He stood before the administration building’s front door. Dark green, sturdy wood. He leaned against it and bowed his head. If he was a praying man, perhaps he would have prayed. Then he entered.

It looked like an old hospital administration area. There were cracks in the weatherboards lining the walls, in the linoleum floor. The fan above him dusty with disuse. There was a middle-aged woman behind the desk, which looked like a fold-out table, messy with paper. She looked at him and smiled. ‘Yes?’

He shuffled forward, noting the smell of dust. ‘I’m here to see a prisoner.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘you know visiting hours don’t start for another hour?’

‘Oh. No, I didn’t know.’

She smiled. Maybe mid-thirties. ‘I’ll speak to the governor.’

She went out through a rear door and he sat on a blue plastic chair and put his hands on his knees. Should’ve worn something warmer.

She soon returned and held the door open for him. ‘Governor said it’d be alright, seeing as you’re the only visitor today that we know of. But he said not to get used to it and to come in visiting hours next time.’ Still the smile. ‘Come on in.’

‘You don’t know who I want to see.’

‘Sure I do. You’re Mr. Moore, right?’

He nodded.

‘I’m Garry Wamboldt’s sister. Eve.’

He smiled, walked toward her. ‘Eve Wamboldt?’

‘You taught Garry woodwork.’

‘That was a while ago.’

‘Twenty years ago. It was a while,’ she smiled.

‘Whatever happened to Garry?’

‘He’s a coroner, over in Trenton.’

As they walked down a corridor she said, ‘Your son Caleb is in the infirmary. He got a bit banged up yesterday and needed some stitches. And his wrist got broken.’

‘What happened?’

She kept walking, and he kept to her side. They passed a few doorways he refused to gawk through. ‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘You sound like you know.’

She breathed in. ‘I want to help, but I can’t.’

‘But you do know?’

She said not a word.

‘Is he alright?’

‘He’s through here.’ She nodded towards a door but seemed loathe to touch it. ‘Go on. I’ll be waiting out in the reception. Take as long as you like.’

He put his hand on the door. He pushed it open and walked inside.

His son beneath a blanket on a bed, seated upright. He looked skin-nier. His torso was exposed. As Vernon entered, Caleb turned to face his visitor. Upon seeing his father his face crumpled, like it had as a boy and he’d done something wrong. There was a question in his eyes. He leaned forwards and seemed to struggle a bit with a tube connected to his arm. He was all flurried, like a caught rat.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ he kept saying.

Vernon went to him and his son gripped him and held onto his arms, his body. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said repeatedly, a slobbery mess against Vernon’s chest. He just held him as the boy shook.