Prison Nation Read Online Free

“My bi-weekly meeting with Dr. Eriks, Mom.” I splashed some water on my face, running my wet fingers back through my short hair.
    A sheet of metal hung over the sink. It barely reflected anything, showing just enough to let you see a dented, dim reflection of your face. I had heard that they once had real mirrors in the cells. That was, until too many inmates smashed in the shiny glass to use as weapons. Against others. Or against themselves. After too many ‘incidences,’ the mirrors had been taken out. They were permanently replaced with the barely reflective sheets of metal that hung firmly mounted and screwed to the gray wall. I barely knew what I looked like.
    Squinting my eyes, I tried to see the face that stared back at me. In the dim evening light of the cell I could barely make out my short, pale brown hair. It hung close to my chin. I ran my fingers through it again, hating the fact of how quickly they came to the cropped ends. Pursing my lips, I could feel the tight lines spray out across my face. I ran a finger along them, feeling their dips and rises crinkle along my lips. They were nothing compared to Dr. Eriks’.
    “ You are beautiful, Millie.”
    Startled out of my mindless staring contest with myself, I turned back to my mother. She still sat on the bed, legs crossed, hands resting on knees. A smile spread on her face as she watched me. Unlike Dr. Eriks’ smile, my mother’s smile always warmed me. Every time she smiled it was as if she had some secret brimming on her lips, wanting to explode out and be shared with the world.
    “ My pretty, pretty baby.”
    “ Mom, I am turning eighteen in a week. I am far from a baby now.”
    “ Oh Millie-Millie, you are my pretty baby.” My mother held out her arms, her fingers wiggling as she begged for me to come closer. I could hear her muttering ‘pretty baby’ over and over softly to herself.
    The warm feeling that had just a moment ago flowed over me at the sight of her smile went suddenly cold.
    She was lapsing again. My mother’s psychiatrist had declared her as ‘unstable.’ She would be completely lucid one moment, then would suddenly disappear into some distant world of her own the next. I had been told that if we lived out in the Nation, I would have been taken from her long ago, but because we were in Spokane I was ‘allowed’ to stay in her ‘care.’
    Most times the lapses seemed to consist of me being a baby again. I used to love these moments, relishing in the deep hugs she would wrap around me. I could never seem to get enough. Until one day I realized the truth. That when these moments happened, she didn’t seem to know it was me. She would call me by my name and talk to me, but her eyes were always glazed over by some hidden ghost. I didn’t exist. Since then, I never let her hug me when she was ‘gone.’
    I watched her a moment. Her smile was contagious on her face. It must have been beautiful once. Under the wrinkles of prison-ran life and the dirt smudges that never seemed to wash off, she held a beauty that refused to disappear.
    The strange glaze that now covered her eyes tried hard to chase the beauty away. It brought to light the stray hairs that stood on end, the greasy blonde twists that hung in clumps on her shoulders. I saw the shadows under her eyes. The deep gulps she took as she gasped in frenzied breaths and wiggled her fingers, begging to hold her baby.
    Without a word, I darted out of the cell.
    Choking back a sob, I leaned against the thin slice of wall that separated our door from our neighbor’s. I let the weight of my body pull me down until I slid onto the floor. My hands shook as I ran them through my hair, still damp with the water I had just splashed onto my face. After eighteen years of living in the same cell with the same woman, I should have been used to those moments. But I hated them. I hated how I had to be the adult in this crazy, locked up world.
    Lifting my chin I looked around. My father. He