Page 128 of What Boys Learn

The guard looked me up. No sign that I came here seventeen years ago.

“This is urgent,” I said, leaning over to try to make direct eye contact.

“Everyone says the same thing. Your family member should have mailed you the form. Then we have to wait for processing.”

Oh, Jesus.

Robert asked, “Can’t she do one of those phone or video calls?”

Same answer. Visitor’s list.

Down at hip level, Robert flashed an ID card that I couldn’t read from a distance.

“I’m on the approved list. And I’m really hoping I can set up a video call.”

“Preapproved for this particular individual? Oh yes, there you are.”

The guard typed some data into his computer, then handed Robert a slick pamphlet with instructions.

“Good luck, and don’t even try it from your car. No loitering.”

We’d turned around, heading away from the prison, when I started thwapping Robert’s arm. “You’re on the fuckinglist?”

He ignored me, head ducking lower as he squinted, trying to locate the Best Western we’d seen on our way here.

“You shithead!”

“Hey,” he said without any loss of composure. “I didn’t realize they wouldn’t let you in. I thought they made me jump through the hoops because I wasn’t family.”

“Jump through the hoopswhen?”

After we pulled into the motel lot, he closed the car door with a calm click, leaving me to watch him saunter into reception to pay for a room we’d only be using for an hour or two. I felt angry just imagining the front desk clerk assuming we were here for sex.

When Robert came back, he opened the door and said in a low voice, “I visited him once, about six months ago. Right after you and I broke up. I thought he might have . . . I don’t know. Insights.”

“About?”

“How to get you back.”

“Curtis seems to be visiting him and talking about me. Benjamin wrote to him.Youvisited him. What is wrong with you people?”

I stomped up the metal steps to our second-floor room. Inside, I yanked the mustard-colored curtains shut. “That’s probably why Ewan started sending even more letters this year.”

Robert dug a finger into his eye, wiping away sleepy crust. “He asked me a lot of questions about Benjamin. He knew stuff about him, like he was getting information from some other source. It seemed odd at the time.”

“And you didn’ttell me?”

“You would have been pissed I’d visited him in the first place. Right?”

“Right. But then I might have figured out that Curtis was visiting him. Fuck!” I shouted and disappeared into the bathroom, slamming the thin door.

I took a shower because I was one big heat rash from top to bottom. Robert was in the next room, setting up the account for the online visit. When I was finished, I still needed several more minutes, sitting on the toilet, wrapped in a towel, trying to cool down.

When I came out, I heard a stilted recorded voice, full of sunshine and bullshit. It was an instructional video explaining all the rules and regulations for the video call to come, provided by a private company. At the top of the screen, the Stars and Stripes flapped. This wasn’t Zoom. A reminder flowed across the screen, ticker-style, letting us know the call was being recorded and monitored live. Violations of the agreement would lead to a visitor ban for that individual and additional restrictions for the inmate. A final robotic voice reminder:This call is being monitored and recorded.

And there, finally, was Ewan’s face, filling the screen. The similarities were enough to take my breath away. Eyes—same as Benjamin’s. Large and dark brown. Light eyelashes, but long. The same arc of eyebrow. No wonder I preferred Benjamin in glasses. Without them, he and my brother were nearly identical, give or take years and pounds.

Unlike those movie prisoners who spend all their time getting buff, Ewan had gone the opposite route. Wide belly and rail-thin arms. Puffy cheeks. Pale skin. Acne. A thick, soft neck, with a white scar running like a necklace above his collarbone.