. There was nothing else she could do for either her son or his friend. “To happy endings,” she repeated as she brought the glass to her lips and swallowed her own champagne. Sitting down, a contented smile broke over her face. Seth, after all, was right. It had been six long hard years and it was time for her to see Alan again.