My husband rushed toward me, slapped me in front of everyone, and screamed, “Get out of my house! You have nothing here!” My mother-in-law smirked and called me a useless woman who should be grateful for their kindness.

Six months into Garrick’s sentence, the season shifted to early spring. Rain washed the dust from the pavement outside the State Correctional Facility.

Inside the visitation room, the air smelled of floor wax and stale coffee.

Garrick sat on a bolted metal stool across from a thick Plexiglas divider. His hair was cropped short, his tailored suits replaced by a coarse navy jumpsuit with his state prisoner number stamped across the chest. His hands were calloused from working in the facility’s maintenance workshop—the only job assigned to inmates with no specialized trade skills.

A buzz sounded, and the heavy door opened.

Miriam walked in.

She looked ten years older than her fifty-eight years. Working forty hours a week at the dry-cleaning shop had stooped her shoulders. Her skin was dry, her hair streaked with un-dyed gray roots. She sat down heavily on the metal chair opposite him and picked up the black telephone handset.

Garrick slowly picked up his receiver.

"You look terrible, Garrick," Miriam said, her voice shaking through the small speaker.

"What do you want, Mom?" Garrick asked flatly. His voice was hollow, stripped of the vibrant, aggressive confidence that used to fill every room he entered.

"I brought you some books," Miriam stammered, pulling a small plastic bag from her purse. "And some commissary money. I saved $150 from my overtime hours this month."

Garrick looked at the plastic bag, then at her red, worn hands.

"Keep the money," Garrick said softly. "You need it for your rent."

Miriam’s eyes welled with bitter tears. "Garrick... we have to appeal. We have to do something! I saw Marcus driving a new car last week. He's working for her now! She took your company, she took your reputation, and now she’s using your old office!"

Garrick let out a quiet, mirthless laugh that ended in a cough. "My company? Mom, did you read any of the court papers? There was no company. I was a glorified middle manager spending a rich woman's allowance and calling myself a tycoon."

"Don't say that!" Miriam cried out, slamming her hand against the plastic divider. "You were brilliant! You had vision! If she had just given you time—"

"If she had given me time, I would have put us ten million dollars deeper in debt!" Garrick snapped, his eyes flashing with a sudden, momentary spike of his old rage before extinguishing just as quickly into apathy. "She paid for everything, Mom. Every meal you ate, every bag you carried, every time you looked down your nose at her and called her cheap... it was her money buying your arrogance."

Miriam choked back a sob, pulling her hand away. "Why are you taking her side?!"

"I'm not taking her side," Garrick murmured, looking down at his rough, calloused knuckles. "I hate her. I hate her for making me feel like a bug under her shoe. But the worst part... the absolute worst part, Mom... is that she was right. I am nothing without her money. I never was."

The guard called out from the corner. "Five minutes remaining."

Miriam pressed her palm against the glass. "Garrick... what are we going to do when you get out? Where are we going to go?"

Garrick looked up at his mother. For three years, he had ruined his marriage, alienated his real friends, and committed financial crimes all to keep this woman smiling, to keep her believing that the Vance name meant something. And now, staring at her across the prison partition, he realized how small her world had always been.

"When I get out," Garrick said quietly, "I'm leaving the state. I'm getting a job on a residential framing crew in Ohio."

Miriam gasped. "Framing? Construction labor?! You're an executive!"

"I'm a convicted felon, Mom," Garrick corrected her coldly. "I hammer nails now."