Home is the place where her loved ones live—a place where she feels comfortable and welcome. Home means security and satisfaction. Home is where she’s been and where she belongs, a condition of her circumstance. It is her history and often her story where memories are kept. Here, she is cared for and respected and accepted for who she is. But home is not necessarily a place, a building, or a house. Most people easily know where home is, whether it is the town in which they are raised or the ring of people who love them the most. But a woman who is incarcerated must decide where she will go after being released—the place she will call home after a life-changing ordeal.
The decision of home begins long before she prepares to walk beyond the gates. She doesn’t care if it’s a house, a mobile home, a tent, a teepee, a mansion, a yurt, or a houseboat. Home is where a heart is beating for her when she walks through the door. Home is where a smile greets her after a day at work. Home is where things are shared without guilt or malice. Home is where she is accepted for who she was and who she is now. This decision of where to go after incarceration changes as the years tick on. What happens during the time of incarceration affects her decision. It’s not usually as easy as returning to her parents’ home or even her own place. While incarcerated, some women are “forgotten” by their families. No letters are mailed; no phone calls are answered. Shame and embarrassment fill the hollows of her father who struggles to keep a connection with his daughter or sister or wife. Parents feel a sense of relief to lose her to the system. They believe they need not worry about her dying in the streets or bringing more humiliation to the family. Friends may all but consider her dead. Ignoring the crime and denying any wrongdoing in the process is a handy strategy.
Supportive or not, family must continue to live. It is a life they didn’t anticipate—one in which she is not in the family portrait. Those gathered may not have forgotten her, but the photo on the wall holds no sign of her. Babies are born who she has never held. Holiday traditions arrive right on time, and she is not present. Her own children have birthday parties and gifts are opened. Siblings graduate and marry, but she is not there for the toast. Grandparents lie on death beds, parents are sick, and accidents happen. Friends move to new cities and are diagnosed with diseases. Meanwhile, she is waiting. Waiting to go “home.”
Bridges have burned down, and relationships are a shadow of what once used to be. Compassion may not grow in the hearts of those she knew before. Brothers and sisters are holding a grudge like a shield of protection. Mothers grow heaps of guilt and responsibility. Children, young and old, have learned to tune her out when she asks for forgiveness. Reconciliation is a risk because the cycle is real. Accepting her back into the family, just in time for her to commit another crime, would rip open the old wound. Her real friends are gone too—the ones who said they’d never leave her and even drew blood to prove it. They’ve moved away or pretend they don’t know her when they see her at the grocery or church. They say they haven’t given her a thought since the newspaper article and the news report showed her tear-streaked face. But that’s not the truth. Those friends think of her on a cold night and wonder if she has a blanket in her cell. They remember her birthday but don’t send a card. “Once a problem, always a problem,” the community said.
Returning to the neighborhoods of home is no longer safe for her. The names are still the same, and old habits appear in the lanes where she used to run. She’s familiar with the corners and alleys where drugs are pedaled. Bad news acquaintances still sit in the same park and have the same phone numbers. Home may not be the best place for her. But going to a new city where she knows no one and has no connections for a job or a place to spend the night is often too frightening. If she is brave, she will stare strangers in the face for kindness and create a life in a new territory, even though she may long for the familiar.
Exceptions do occur. A few women return into the arms of their husbands and children. The family celebrates her home to the safety and comfort of what she left behind. She may return to her childhood room filled with stuffed animals and memorabilia encased in a safety net of family. But even in the place of trust and love, emotions from old injuries can gush open, leaving rough places to patch and smooth. But more often, her husband is gone and her children are not in the same place in which she left them. She is not the woman she was. She is not the person others remember. She’s not even sure how to be her new self with people she hasn’t seen or talked to as her new skin has developed.
Returning home is never as easy as it reads in pages of resources given to her before going home. She intends to be herself, but her self is different. She may not fit in the same places anymore. Without a true home, it’s easy to commit another crime and return to prison. No job is guaranteed, and she sleeps in a shelter. Her stomach reminds her of why she needs to work, and she befriends people whose intentions are corrupt. Apartment complexes will not accept her—a felon. Less than virtuous leads on jobs and avenues of hope can lead to lies and hard places with rocks on every side.
Her family is watching to see if she can make it. She feels the bitterness and anger they are carrying like concealed weapons held against her. She is praying for a hand up, not a hand out. Her only hope is a stranger or two who will treat her like family and offer an opportunity. An employer who will give her a chance to work hard and steady. A landlord who will take a weekly payment for a key. A neighbor who might give her a ride in a snowstorm. A co-worker who knows of a mattress being given away. She needs humankind to create a new home.
REVEALING PANES 