As she stared through the scuffed up glass, she witnessed a blurry outline of a man in white who she had looked up to her whole life. They sat down simultaneously and they stared at each other bawling, their hands came upon the glass meeting together one by one like hopscotch but could not touch. She felt her heart ache as she watched her dad imprisoned. She grabbed the cold metal phone attached to the grim wall and got hair-raising chills down her arm as she held it to her ear, and listened to what he had to say.

As she looked at him, more tears dripped and stained her t-shirt.

10 minutes passed.

They talked, choking on their words the entire time. As they continued speaking, they started to talk like it was a normal day, a normal conversation. Ignoring the glass between them that separated two people from being happy.

Seven minutes passed.

A smile appeared on her dad’s face. She knew he would be okay. As her ears listened to her father, her mind became full thoughts that made it hard to swallow. How could she be sitting in a cold, no contact visitation room on a Sunday evening? She examined her dad and the backdrop behind him because it didn’t feel real. She noticed his wrist bare of watches and bracelets, his hair cut off like he went to a bad salon, and his face stained with regret and sorrow.

The visitation room was a half-circle of six chairs and six windows but there was a sad silence filling the room; another couple was in the room. They weren’t crying though. The girl’s smile reached from ear to ear; she was happy.

She didn’t realize the time. 25 minutes.

All their time was gone until who knows when. The hard, unbearable moment was here, it was time to say her hardest goodbye. As she dragged her feet to the steel door, she looked back, smiled and mouthed, “I love you.”