Danny wasn’t convinced, and told Tony that he was going to play along with the system because it benefited him, and earned him certain privileges that made life a little more tolerable. He resented having to take the classes on anger, and thought the psychologist he had to see was a sucker. So he enjoyed pretending that he had seen the error of his ways and was going to change. He tucked a Bible under his arm when he went to his sessions, and started to quote scripture. Every once in a while something he read would strike him as a real truth, but then his inner voice would tell him he was being played for a fool, and he’d quickly reverse himself. No, all he wanted was to get out and stay out. In that respect, he learned something: crime really didn’t pay and he needed to pick up some skills. One of the things his voice told him was that he shouldn’t listen to Tony: if he hadn’t done his bidding in the first place, he wouldn’t be sitting in prison.

He discovered that he was naturally good at auto repair, and so he learned as much as he could about that subject. He even took a class that was offered, and decided it was something he could do when he got out—if only that day would come.

Steve and Debby Turner visited as often as possible. Debby always told herself that she was not going to cry, but then she would spend a good deal of the visit tearing up, blurting out things like “What did I do to cause this?,” “If only we had gone to church more often as a family, but your father had no interest,” “Anthony and Daniel were such good boys when they were young,” and, her favorite, “It’s really a shame you boys got mixed up with that bad apple, James Bagneski.”

Most of the time, Steve would just sit quietly, unable to say what he thought because he really didn’t know what to think. He preferred to stick to his memories of his two sons playing ball in the front yard until it was so dark they couldn’t see a thing. He remembered leaning over Tony’s shoulder as they sat at the kitchen table and diagrammed the plays they invented. It was satisfying to watch their excitement, but it was the love Tony and Danny had for each other that truly gave him confidence in a secure future. Getting them to do their homework was another matter, but Steve didn’t care too much, because some part of him bought into the fantasy that his kids would one day play pro sports, or at worst get athletic scholarships to college.