“Nope. That’s your mom’s choice. I’m here to help make it an informed one,” Michael says, and claps his hands together, like he’s the coach and we’re Little Leaguers and the time for messing around is over. I can’t get a good look at his tattoo. It seems serpentine. “The prospect of prison can be really scary, especially to people like you and to people like who I used to be—”

“You mean rich,” Isla fills in.

“Don’t be crass,” my dad says, but Michael looks at Isla and laughs.

“Being wealthy is part of it, sure. Though I meant people who are used to having complete control over their lives. Prison is by definition a loss of control.”

“Can we stop using that word?” my mom asks, her voice small and tight. Fluffernutter, sensing the tension, jumps into her lap to soothe her, and my mom runs her fingers through his fur.

“What word?” Michael asks.

“Prison,” my dad says.

“Yes,” my mom says. “That one.”

“Sorry, no. I can’t do that,” Michael says. “From everything I’ve read, you’re going to have to get used to both that word and the idea. And with all due respect, Ms. Fields, the sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be. So how about we start immediately,” he says, clicking on his PowerPoint presentation, and I realize this may be the very first time I’ve ever heard someone talk to my mother this way, striking right through her artifice to the truth. Tough love, Mrs. Oh would call it. I may have snowplow parents, but they too live their own kind of snowplowed existence.

The opening slide reads On the inside: the ups and downs of prison life.

Next, a picture of Michael looking about fifteen years younger—thirtysomething, thinning hair, long-limbed but with a paunch, wearing a flashy suit and sitting on the edge of a wide wooden desk. A finance cliché. Exactly who I imagine both Axl and Simon will grow up to be.

Click. Michael again, this time in his orange prison garb, thicker, stronger, his paunch ironed out into muscle. He has a shaved head, a whisper of a scar at his temple, and he looks straight into the camera. He’s smiling in this one. With teeth. I can see his full tattoo: a snake up his arm, curling around the neck of a lamb at the elbow.

A little too obvious.

The pictures present two versions of the same man. I disturb myself by finding the second significantly more attractive.

“One bonus of prison. Lots of time to exercise,” he says with a wry grin.