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The pungent smell of farmland tells me I’m close. I get out my directions. It is the first time for this place. Getting lost would be easy -done it before, other places, other times, same mission.

The joy I fabricated for the trip leaves like water going down the drain.

“Why do I keep coming?” I ask myself.

I cross the bridge over the river and head up a hill. Turn left after the municipal hall, left again at the rock garden. I see the sign: “Correctional Service of Canada – All persons and vehicles are subject to search.”

The institution is in front of me, a grey multibuilding enclosure with orange-trimmed guard towers and chain-link fences- an enclave of pain. Tears sting my eyes at the sight of the place. I am never prepared enough.

I stop my tears. No need for melodrama. Other women come here for visits; they don’t have red-rimmed, puffy eyes. They come with kids, like this is an acceptable Sunday outing. Not me. Grief slopes my shoulders towards my chest.

I pull into the parking lot and turn off the engine. I close my eyes to absorb the quiet. Maybe if I wait, the rain on this dark and dreary day will stop. Maybe if I wait… Stop! Why do I do this to myself?

Visiting hours are from one to three.

I make a dash through the rain for the main gate. I do a tiptoe, dancing run to dodge the puddles. I almost smile. Then I remember not to smile. Smiling would mean that I give in, and I do not; that I have accepted this, and I have not.

Over the door at reception is a large black-rimmed clock, the potentate of prison regime. Requests of “Can’t we have a few more minutes?” are shrugged away with a point to its almighty presence.

“Who are you here to see?” the corrections officer asks. I give him the name and produce identification. I know the drill. He pushes a clipboard and pen towards me. I write my name, time of arrival and relationship to the inmate.

“Mother,” I write. Shame and guilt battle courage and love. I lift my chin and say, “I’m here to see my son.” My unmentionable child, inquired about only by our closest friends. Dropped from the roster of polite conversation.

“Empty the contents of your pockets, please,” the guard says, handing me a locker key for my belongings. With a few dollars for the hallowed coffee, I walk through the scanner-the dignity zapper, I call it.

I exit the reception building and wait as a four-meter-high gate scrapes and slides open. I walk through, and with the same noisy gracelessness, the gate closes behind me. It is a reverberating sound, one I hear in my sleep when sadness forces me awake.

The visiting area is about half the size of a school gym, with tables dotted about. It is empty except for a guard who sits waiting for the room to fill. I sit. Here I am again, I think, and I promise myself I won’t cry this time.

Another visitor arrives, a man, 30-ish. Who is he here to see- a brother, a friend? Does it grieve him to be here? He smokes. Soon the room will be full of people who smoke, couples necking in corners, children cuddling their daddies, people with their heads together in a whisper.

I prefer to visit alone, without my husband. He is practiced at staying out of dangerous emotional waters. When he comes, the visit goes smoothly. They talk and laugh easily. I tend to retreat into the shadows of their conversation, feeling hollow and dissatisfied when we leave.

When I visit alone, I purposefully wade into rough waters. I do it to find a place of connection with him. I do it at my peril, knowing I could be rebuffed, left to drown in sorrow and self-pity.

I see him coming down the hall. He sees me, smiles and raises his hand in a half wave. He has gained weight. His tattooed arms are covered with prison garb. Mercifully I don’t have to look at the BORN TO BE WILD he scratched into his skin at age 14. He opens his arms to receive me with a hug. I press my cheek into his shoulder and hold him. Now I remember why I am here.

I lean back to get a good look at his face. Well-pro-portioned features, fine but strong. The eyes are what I am interested in. Blue, and the whites amazingly white. I hold his eyes with mine. He allows me this look, haiting expectanly, as if hoping I will see something that will unlock his private prison doors. Nothing is revealed.

We find a table near the window. He sits sideways, only partly on the chair, feet posied, as if ready for a quick getaway.

“How was your drive down?” he asks, and then looks around, distracted, as I tell him. “I’ll get us some coffee,” he says. A good exit line. Too bad I don’t drink coffee. It would be something to commune around-bridge these awkward first moments. I give him coins. Now he has a purpose.

Getting coffee is a mission he can understand; facing me and the unknown of the next two hours is not. On returning, he looks more confident, as though the warm foamed-plastic cup absorbs his unease.

“How is the family?” he asks, almost prayerfully. I think I see him gird himself against the answer, like awaiting the stab of a vaccination needle, a painful necessity.
The “news of family” serum.

“Everyone is okay,” I say blandly. I tell him all the news, reciting his sister’s activities, avoiding mention of her successes. I watch him for signs of agitation. He’s calm. Eyes averted to ward off the impact. I downplay any fun, talk about Dad’s car accident, include details of mistakes, make us seem less privileged. Make it not hurt.

He’s looking away now. I stop mid-sentence, mired in mother muck, trying to fix the unfixable. He leaves aburptly to go the bathroom.

Inoculation’s done. Resentment strengthened, separateness and differences more acute than ever. I want to say sorry when he returns. Sorry for speaking, sorry for being out there while you're in here, but I say nothing.

"So," I begin again, tentatively, "How, are you, ah, hou y'doing, sweetie?" It's such an inane question - and such an important one. Perhaps he will actually tell me. I wait, and he looks squarely at me, with a "How many times has he been in jail? Three, four? Last time he was out, he had a girlfriend, a dog, a job, but a penchant for fighting and a refusal to follow rules. This time he got two years.

"I'm all right, Mom," he says, breaking his stare. "I' ve been working out a lot." He describes his exercise routine. He is proud of his physique, the body armor he's built to protect his soft places.

A small child, six pounds one ounce when I brought him home. Always the smallest in the class, but he shot up to a respectable five feet nine inches sometime when I wasn't looking. Hard living made him lean and gaunt, but the routime and regularity of prison food give him a fullness of face that becomes him.

"See my new tattoo," he says suddenly, pulling down the neck of his shirt. A heart shape - with a crack down the middle - on his right chest. A new image to seep into my dreams.

The room is noisy and smoky now, full of men in stale uniforms, and their visitors. Other imnates pass by our table, getting coffee, or looking for a light or a smoke.

We go out to the courtyard for some air. It is fresh and cold, no longer raining. I reach for his hand, and he accepts mine absently in his man's hand, which is big and unfamiliar to me, with its rough skin and raw knuckles. Where is the smooth, small hand I held as we played finger games?

"Round and round the garden, like a little mouse," was our favorite; "one step, two step, into his little house," and my fingers would scurry up his arm to the little mouse house in his ticklish armpit.

How is it possible that that that little hand became so scarred and nicotine stained? I liik up at him to reconcile the hand with the person walking beside me. He doesn't notice. He is taking vigorous, unholy drags on his cigarette, using it, it seems, as a weapon against himself.

"I sure miss you," I tell him. Careful. He can sniff a line a mile away. Do I? I don' t miss the worry, the fearful uncertainty of never knowing, or the accusatory phone call when disaster has struck and it somehow becomes my fault. No. I don' t miss that. When he is in here, fear and worry settle into a dull, numbing ache. Yes, I grievously miss him, but whom I miss isn' t clear to me anymore.

We walk about 30 steps, turn, walk, and turn, like in a prison movie. He abruptly lets go of my hand.

"Yeah, well, you are probably just as happy with me in here, not out there causing you trouble."

"No, " I protest. "Every minute you're in here is agony for me."

"Oh, sure. If you want agony, try being in here, " he says, anger edging his voice. "You think it's bad just having to come and see the bad apple once in a while."
"I want to come."

"Why? So you can go home and feel like you've done your duty? Be the martyred mother?"

"I don't deserve this. I come because I want to see you and because you need to keep the family connection. You're not alone, you know."

"I sure as hell feel alone. You guys are out there having fun, going on trips, while I' m stuck in this hole."

"Well, it wasn't me who broke the law," I shoot back.

He walks away and returns to the building. We settle uncomfortably into our chairs and are both quiet. Then comes the familiar recitation: the litany of wrongs he has suffered, of now I and others have failed him, of how the system is failing him now, of how life is not his fault.

I sit looking at the floor. Answering will escalate this into an argument, so I wait and listen as my actions and words of the past, full of hope and good intentions, come back to me distorted, made over to fit the story he wants to have of himself as a victim. The story that helps him give his reponsibility away. To me. To anyone.

Why isn't it different yet? Tears run down my face. We always thought he would come around when he was older. He' s older now: 25. He's telling his compelling but false version I created to give my reponsibility away. We' ve both jiggered the truth.

"Visits will close in 15 minutes."

The announcement startles us both. The crowd had already thinned. We remain seated - unfinished. Will this ever be finished?

"How's your girlfriend?" I ask. The words hit him like a slap in the face.

"She left me," he says, his mouth trembling. "She met someone else. She doesn't want to wait forme." He rages against her for a few moments, disguising his hurt as anger, then stops. Anger is futile when the only connection you have to your real self has to leave in five minutes. Tears overtake him. "Having her waiting for me made it bearable. Now... If only I could talk to her. But she won't accept my calls."

Another loss. Now I understand his new tattoo.
We are alone in the room now. The guard is watching us and points to the clock when I look over. Three. We stand and hug good-bye. At this moment everything falls into a big pot between him and me - the questions without answers and the answers that are too difficult toface. At this moment there is no history, there is nothing to forgive. He is fully returned to me. I hold him tight.

"Thanks for coming, Mom."
I will com again another time, for another moment. How could I not:

About a year after being released from Mission Intitution, the author' s son closed the door firmly on his old life. Through courage, determination and humility, he has fully returned to society. He later graduated from university, has already lined up a job and became a first-time father.