Print Edition Vol. 4 - Teacher and Student

TEACHER AND STUDENT

by Sue Granzella

Part I - When He Was Ten

I was warming my hands on my morning bowl of oatmeal, the morning newspaper spread across my lap. Wrapped in an orange afghan like an over-sized burrito, I sat with my feet propped up on the corduroy recliner. The only sounds of the pre-dawn morning were the distant hum of the commuter trains, and the soft snores escaping from my dog.    

Suddenly, staring up at me was the face of a ten-year-old. I knew him. The boy was hidden in the face of a twenty-nine-year-old man, eyes looking lost, stricken. I sucked in air, my heart pounding loudly in my ears. My eyes inched through the article, sentence by sentence, unable to take in more than a few words at a time. 

He was charged with murder. His name was Miguel. The last name was a match with the child I remembered. The age—I quickly did the math, and confirmed that the Miguel I’d taught in fourth grade all those years ago would now be twenty-nine, the same age as the man in jail for murder. It was a common name; maybe it wasn’t really him. I stared at the mug shot, trying to mold the man’s features into a face that wouldn’t match the round one I remembered, with its warm caramel skin, broad smile, and soft brown eyes. But as much as I didn’t want to see him, he was looking out at me.  Miguel. It was Miguel.

Specifics about individuals fade when one has taught hundreds of kids over the years. But I remembered Miguel. It was the early ‘90’s, the first time I’d taken my class of Oakland kids camping. There was no money for a chartered bus. Neither was I allowed to ask parents to drive us to the campground in the hills above UC Berkeley. 

So we went camping on public transportation. I borrowed sleeping bags from everyone I knew and lent them to the twenty-nine kids, most of whom had never slept in a sleeping bag, let alone outside. A few parents and a couple of teacher friends would join us later, bringing all of the food and tents. But the kids had to carry sleeping bags and backpacks on the five-block walk to the bus stop on Fruitvale Avenue. After the bus, we’d take a BART train to downtown Berkeley, where the last bus would pick us up and deposit us in the wooded hills. 

We set off from the elementary school on foot, the nine- and ten-year-olds toting camping gear through the streets of East Oakland. Down the hill we marched, past an apartment building where pit bulls barked furiously from behind black metal security doors, where mothers held toddlers by the hand and stared in puzzlement at the sight of us. We picked our way past litter and bits of broken glass, our spirits high. 

In the classroom, Miguel was cheerful, and a bit of a mess. He maintained his desk’s densely-packed contents in a state of cautious equilibrium. Removing even a box of crayons tipped the balance, and the innards of Miguel’s desk would spill out onto the tired brown carpet. But my exasperated sigh wouldn’t dampen Miguel’s upbeat spirit. He’d apologize, smile, and cram it back in, always intending to do better the next time.

Heading down the sidewalk, the school still in sight, I turned around to check the snaking line of children behind me. There was Miguel, all tangled up in the borrowed bag that trailed behind him across oil-stained driveways. As he tried to wrestle it back into its rolled-up condition, I breathed a mental apology to the friend who’d lent the bag, and made my way back to him.

As soon as he saw me, he stopped flailing and said, “Ms. G., thank you! Thank you for taking us on this trip!” His brown eyes were shining, his round face, lit up.

“Oh! Well—you’re welcome! I’m excited, too!” I was startled, and touched. Most kids don’t realize that field trips only happen if a teacher does extra work. Yet here was Miguel, thanking me before we’d been gone two minutes. I suddenly didn’t care about the dirty sleeping bag, and together we rolled it back up. 

After two buses, a train, and a hike, we reached the towering eucalyptus trees that encircled our group site. In the late afternoon, we set up camp and gathered around the barbecue grills on the rise overlooking the meadow where we’d pitched the tents. We organized assembly lines and served a dinner of barbecued hot dogs, roasted corn, and salad. Then we moved down to the picnic tables near the meadow, where some of the kids started playing twilight baseball with a stick and an aluminum-foil ball. The rest of us relaxed at the tables. 

“In a few minutes we’ll start making s’mores!” I called out. 

Just then, there were two small, bright lights piercing the shadows up by the barbecue grills. Then two more lights, and two more, and before we knew it, a chorus of blood-curdling screams was echoing across the hills. 

“DO YOU SEE THAT?” “What IS that?” “HELP!”  

Shrieks came from all sides as the panic spread. Kids dove into tents, while two adults trudged uphill to investigate. Within minutes, they returned. 

“It’s nothing! It’s just a family of raccoons!” called Chris, a chaperone. 

The screams morphed into sobs, then a crescendo of wailing and cries of, “I want to go home! I want to go home!” 

Once we had coaxed everyone out of the tents, promised a return to urban safety the next day, and pressed a gooey s’more into every child’s hand, a few adults traipsed back up Raccoon Hill. Returning a moment later, they bore the incriminating evidence—four ears of roasted corn which had been left on a grill.

“How did those get there?” asked Steve, our head chef. “We cleared the grills before we ate.” He looked with narrowed eyes from one chocolate-smeared face to the next. All but one child shrugged and returned to the sticky handful of sugar.

Miguel looked more pleased than repentant. “Oh, that was me. I wanted to save some corn for my mom. It was really good.” He grinned.

Chris pointed out that his mom probably wouldn’t want the raccoons’ dried-out left-overs. Though Miguel reluctantly agreed, I think he was still disappointed when we tossed them out.

The morning I read that Miguel had rammed his truck into a gang member standing on a street corner, my heart pounded and I felt nauseous. I thought sharing my burden would help, so when my husband came downstairs, I squeezed out the story between tearful descriptions of Miguel. 

John shook his head. “Well, his life is over. Even if he’s innocent—it’s a gang. His life is over.”  

As he kept talking, I heard the words “like the Mob,” and then my ears shut off. I turned away, closed my eyes, and winced. John believed that in the dark underworld of retaliation, Miguel would likely end up paying one way or the other. 

“His life is over.” 

The words haunted me. They pounded in me all day, twisting my stomach and making my heart race. At work, I looked out at the twenty-eight innocent children in my class, and I replaced their faces with Miguel’s. He was once in grade school, little and happy. And now he was behind bars.

The newspaper had said that he’d had a clean record until now, and all day I kept picturing Miguel in a prison cell, a place he’d never been. I imagined him scared, frantic, claustrophobic, which made me feel the panic myself, like something in me was going to burst. So I tried to stop imagining him, trapped inside.

But like a balloon that bulges out elsewhere if you squeeze it in the middle, my anxiety woke me that first night. I bolted upright and flung off the blankets, my eyes wide open in the dark. I ran downstairs, slapped on the light switch, and stood in the middle of the kitchen, breathing hard, trying to force down the rising panic. I had to fight the urge to escape the house, to walk the streets in my pajamas at 3:00 in the cool morning air. 

What if he never gets out? Or, what if he does get out, and he’s afraid to turn his back, fearing that someone will exact revenge? I remembered the article, and pictured him desperately trying to run away from the police. That was when I cried, because it was the ten-year-old boy I remembered—unsophisticated, not polished or hard. All tangled up in a mess, unable to get out.

I’d thought that talking about it would help, but I’d told John and I still felt sick. Then at work the next morning, a thought took possession of me, and grew into a physical necessity. I had to find something. I needed to find a picture of Miguel from when he was ten. 

I’d kept a photo of nearly every student I’d ever taught. Driving home from work that day after the article, I waited impatiently at stoplights. I could see the attic shelf with my photo albums. I hadn’t looked at those pictures in many years, but I knew he’d be there.

Finally home, I threw the keys down, tossed my jacket onto the dining table, and pounded up the stairs to the attic. Like I’d seen it in my mind, I reached for the fattest photo album. Flip – flip – flip…. and there he was. As quickly as that—there he was.

I leaned against the bookshelf, and slid to the floor. Sitting perfectly still, I stared at Miguel’s picture. I don’t know how long I sat, or what I was looking to find. All I saw was a pleasant-faced boy with a big smile.  His head was tipped to the side at a jaunty angle. He had posed with his hand under his chin, and was wearing a short-sleeved, buttoned plaid shirt. 

The photo was affixed to a poem he’d written.  In it, he described himself as a happy boy, one who liked doing the right thing. Underneath it, he’d written a note to thank me for putting the kids’ poetry into a book. He said: “Thank you very much.” Twice.

After five minutes or maybe twenty, I brought the picture downstairs and laid it on the kitchen counter, alongside the newspaper mug shot. Back and forth, back and forth, I stared at his face, young and innocent, then lost and alone. When I heard the squeaky turn of my husband’s key in the front door, I ran, grabbed his hand, and wordlessly led him to the two photos. 

“Can you see it?” I finally asked. Why was there a tiny part of me that believed that he might say no? If John couldn’t see a resemblance, would that mean that it wasn’t really my Miguel? That the little boy I’d known wouldn’t be sitting in a jail cell?

 But John nodded. He could see it. I could, too. I left those two pictures on the kitchen counter, side by side for the rest of the week, even though I felt a stab inside each time I saw them.

After the article, I was compelled to talk about Miguel. Friends and co-workers all heard about the sleeping bag, the raccoons and corn cobs, the desperate attempt to escape the police. And each time I named the cold crime of which Miguel was accused, I found myself emphasizing that he had been a good kid—kind, generous, and grateful.

I imagined being surrounded by people who only associated me with something awful. That in itself would be its own kind of prison. I wondered if Miguel had people who reminded him that he is more than one deed. After a few days, I didn’t want to tell just my friends. I wanted to tell Miguel himself that I remembered and believed in the goodness in him. 

On a cold November evening, John was driving, and I was staring out the window into the darkness. 

“I’m considering going to see Miguel. What do you think?” Neither of us had experience with crime or violence, but my naïveté towered over John’s. At least he watched prison reality shows.

“Well, that’s up to you.”  

I turned up the heater, rubbing my hands. “Yeah, but…you don’t think it’s dangerous, do you?” I was clueless. Thinking about gangs and retaliation was, for me, like watching a complicated movie. In a foreign language. While wearing a blindfold. 

“I don’t know.” 

My stomach lurched. John was sensible, not given to melodrama. He wasn’t sure?

“If gang members are after revenge, would someone find out where we live? Could something—happen?”

“I doubt it. But—I don’t know.”

I’d hoped for a resounding, “No, you’d be fine. You’re being paranoid.” When it didn’t come, a dark dread began seeping into me, and it didn’t go away. 

With my unsophisticated concept of how darkness works, I began to spin a retaliatory web that led to my death. I visit Miguel, my ID at the jail is used to track me down, and my disappearance weeks later remains a mystery forever.

My imagined scenario was farfetched, but it paralyzed me. Days, then weeks went by, and I didn’t visit him. I googled Miguel’s name, but there were no more news articles. In January, I read on the jail’s website that he was still an inmate. After six months, the word “sentenced” appeared after his online name. It didn’t say how long. Even the prospect of writing to him frightened me. A name and return address were required on the envelope. Did I have the courage to identify myself on an envelope that anyone could read?

I didn’t. Months passed, and the sadness, fear, and guilt all swirled together, settling someplace deep inside me, deadening my ability to act. I didn’t forget about Miguel; I never decided that I wouldn’t go. The guilt I felt over my inaction just couldn’t quite outweigh my fear and tip the balance. Over time, it came closer. But it didn’t surpass it. 

Until finally, the three-year mark of Miguel’s arrest came. The shift began to happen the night I listened to an episode of “This American Life,” a story about someone in prison. At work, day after day, I’d look out at my class of third-graders. Basking in their sweetness, I’d remember Miguel’s gentleness, back when he was ten. 

And the balance tipped. 

I had no idea if what had happened between Miguel and the gang member was an accident, or something darker. I didn’t know what it would be like to reconnect in jail after not seeing him for twenty-two years. 

But I did know what I would say. 

I’d tell him I believed he was still fundamentally good. That goodness doesn’t vanish into nothingness. That something of the child I once knew was alive in the adult, regardless of whatever happened. That the adults we become are hinted at by the children we were, and the child I knew was good. I’d tell Miguel that he matters to me, because I knew him when he was ten.

Part II - Prison Halloween

I dropped to my knees on the asphalt, pouncing on my contact lens. Reinsertion in this wind was impossible, and there was no restroom in sight. Not wanting the lens to shrivel into nothingness, I popped it into my mouth for temporary storage. 

Even with one good eye, the spirals of razor-edged barbed wire atop the chain-link fence stood out against the gray sky. Beyond the fence were rows of concrete housing blocks with vertical slits of windows. Ahead of me was the entrance, an attractive earth-tone building with Canadian geese feasting on the expanse of lawn out front. Without the razor wire and gray blocks, it might have been a community college. I hurried.

Purses were not allowed, so I clutched my car keys and the visitor paperwork in my hand. Again, I patted my shirt pocket, making sure my driver’s license was still there. But this time it wasn’t.

Turning around, I saw it on the ground where I’d retrieved my contact. I trotted back and grabbed the license, but then the wind ripped the admittance sheet from my hand. It swirled away and I rushed to the lawn, stomping my foot onto the paper when it fluttered down. My tennis shoe left a smear of goose poop. 

Three years after my former student had been arrested, I was finally visiting him. It was time to enter prison.

“Wait in line by the metal detector.” 

The unsmiling woman behind the plastic window pointed, and I obediently crossed the room. It was five minutes to nine on Halloween morning, more than the required thirty minutes early for my visit. No one was operating the metal detector yet, but I stood directly before it, pleased to be first. 

Eight minutes later, I was still standing straight, my back stiff, wishing that there was a place to sit. Then it dawned on me—there was. I looked back at the six women I’d passed on the way in. They were sitting on the only bench in the cavernous entry room while I stood in “line” by myself. I was suddenly embarrassed at my obvious inexperience. Trying to look casual, I strolled over to them.

The long bench near the glass front wall was under a sign reading “No Cell Phones.” A Latina woman in her seventies leaned against the glass, scrolling on her phone. Her polyester pants didn’t cover her elastic circulation stockings; swollen legs poofed out below the stockings and above her rubber sandals. Was she visiting her son? I wondered how long she’d been coming, and hoped the reception woman wouldn’t make her put her phone away. 

The other five women ranged in age from twentyish to fiftyish. Two young African-American women held babies, and I hovered near the baby who wore a big stretchy white bow on her bald head. The chubby girl giggled and waved her fists while I waggled my fingers at her. I told the young woman her baby was adorable, and the mom glowed. 

Then an interior door banged open, and a skinny white man headed toward us. His shorts hung past his knees and he wore tennis shoes with no socks. The hood of his zipped-up sweatshirt was pulled low over his forehead. He carried a clear zip-lock bag. 

“Anybody got a phone I could use?” He sounded a little drunk, though I figured he couldn’t be after a night in jail.

Nobody answered. Most of the women looked away. 

He pulled open the zip-lock. “I’ll give you a train ticket,” he said, extending the bent cardboard. “I don’t have money, but this is worth almost five bucks. Anybody?”

“We can’t have phones,” I told him. “We couldn’t even bring purses in.” 

Heads nodded, and the fiftyish woman in a shiny silver jacket said, “Ain’t no cell phones allowed inside. We ain’t got ‘em.” She pointed to the sign. 

I scooted left to block his view of the older woman who was still scrolling.

“Oh, man. Well—I need to call someone. You think there’s a pay phone?” 

The shiny-jacket woman looked at him hard, and then her forehead relaxed and she nodded. 

“Okay, baby. My husband drove me here, and he got my phone. You go on down to the parking lot and look for a man in a big ol’ white pickup. You tell him that his wife said you could use her phone.” She smiled at him.

“Hey! Thanks a lot!” 

“You’re welcome.” 

He zip-locked his train ticket back in, and left. 

The inner door banged again, and three guards, all white, strode to the metal detector. Like magic, women streamed in the entrance, the bench ladies shuffled over, and suddenly there was a line of twenty women. I was no longer first, but I’d learned. Hurrying didn’t help. 

I found myself behind a very young mother who was breastfeeding and caressing her baby’s head. Her little girl had on a pumpkin t-shirt and a sparkly green bow. I wondered how old she would be when her father got out. 

Many women fussed over the four-year-old wearing an Air Force cadet costume. 

“But I forgot his shiny black shoes!” lamented his mother. 

“Aw, those red tennis shoes look fine. Red, white, and blue!” Her friend nodded reassurance. 

Two more guards emerged. The burly one with red hair grinned and aimed his iPhone at the kid-cadet.

“Look at this kid! It’s the best costume yet!” 

The cadet’s mom removed her hoop earrings and scooted sideways through the metal detector, followed by her solemn-faced child. 

As she clutched her boy’s hand, a handsome dark-haired guard bent low and asked with a smile, “Do you salute?” 

The boy executed a vague salute; women laughed, and the guard saluted back. Then the mom and her cadet disappeared down the hallway, the click of her heels hollow on the tiles.

A very tall woman in tight jeans and spiky heels was next. With the many admonitions on the website about acceptable attire, I was surprised she was showing so much cleavage. The guard working the metal detector was thirtyish, and shorter than the others. He greeted each woman, offering a nod and sometimes a smile. He seemed kind. 

He watched the tall woman now as she pulled off earrings, belt, bracelets, and necklace. She asked, “How come there are so many of y’all today?” 

“Halloween.” 

“Ah.” Then she handed over her ID. He inspected it, and tapped the paper.

“What’s this?”

“Oh, that’s saying that my driver’s license was stolen. I have a copy of my social security card, too.”  

The kind-eyed guard immediately looked back at the big redheaded one. “What do you think?” 

The redhead slowly eyed the tall woman and then jutted his chin at her in recognition. I realized she must come here a lot. 

“This isn’t ID.” He looked at her again, long and silent. He seemed to be savoring the power he held. 

Then he nodded at her. “What the heck. It’s Halloween. Go on in.” 

Finally, with only three of us left, it was my turn. I pulled off my earrings, and stepped through the scanner.

It beeped. 

“Try again, ma’am. Any money in your pockets?” 

I shook my head, then noticed my watch. I placed it on the desk, and walked through.

Again, a loud beep.

I dug around in my pockets, and felt a coin. 

“Oh, shit!”  Then I winced, looking at the guards. “Oops—sorry.”

I placed the penny on the desk, and added my wedding ring with a clink. I fought the urge to tip-toe through.

Beep. 

The redheaded man came forward. “What else you got?” 

I had hoped that it wouldn’t come to this. “Uh—I guess it could be my underwear. Maybe my bra.” Just alluding to my underwire bra made me feel exposed. 

“Try putting your arm across where the problem is, ma’am.”

I reached around with my right arm under my breasts and grabbed my left side, trying to block the underwire. 

The kind-eyed guard added, “Maybe walk through sideways. Can you cover your back with the other hand, just in case?” 

I narrowed my eyes and looked at him in disbelief. Did I look like a contortionist? 

As five guards watched, I shuffled through sideways with my bent arms pointing in opposite directions. 

Beep. 

Sigh.

The handsome one pointed to the end of the line and I retreated, feeling oddly guilty. I looked helplessly at the two women who were waiting. 

“I don’t know what to do,” I said meekly.

One woman was large, with enormous breasts. She leaned toward me. 

“You gotta hold ‘em tight, baby. Really tight.” She and the other woman demonstrated, each clutching their respective breasts with one arm circling around in front. 

I grabbed myself similarly, and she nodded. “Hold ‘em tight.” 

“Thanks,” I said, appreciative of the supportive sisterhood. 

She made it through. The other woman beeped repeatedly, and was demoted. She stepped behind me. 

I deposited my metal, and then reached around my body so far that my breasts ballooned up over my arm. I tried scurrying through. 

No one looked surprised when it beeped.

I worked hard to swallow my frustration; if I lost my cool, they’d never let me in. Looking from one to the other, I said, “I think it’s my underwear—my bra. I don’t know what else to do.”

The big redhead said, “It’s just like in the airport, ma’am. We have regulations.” 

That gave me an idea. “Can you wand me?”

“No.” 

I didn’t point out that it was therefore not just like the airport. “But what else can I do?”

Red’s mouth was set firm. “Well, you can go into the bathroom.” 

“To do what?” 

They looked at me without speaking.

“I’m not going to take off my underwear!”

Heads shook, and someone said, “Oh, no, ma’am, we’d never ask you to do that!”

I breathed deeply. My former student’s actions had enraged members of a gang; I’d had to conquer tremendous fear just to get myself to the prison, fearing that I would be lumped together with Miguel and viewed by the gang as an enemy. My breasts were embarrassingly large, and to remove my bra and feel nearly naked—maybe it seemed like a little thing, but it would require strength beyond what I now possessed. I thought hard. How could I get different clothing, so that they’d trust me and I could visit him? 

“Oh! Could I wear a jail suit?” 

 “NO!” Several of them chuckled. “That would look pretty bad!”

Red winked at the handsome guard. “Well, we could arrest her.” Again, they laughed. 

It was surreal. Me and five jail guards, troubleshooting my undergarments. They saw a mild-mannered school teacher, all docility and respect, not realizing that I was choking back sarcastic retorts and emotional pleas. I was agonizingly aware that they held all the power to admit me or deny me. All I could control was my resolve to keep my underclothes on. I spoke quietly, hoping they’d hear trustworthiness in my voice.

“So what else can I do?” 

“Ma’am, there’s a bathroom right there.” 

“I’m not taking off my underwear!” 

“Oh, no! We’d never ask you to do that!”

I was trapped in an Abbott and Costello routine. Then the gentle-eyed man spoke up.

“Do you have a jacket in your car?”

“I’m NOT going to…!”

He shook his head. “No. Maybe a jacket could cover the problem.” 

Why had no one mentioned this before? “Yes! I have one! Is there time?” 

They all looked at Red. He looked at his watch, and then at me. “Six minutes,” he said. “Maybe three.”

“Three minutes to get to the parking lot and back?” 

His eyes looked hard, so I turned and jogged past the long bench, out the front door, past the geese, alongside the razor-wire fence. Chugging along, I thought of the pretty woman with the cleavage who’d gotten in without photo ID. Did I, a fifty-five-year-old elementary school teacher, really look so suspicious? I’d received no Halloween mercy.

Though it took me nine minutes, the five guards had waited. I wrapped my lime-green windbreaker and my husband’s heavy fleece jacket around me. Doing my best body-grab, I scuttled sideways through the metal detector. 

It beeped.

I closed my eyes. 

Three years. 

It had taken me three years to overpower my fear enough to come see Miguel. My name and address were now in the prison system’s database, perhaps accessible to the gang who hated him. I’d taken the day off work. I’d swallowed the indignity of clutching my large breasts while five men watched. If Miguel had been told that he had a visitor, he would already be waiting, staring at an empty window. 

I felt a rising tightness in my chest. Then the pressure gushed out of me in a tidal wave of disappointment and frustration, pushed from behind by the force of my fear and the depth of my guilt over having taken so long to come visit. 

“I’m just a teacher! I haven’t seen him since he was ten!” The words poured out of me, and my breath came in shuddering gasps. The guards just watched me, and though I doubted it would change anyone’s mind, I couldn’t stop. The words streamed out before I knew what they would be. 

“He’s been here for three years! I just wanted to tell him I know he’s here!” I was crying now, gulping in air and wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. 

The big redhead took a step back, his face a flat wall. He’d written me off as crazy. 

But the kind-eyed guard gave a tiny nod, pressing his lips together. “I’m sorry,” he said.

And I believe that he was. All of us there, trapped. In different ways, yes. But still trapped.

“I’m just a teacher.” My voice trailed off and I shook my head, recognizing defeat, the frustration transforming now into the weight of sadness.

I removed the two coats, wiped my eyes, and asked the gentle-eyed guard if he could get the message to Miguel that his fourth-grade teacher had tried to visit him. I’d have to go underwear-shopping before I returned to the prison. 

But not today. I stepped back outside, under the gray sky that had finally started to rain.

Part III - Plexiglas

I pressed my hand to the glass, peering through the dark green window at the guard sitting watch. There was no light in his cubicle; I wondered why he was sitting in the dark. 

“Do I just wait here? Or do I go in?” Could he even hear me through the glass?

His lips moved, but all I heard was a scratchy fuzz from the intercom. With gestures and lip-reading, we agreed that I was to sit on the plank bench and wait for my name. 

Next to me was a white woman around forty. Her coppery-streaked hair was a soft globe around her face, and her lipstick a glossy red. Stiff eyelash extensions grazed the tops of her cheeks when she blinked. She wore sparkly earrings and a pendant necklace above her tight scoop-necked blouse. Snug jeans and heeled sandals completed the ensemble. Her man would be pleased. 

I wasn’t there to impress anyone with my looks. After encountering the metal detector on my first attempt to visit my former student, my only goal in planning my attire this time had been to avoid metal. Clad in sweatpants and a long-sleeve tee over my brand-new sports bra, I leaned back against the concrete wall.

“I couldn’t come Saturday so I took today off,” came her voice. 

I hadn’t wanted to impose my chatter on her, but she’d started it.

“Sounds like you come here a lot?”

“Yeah, my husband needs company. Solitary is awful. Sensory deprivation is a terrible thing.”

A stone dropped in my stomach. “Solitary? Your husband is in solitary?” 

Her eyebrows crinkled in confusion. “You’re here to see someone in area twelve, right?”

I nodded.

“Everyone in area twelve is solitary.” 

Oh, God. Oh, God. It was even more horrible than I’d imagined.

My mind raced through a montage of movie scenes, of a man pressed into the corner of a tiny cell, carving tally marks into the cinderblock wall with his fingernail …of a prisoner curled into the fetal position, artificial lights glaring from above…a small trap door creaking open as a tray of colorless food is pushed in by a disembodied hand. A desperate voice, screaming to no one but himself. 

Her tone softened. “Well, maybe not everybody is. If the guy you’re visiting isn’t in red, he’s not in solitary. Maybe he’s not.” 

I hadn’t even known that they did solitary in this prison.  

“How’s your husband handling it?” 

She straightened her pendant and said, “All right, I think. He’s been here three months.” 

“Do they ever get to be with other people?” 

She pressed her lips together, inhaling slowly. “Twenty-three hours a day he’s by himself. It’s inhuman.” 

I felt dizzy. Did they ever speak to anyone? Did they go outside? Did they ever see natural light? As each question crashed into me, I felt terror, imagining the answer. 

“Is the one hour for going outside? Or…” 

A loud buzzer sounded, and the thick metal door before us clanked open. No names had been called, but the few visitors filed through. I brought up the rear and passed into the visiting area, my heart thumping hard. 

On the visitors’ side, the room was eight feet wide, and thirty-five feet long. Behind us was a wall of thick window, looking out onto the bench we’d just vacated. In front of us was a row of eight identical windows with half-partitions on either side, offering the illusion of privacy. On our side of each window was a chair and a black phone. On the other side of the windows sat a man, staring straight ahead.

None of us was told which window to find, so visitors paraded up and back until they spotted their respective inmate. My mind raced as I peeked at each window. Would I know Miguel? Had he received word that I was coming? Would he know me? After each furtive glance at a man, I looked away quickly, a guilty voyeur, once I’d assured myself that he wasn’t Miguel. 

Suddenly, he was there, the face from the newspaper, the grown-up little boy I’d taught all those years ago. His face was remarkably recognizable—round, full cheeks, eyebrows raised, a worried look on his face. Confused. Vulnerable. He had a muscular build, and I noted the ragged body-building magazine he carried. 

He wore a bright red jumpsuit. 

I grabbed the phone.

“Miguel, do you know me? I was your teacher. I’m Ms. Granzella. Do you remember me?” 

His eyes met mine as he clutched the phone. I read his lips: “The phone isn’t working.” 

I tried a few more times, but he shook his head. I went back to the guard in the dark booth. 

“The phone doesn’t work,” I called out, feeling the rising panic in my voice, aware of precious minutes ticking by. 

“Smack it on the window.” His flat face showed no surprise. 

I swallowed a snippy comeback; a blanket of docility needed to be my clothing here. I returned, and rapped the phone against the window. Miguel tried the same, but all I heard was scratchy static. 

Back at the guard booth, I peered into darkness. “It still doesn’t work. Can we try one of the empty windows?” 

The guard shook his head, his expression now sympathetic. “I’m sorry, I can’t. Try jiggling the wire.” 

Back in front of Miguel, I jammed the wire into the hand-piece, and watched him do the same. Then I heard him. 

“Ms. Granzella?”

I wasn’t sure if he remembered me, or if he’d heard me say my name. My hands shook at the wonder of seeing him before me, finally. 

“I was your teacher in fourth grade. I’ve been thinking about you ever since I heard you were here. I’ve never forgotten you…” 

Then the back of my throat felt thick, and I couldn’t talk for crying. Stop it! Stop! I willed myself, horrified at my loss of control. It wasn’t fair to him. He was the one stuck in jail. But it swept over me—the red jumpsuit, the claustrophobia of solitary, the guilt over having waited three years to see him, the bizarre reality of seeing him in this way after so many years. 

Finally I choked out, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” wiping my eyes with trembling fingers. 

“It’s okay.” Raising my eyes to his, I saw understanding. Compassion, even. Wasn’t this backwards? Wasn’t I supposed to be of comfort to him? 

“How are you holding up?” With a pang, I noticed his receding hairline.

He nodded slowly, his eyebrows raised in that worried look. “I’m okay,” he said softly. 

I couldn’t get over how similar he was to my memory of him from twenty-two years earlier. His physique was sculpted and large, but his manner and voice were still gentle and soft. 

“I read about it the day after it happened. Right away, I wanted to come see you, but I knew it was…complicated. I was scared.” 

He nodded. Tears dribbled down my cheeks again. 

 “It’s okay,” he said again, his tone as mild as his brown eyes. 

“I had no idea you were in solitary.” Even the word made my heart flutter in panic. “Is it for your protection?” 

Again, he nodded. Then an awful thought hit me.

“Is it safe that I’m here? For you, I mean?”

He paused, considering. Then, “Well, it probably wouldn’t be good if you came real often.” 

My breathing was quick and shallow. 

“Not safe for you? Or for me?”

He glanced behind him, though no one else was in his cubicle and the door behind him was shut. Then his soft voice, “It will be okay. Just not too often.” 

Could my coming be making his life worse? And maybe it was true that being there put me at risk, too? For three years, I’d berated myself for hiding behind fear, telling myself that I was being ridiculous. So maybe it wasn’t groundless paranoia? 

It was too much to think about. I met the hungry eyes of the grown-up little boy before me, and resolved to stay cheerful. 

“Do you remember anything from fourth grade? Do you remember the camping trip?” 

His anxious eyebrows relaxed, and he laughed, nodding. “Was it Berkeley where we camped?” 

“Yeah! My friends thought I was nuts to be taking kids camping on public transportation. You got all tangled up in the sleeping bag before you even got to the bus stop.” 

He laughed again, his shoulders jiggling, and his laughter fueled my chatter. “You know what else I remember? You thanked me for taking you, and we’d barely even left the school. Kids never thank a teacher before the trip. It was so unusual that you did that.”

“Well, it was really nice that you took us.” His eyes never broke contact with mine. It was surreal; Miguel before me was just as sweet as my memory of him from decades earlier.

He chuckled when I talked about the raccoon infestation he’d caused at the campsite when he stockpiled left-over corn for his mother. When I reminded him that most of the kids had collapsed into screaming terror, his hearty laugh reminded me of Santa Claus. We listed the kids he remembered from elementary days. He told me about the ones he’d stayed in touch with, the now-adult kids who’d never moved out of the neighborhood. 

It was difficult to find much to say about people whose names I hadn’t heard in more than twenty years, so I ventured into more current territory.

“Have you seen your family very much?” 

The eyebrows immediately jumped back up to anxiety level, and he glanced over his shoulder again, though nothing was there but the cinderblock wall. 

“Not for a long time. My mother came near the beginning. I’m really worried about her. I don’t know if she’s okay.” 

In the years before my parents died, I used to talk to them several times each day. How could he stand it, holding questions of worry without ever getting answers? 

The lightheartedness of the camping stories had been squashed, so I leaped in another direction.

“Do you have any kids?” 

It was like flipping on the sun. Dread and pain whooshed out of the room, and all I could see was warmth and brightness. 

“Yeah, I have a daughter! She’s ten!” I did the quick math; he hadn’t been a teen father. Ever the teacher, I couldn’t help being pleased.

“That’s great! What’s she like?”

His laugh was pure delight. “She’s just like me!”

I smiled, though it pained me. “So what does that mean? She’s nice?”

He beamed. “She’s friendly. Outgoing. Happy!”

The shadow over his face fell and lifted repeatedly as we talked about his daughter, about how long it had been since he’d seen her, about his love for the girl’s mother and his sadness that they’d broken up. When I asked if he’d spoken with his daughter, I learned that his prison account had almost no money, and he had no expectation of ever having funds added. I asked if he could write and receive letters, wincing as he again looked over his shoulder at no one. 

“I’ve been scared to put my name and address on an envelope, Miguel, so I didn’t write. I’m going to try to find a different address, though, and I’ll just put my initials. So if you ever get a letter from someone named ‘M’, it’ll mean ‘Ms. Granzella’, and you’ll know it’s me.” 

The anxious look was back.

“Do you know when you’ll get out?” 

“Next November. So eleven more months. I’m thirty-three, so I’ll be thirty-four when I get out.” 

I felt dizzy. Trying to sound casual, I said, “Oh, I thought you were thirty-two. You’re thirty-three?” 

He’d been twenty-nine when arrested three years prior. I’d needed to enter his birthdate to make the appointment to visit. Miguel was thirty-two.

There was no flash of ‘oops!’ on his face as he nodded. 

“I’m thirty-three.”

My stomach lurched as I squeezed the black phone.

 “How do you spend your time here?” I was nervous to hear his answer.

After glancing quickly over his shoulder and fumbling with his rolled-up magazine, his eyes fixed on a spot to his right, and the recitation began. 

“I wake up at six, and I work out for thirty minutes. Then I eat breakfast, and I work on my case. Then I shower, and I work out some more. After lunch, I either read or work on my case. After that…” 

Clearly, having a routine helped him. I was confused about what it meant to work on his case, and asked him. 

Now looking over his shoulder every few seconds, he dropped his voice and explained that there was something he wanted to ask his attorney. Reaching into his magazine, he pulled out some tattered papers, and said, “I wanted to ask if you could look up my case for me.” 

“Sure, but what do you want me to look up?”

His intensity was palpable as his eyes bored into mine. “My lawyer’s name is Ms. Mangini, and here’s my case number.” Another furtive glance over his shoulder, then he opened his magazine and pointed to a long number scrawled on a page. 

I repeated the numbers and name to myself, over and over, determined to do this one simple thing for him. Despite repeated efforts, I couldn’t get a clear answer about what it was that he wanted me to look up. Remembering that he’d forgotten his own age, I wondered again how much else he’d lost during his three years in solitary.

I looked up at the clock, running out of things to say but not wanting to deprive him of visiting time. I wasn’t sure how to continue. 

So I plunged in to tell him what had consumed me since the morning I’d read about him in the paper three years earlier. Looking into his eyes, I willed myself not to cry. 

“It must be hard to be here and wonder if anyone remembers, but I do, Miguel. I never forgot you.” 

He nodded slowly, but before I could continue, he told me that because of the stress, he’d developed high blood pressure. Once again, I had to remind myself that many years had passed since I’d known him. He wasn’t a ten-year-old with high blood pressure; it was only in my eyes that he’d achieved adulthood suddenly. Again, I felt a pang of loss for what wasn’t even mine.

“Do you get medicine?” 

He nodded. “Yeah, I get to see a doctor. Stress is really bad, but garlic is good. Raw garlic. That’s really healthy.” His expression was so earnest, which somehow made me even sadder. Raw cloves of garlic—they gave him hope.

My chin started wobbling again, but then I felt the teacher within me take charge. I had to come up with a way to help my student.

Remembering the light in his eyes when he had spoken of his daughter, the words began to pour from me. I told Miguel that he could get through the days by going to a happy place in his mind, by picturing peaceful things and resting there. I told him to remind himself every morning that all he has to do is live that one day, and that he can do that one day. I told him to breathe deeply, focusing on the in and out. To just breathe. 

Even as the words streamed out, I knew it was ridiculous, thinking that I could coach him on how to get through a final year of solitary confinement. But the desire to try was stronger than my awareness of the absurdity. I was a teacher. He’d been my student. I didn’t know how not to try.

But maybe even more bizarre than my advising him on prison survival was the sight of him as I spoke. He was hanging on my every word, leaning closer to the glass between us, nodding solemnly, his wide eyes locked on mine. Was he being polite? It didn’t look that way. It looked like he was drinking in anything I would pour. 

But I still hadn’t said what I needed to say. And so I began again.

“Ever since the morning I read about what happened, I’ve wanted to tell you that you are good. I remember you from when you were little. You were good then, and I believe you still are. I never forgot about you. You are a good person. That never goes away.” 

Through the static of the phone, I still heard his whisper. 

“Thank you.” 

Was this real? Was I really sitting here, looking at him? 

“I should have told you a long time ago, Miguel. I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier. I was just so afraid…” Then my words got stuck, the tightening in my throat damming them off. And again I was crying, horrified by my betrayal of him with my weakness. The more I tried to choke off the tears, the more the emotion overpowered me. Over and over, I pressed my hands to my eyes, wiping tears across my cheeks, my breath coming in spurts and gasps.

“It’s okay,” he said. “It’s really okay.”

I raised my eyes to his, and saw only concern. I searched for blame, but it wasn’t there. 

“Thank you,” I whispered back. 

“It’s okay. I’m glad you came. Thank you for coming.” 

I exhaled deeply, my breath finally beginning to steady. In the confused jumble whirling through my mind was a single idea that I felt more than thought: 

He forgives me. 

“Thank you for coming. Thank you.” 

I don’t know how many times he repeated it, or how many times he told me it was okay that I’d stayed away for so long. 

It’s okay. 

It’s okay.

The time was almost up, and I didn’t want the phone to cut off before we’d said good-bye. So I ended it the way I’d seen in movies, placing my palm against the window.

“Good-bye,” I said. “I’ll be thinking of you. I’ll come see you again.” 

Miguel placed his palm across from mine, the thick Plexiglas between our hands. 

“But don’t come too often,” said Miguel. “Thank you for coming.” 

Tears began streaming again as I walked back out to my car, past the metal detector and the guards behind thick protective glass and the resigned-looking people waiting on the bench by the entrance. Panic rose in my chest when I imagined Miguel being returned to his lonely cell, but I tried to press it down by remembering his voice repeating those words. 

“It’s okay.”

If there was anything to forgive, he had forgiven me. I tried to believe that the words could apply to Miguel, too. Could things somehow be okay for him one day when this was all over? 

I would just have to keep hoping.

It’s okay. It’s okay.  

Part IV - Teacher and Student

I left a message for Miguel’s overworked public defender an hour after I drove away, and a few days after that, late one afternoon when I was still at my classroom desk, we finally spoke. 

I explained my connection to Miguel, saying that he’d asked me to contact her. 

“You have a massive caseload, I know. Do you remember who Miguel is?”

Her voice was clear and sure. 

“I couldn’t forget him. He was such a lovely man.” 

The second I hung up the phone, I put my head down on the desk and sobbed. If she’d described him as a lying son-of-a-bitch, it wouldn’t have gutted me like it did. But she’d seen it, too. Our vantage points showed us bookends of sweetness, the little boy in a classroom and the grown-up man in a cinderblock cell.

The newspaper had said that Miguel had been charged with murder, but Ms. Mangini explained that shortly after his arrest, both defense and prosecution agreed that the event hadn’t been a plotted-out scheme against a gang member. Rather, it was simply an awful accident, a tragedy for everyone involved. The murder charge had been dropped almost immediately.

Supplying information I’d never had, she revealed that Miguel had eventually been classified as a Special Education student with significant cognitive deficits. Despite this, he had worked steadily as an adult, maintaining an excellent employment record. Regardless of the consensus that it had been an accident, Miguel had been sentenced for his own safety; the judge knew that if he got off with a lighter sentence, it was more likely that he would be hunted down after his release. The attorneys and judge had agreed to take the unorthodox move of housing Miguel long-term in the county jail instead of placing him in state prison, where he’d be in more danger. 

Public defenders generally don’t have contact with convicted people once they’ve been sentenced, but Ms. Mangini had kept in loose touch with Miguel, emphasizing to me that he was a lovely, gentle man. 

“He didn’t have any support system. I felt so bad that I put a little money of my own into his jail account,” she said. 

With each new morsel of information she fed me, I felt simultaneously better and worse. My heart soared with each realization. He’d been a good worker! He hadn’t meant to kill anyone! Others recognized what a good person he was! 

But then the steely truth would slam me back down. Miguel’s life would be forever changed. He’d lost so much. Could he ever be happy again? 

The worst moment of the conversation was when Ms. Mangini’s words tapped into the guilt that had taken root in me three years earlier.

“It’s too bad we didn’t have you to speak up for him at the time.” 

Though her voice was kind, I felt the words as a bludgeon. My mind grasped at a reason why it wasn’t my fault: wouldn’t his sentence—for his protection—have been the same even if I’d been there? 

In the weeks after the first article in the paper, I sometimes imagined courtroom scenes in which I would vouch for Miguel’s character. But then I berated myself as having a grandiose sense of my own importance. How could it help, hearing the testimony of someone who’d known Miguel when he was ten? Nearly two decades had passed between fourth grade and the accident. Now she was saying that I could have helped after all?

“I was just so scared—you know, because of the gang.” My voice quavered. 

“Oh, I totally get it. I was very frightened when I was first assigned the case. I’m a single parent, and my boy was only five. I’m not blaming you. I get it.” 

So she’d been afraid, too. I blew out a big breath. Would I ever push the guilt away for good? 

We talked about ways I could help him now, three years into his four-year sentence. She encouraged me to keep visiting him, and to write. If I could afford to put money into his prison account, she said, it would help him tremendously to be able to buy simple things like snacks, paper, and toiletries.

“But the best thing you can do now is to convince him to go far away when he gets out. He has to disappear. Try to persuade him.” 

And so I made that my mission. That evening, I followed her directions to the online prison purchasing system, and bought Miguel a massive care package, clicking on item after item as if I were registering for a baby shower at Target. My next task would be to write to him, telling him to go far away and never come back.

First, though, I needed a return address for the envelope. I immediately turned to the Catholic Church. I’d lived an intensely Catholic life until my mid-thirties, even working for the Church for several years. The Church had wronged a lot of people, and here was something it could do right. They owed me this.

On a rainy January evening after a long day at work, I stood on the front step of a local parish and pushed the buzzer. Once inside, I explained the long story to the startled receptionist. 

“So all I need is a return address. I’d leave my phone number here, and my first name. If he ever were to write back, someone could just call me and I’d come get the letter.”

My heart was beating fast as I waited for her answer.

“This is something I’ll have to ask Father Antonio.” 

“Okay. Can I talk to him?” I tried to keep the edge out of my voice; I needed her on my side.

“I’m sorry. Tonight’s his night off.” 

I came to associate the church office with tears, frustration, and rain. Four times I stopped in after work, four times I cried in front of well-meaning strangers who gave me their time, and four times I stepped back out into the stormy darkness. No one told me no, but no one could tell me yes. A priest was away on vacation, a pastor was visiting a grieving family, a receptionist hadn’t relayed a message because she’d been in a car accident, and a sympathetic deacon wasn’t authorized to make a decision. Weeks passed, and I still had no return address behind which to hide.

Finally, I secured permission over the phone to use the church’s address to protect my anonymity, and I wrote to Miguel. Channeling his belief that danger lurked around every corner, I tried to think like a terrified inmate, to be as prison-savvy as a Catholic-school-raised, middle-aged, elementary schoolteacher could be. 

Calling myself only “M,” I reminded Miguel who I was by dropping clues about raccoons, corn cobs, and camping. I told him how good it had been to see him, and that I’d talked with his public defender, who’d told me he was an excellent worker. 

And I told him about a trip my husband and I had once taken to Alaska. 

“There are trees everywhere, and rivers and amazing wildlife. There are ferries to take people all over. They always need good workers to operate the ferries. I bet you could live there happily with your family.” Over and over, I used the words “peaceful” and “beautiful.” 

I mailed the letter. 

Even if Miguel never wrote back, at least he’d hear from me, I told myself. Two weeks after the first letter, I drove to the jail on the visiting night for his section. 

By now, I had the routine down. Sports bra instead of underwire, sweat pants in a canvas bag in case my jeans triggered the metal detector, quarters to stash my purse and the canvas bag in a locker, and an early arrival in case something went wrong.

The woman ahead of me set off the metal detector, and to my astonishment, the guard whipped out a wand and waved it around her body, just like at the airport. I remembered the head guard’s cold response when I asked for a wand, back before I knew enough to wear a sports bra.

The detector beeped when I went through, and I jumped. What was it this time? My bra was cloth. 

“Oh, you’re wearing hair clips? No problem—just go on in.” 

Consistently inconsistent. The last few months had taught me more about prison than TV or movies ever could. 

I thanked him, and headed down the long, cold hallway.

I waited on the plank bench against the cinderblock wall. There were more little kids this time, and I heard a lot of voices speaking Spanish. As toddlers staggered back and forth and babies squealed, I thought about my parents, and of how horrified they’d be if they were still alive to hear me talk about young children visiting jail. 

The intercom voice emanating from the darkened booth made me think of a weary Wizard of Oz. The name of one visitor after another was called until I was the only person left on the bench. The calling out of names hadn’t happened last time either, even though the guard had told me it would. 

Then the scratchy voice summoned me, and I stepped up to the thick green glass. 

“What’s the name of the person you’re here to see?”

I held my paper confirmation up to the dark window.

“He won’t be coming out.” 

“Is he all right?” 

“Oh, yeah, he’s okay. He’s just refusing the visit.” 

I figured that I’d come too soon after his “don’t come too often” admonition. I’d write him another letter. At least he’d know I was thinking of him. 

Potential visitors need to go online and schedule an appointment in advance. So for the next several months, I logged on to the jail’s website almost every week, planning to book a time slot. But each time I’d enter Miguel’s prisoner number and birthdate, the screen would report “all appointments filled.” 

When I’d seen him, Miguel said that he hadn’t had a visit in over two years, so I knew his appointment slots weren’t suddenly all taken. He must have blocked visitors from coming because he was frightened for his safety. Or maybe for mine. Maybe the visit had saddened him, or simply upset the rhythm of the life to which he’d become accustomed. Whatever the reason, Miguel clearly did not want another visit. Not yet, anyway. I would wait a while before trying again.

I stayed away from the website for two more months, until finally one day in July, the screen showed all Miguel’s visiting slots open. I couldn’t believe it. A few clicks later, my time was set for Friday morning.

It was a bright, hot day. After my early arrival, I strolled back and forth in the waiting area, sneaking peeks at the lovely powder blue sari worn by a woman sitting next to a man I presumed to be her husband. They didn’t speak at all.

When the guard headed to the metal detector, I let a heavily pregnant woman in superhero stretch pants go ahead of me in line. Behind me was a four-year-old girl with tangled sandy-colored hair, clasping her mother’s hand as her mom sipped a shake from McDonald’s. 

This guard exuded calm and friendliness. He smiled at each person who approached him, so I decided to try bringing in my book. 

When I reached the metal detector, I held up the paperback. 

“Am I allowed to keep this?” 

He shook his head regretfully. “No. And you have to have sleeves.” At my look of confusion, he pointed to his own shoulders.

I shut my eyes, cursing myself inside. There were so many ways to screw up when selecting visiting attire. I thought I’d read the instructions carefully, but hadn’t noticed the sleeves clause. How had I messed up again?

“If you have a jacket in your car, you can go to the front of the line when you get back.” 

I gave him an appreciative nod, and hurried out to my car and back, returning with my husband’s heavy fleece jacket zipped around me.

No one was left in line. As I stepped up to the detector, the friendly guard asked, “And how are you today?”

“Warm.” I smiled.

“Yeah, you might just want to leave a shirt in your car for when you come here.”

After I made it down the long hallway to the guard in the booth with the thick green glass, I felt a hot flash begin its fiery surge through me. Sitting on the bench, I pulled off the heavy fleece and placed both palms on my forehead. They came away shiny with sweat. Deciding that I’d rather risk a scolding for sleevelessness than pass out from menopausal heat, I kept the coat folded on my lap. Inside the booth, I saw the guard putting on her heavy coat. The air-conditioning inside must be better than the air out here.

When the loud buzzer sounded and the heavy door slid open, those of us for area twelve filed in. I paraded up and back before the eight windows, seven of them with a red-jumpsuited man seated on the other side of the glass. Two of the men looked out on an empty chair before them. I felt sad looking at each face, and guilty when I passed them by. There was no sign of Miguel.

I headed back to peer into the air-conditioned booth. The guard gestured toward me.

After fumbling with papers for a few moments, she looked up. 

“His guard asked him twice if he wanted a visitor, but he said he didn’t.” 

“Oh.” 

Her eyes looked directly into mine. I was struck by how personal the connection felt, despite the glass between us.

 “Do you ever have contact with him?” I asked.

“No, I don’t,” she answered, still meeting my gaze.

“Do you have any idea how he’s doing?”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” she said. “He just didn’t want a visitor.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t want him to visit if he doesn’t…I understand that it’s…complicated.” I wondered if she knew his situation.

She nodded. “How long has he been here?”

“Three—” I felt the familiar wobbling in my throat. “Three and a half years. I used to be his teacher when he was ten.” I brushed my palms across wet cheeks. “That’s all. I just wanted him to know that someone out here is thinking of him.” 

Her face curved into softness. “Have you written to him?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know if he gets them. I’m afraid to put my name and address, so I use initials and an address from a church.” 

Her quick silent nod said to me: I understand. It’s not silly paranoia. That’s a good idea.

I continued. “He hasn’t written back. I don’t know if it makes it worse that I write, or better.”

She didn’t speak in platitudes, instead uttering only the things that could be known.

“Well—at least he knew you were thinking of him today. He knew he had a visitor. He knew someone was thinking about him.”

I nodded as I stood before the booth, crying quietly. Again, I was struck by the warmth of her demeanor.

“Thank you for coming,” she said as I bunched up the fleece coat, preparing to leave. She spoke only those four words, but with her straight posture and purposeful gaze, they sounded more like this: “On behalf of this institution, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to you for coming to us today.”

Back in the lobby, I bought a Diet Coke from the vending machine and placed the icy can against my neck. I had my hand on the exit door, but with a sudden thought, I turned and approached the middle-aged woman working the front counter. 

“If someone goes on line and puts money on an inmate’s books, does the person find out that they have new money?” 

She shook her head. “Not when you do it on line.” 

“Oh, no! Is there a way to let the person know?”

“They always check their balance before they place an order, to see how much they have.” 

“But he wouldn’t be placing an order. I saw him months ago, and he had almost no money. I put a hundred dollars in his account in the fall, and I did it again a little later. So you’re saying he might not even know?”

Her face softened. “What’s his ID number?”

I gave it, and she clicked computer keys. Then she stared at the screen for a long while. 

Finally, she looked back at me. “Uh—you might want to write him and tell him that you put money on his books.” 

I felt sick to my stomach. Suddenly, an idea struck me.

“If I put ten dollars on his books in person today, will he get a note with his balance on it?”

“No—he’ll get a receipt only for the ten dollars.”

“But can someone write on the note that he has a lot more money in his account?”

“No. We can’t give any messages to inmates.” 

So I gave up, too emotional and weary and out of my element to realize that there was an alternative. If I had added another big chunk of money, he’d get the receipt for the addition. And if I’d added more than what he would spend all at once, he would have learned his true balance the next time he tried to buy something. Maybe, then, the money could have brought him some small moments of relief.

But I didn’t think of it that day. Feeling my shoulders sag, I put the cold soda can back on my neck, wiped tears with the other hand, and headed out into the sunshine. 

There was nothing more I could do.

###

When my father was eighty-three, he located his first-grade teacher. His face was shining when he told me. She lived in a retirement home an hour away, and when he called her, he told her he was excited to visit soon. But she died a month after he found her, before Dad could make the trip.

Hearing about her death made me very sad. But I’m not sure if it was more because my dad didn’t get to see his old teacher, or because a very old teacher had missed the chance to connect with the strong, intelligent, principled man her former student had become.

I’ve been teaching for twenty-nine years, instructing seven- to ten-year-olds. Sometimes, former students return from high school to visit me in their old classroom, where I still sit at my desk. Other past pupils have found me on social media, and each time another grown-up picture of a long-ago child smiles out from a computer screen, I feel a happiness I never anticipated when I was a student teacher so many years ago.

Because I was prepared for the hard work of teaching, but I wasn’t prepared for the reality that the young children I teach would grow up. In my head they stayed little, the way they were when they walked out the classroom door on the last day of third or fourth grade. The way I saw Miguel, until I saw him differently.

When I was in teacher-training, my supervising teacher told me that the most valuable advice she could give a new teacher was to accept the idea that nothing would ever be enough. There would never be enough time in a school day or enough days in the year to cover all the necessary material. There would never be enough support, or money, or supplies, or resources. 

Eventually, I also learned that there would never be enough of me either. California delivers mandates and my school district layers on more; my experience has been that to meet them all is impossible. Many students need more academic help than I can give. Others are lonely, and yearn for me to spend time sitting one-on-one with them, just to talk. Or they need me to draw them out, to notice them, to embrace them with all their quirks. The students’ needs are justified. They deserve to get what they need.

And yet—reality always falls short of what my students and I deserve and need. A teacher who can’t learn this can make herself crazy, forever trying to sail over a bar raised higher than she can leap. Most teachers eventually learn that we can never be all we wish we could be for our students. 

But I don’t know that “learning” means fully “accepting” it. Do we ever stop feeling that twinge inside, each time we realize that what we have in us to give is not as much as the need on the receiving end? The pang upon realizing that in some way, we’ll always fall short? 

Each time I tried to visit Miguel, I felt a little embarrassed telling my husband, wondering if he’d think I was getting carried away. He never questioned my motivations, but I questioned myself. Was it normal that I’d been so shaken by the turn in Miguel’s life? Was there a deeper reason for the guilt that had lived in me for so long? 

I remembered an awkward conversation at a party, back when I was forty. A stranger had drilled me with personal questions, and when I revealed that I had no children, her response was, “I guess, as a teacher, you use other people’s children to fill up the hole inside you from not having kids of your own.” 

Was that why it had hit me so hard, what happened with Miguel? I wondered: had I become overly involved because I was an unfulfilled, wanna-be parent?

After the day I walked away from the jail complex with a can of Diet Coke pressed to my neck, I never went back. For whatever reason, Miguel didn’t want a visit. So I visited only the website, periodically entering Miguel’s prisoner number and waiting for his name to pop up.

Until one day, it didn’t. It was late in the fall, four years after his sentence had begun. 

He was out. Miguel was free. 

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Most of my former students remain a mystery to me. They’re floating out there somewhere, off living their lives, lives which will likely remain unknown to me forever. I wonder if it’s better that way. It’s a beautiful thing to learn of the joys my former students have experienced, but it would hurt a lot to know all of the losses and pain that some others of them have faced. I remember many of my students, but I can’t remember them all; there have been over a thousand. I like to pretend that all of the long-ago children I ever taught are doing well, happy in their adult lives. Of course, that can’t be true for all of them. But for most, I’ll never learn otherwise. So I imagine. 

But I saw Miguel. When his distraught face stared up from the newspaper, I saw the young child, and I couldn’t forget that I’d seen him. 

I think I never will. I suspect I’ll always wonder.

I’m away on vacation as I type these words. When I was at the airport, giving my name to an Alaska Airlines agent, the young agent next to her gave a surprised yelp, and ran around to my side of the counter.

“Ms. G!” she cried. “It’s you!” 

The graceful twenty-four-year-old former student of mine held her arms wide, and we exchanged a joyous embrace. 

With faces beaming, we jabbered briefly before I boarded the plane. I couldn’t stop smiling, repeatedly whispering to my husband, “I love it when that happens! I remember her! She’s doing so well!” 

He just smiled, and nodded. He’s seen it before, the unbridled joy I experience when encountering grown-up versions of the children I used to know. Other teachers know that delight. For a year or more, you pour so much of yourself into the life of a young person, and the child reaches toward you with such vulnerability, with so much trust. When you encounter each other years later, you feel happy, knowing you share something sweet.

The grown-up student is changed, proud. Looking ahead, at everything that awaits. 

You? You share the excitement of his promise, of her future already in motion. But you also look back. To their youth. To your own. 

You shared something sweet.

I’ve decided that the guilt I felt at delaying my visit to Miguel for so long was not a mask for another emotion, or referred pain about never having had children. 

I think it’s as simple as the fact that I was Miguel’s teacher, and he was my student. He was in my class way back in my early years of teaching, when my whole career was in front of me, when I used to flip through albums of photos I’d taken of those young people who had such a huge impact on my days, on my life. Way back in the early years, I couldn’t imagine that there would ever come a time when I wouldn’t be able to remember each individual child. I loved being their teacher. To me, those long-ago kids were possibility. They gave me purpose, excitement, growth, and hope. My career felt boundless then.

And then I saw Miguel’s face, and two worlds collided—the promise of his youth, and the agony of his adulthood. Youth, and its loss. The collision shook me, and I had to tell him that I believed in his adult self, because I had known and loved the child he was when he was ten. 

It’s really quite simple. 

Teachers are programmed to do whatever we can for our students, to be their all. Of course we feel badly when we can’t, or when we simply don’t. I’ve had soaring successes with many students, but I’ve failed many students, too, in ways big and small. Sometimes, my failures came in the classroom, when they were eight, when they were ten. Other times, I’ve failed to follow through on promises I made long after they closed the classroom door and moved on to higher grades. 

But succeed or fail, we’re always “teacher.” That doesn’t stop, just because the young people grow up.  

Now that he’s free, I resist searching for Miguel on line. If I can find him, then others could, too. I don’t want to shatter my hope that he can remain invisible and happy, so I force myself not to look. If he were to face another tragedy, I think I’d rather not know. 

I like to imagine that after his release, Miguel moved to Alaska to begin anew. Maybe he works on the ferry system now, where the wild winds of the north blow cold and clean. Maybe his daughter is there with him. It’s all doubtful, I know. But since I’ll never learn otherwise, it’s how I like to picture him. Surrounded by beauty. Peacefully living his life.

As I live mine. His teacher, still.