Wavelengths meets in Tampa, on Monday nights. My mother and I don’t talk much on the way there, the radio tuned to classic rock, my mother singing softly to Led Zeppelin under her breath to mask our silence. As we cross the Howard Frankland Bridge, the long concrete connection between St. Pete and Tampa, the sinking sun casts its colors on the canvas of the sky—pinks and reds and purples that last for a few minutes before they disappear until the next day. You can get used to sunsets in Florida, where the land is flat and the sky is wide. You can get spoiled being able to watch the sun’s movements from anywhere.
It’s dark when we arrive, and we get out of the car, my mother pausing to stretch for a moment. She stands, hands on hips. She tilts her head back, her face pointed toward the sky, while I reach inside the front pocket of my jeans for the red Jolly Rancher I’ve been hoarding all day. It looks like a small jewel in my palm, and will taste like wild strawberries, glossy and wet on my tongue.
The parking lot is not well lit; the dark reds of taillights and bright whites of headlights illuminate our way toward the entrance. The group meets in an empty office space in a strip mall near downtown Tampa. The space is nondescript inside, the only furniture two desks and a circle of institutional seating, those simple, neutral-colored chairs you usually find in waiting areas, those places people often find themselves in against their will.
Greg, the social worker and group leader, greets us. I learned his name from eavesdropping on my mother’s phone call to enroll me in the group. Tall and thin, Greg leans over a bit while saying hello, an attempt to look me in the eye. “Hi, Evelyn. It’s very nice to meet you, Evelyn,” he says. I can already tell he’s the type of person who will overuse your name in conversation, an obvious ploy to build rapport.
I take a seat in the circle while my mother chats with Greg for a moment, and then waves good-bye. She’ll wander nearby WestShore Plaza for the next two hours, exploring the wide walkways of retail, perhaps reminiscing about her own adolescence, all that time she spent hanging out at shopping malls with her friends, her generation that wore ripped jeans and flannel shirts and called themselves mall rats.
There are twelve of us at the support group, all teenagers—five boys and seven girls, including me. I don’t like sitting in a circle like this, feeling more comfortable in classrooms where I can lower my energy and sit in the back row. I can blend into the wall if I try hard enough, become something other than a murderer’s daughter, something bright and full of air, something that feels lighter than my actual body.
I feel exposed here, like everyone is watching me, sizing me up from the bare toes sticking out of my sandals to the top of my head. This fiery feeling, which erupts in my stomach when I get nervous, spreads toward my mouth, giving me the sensation of hot, hot coals inside my throat. If I were to speak right now, only smoke and ash would come out.
“We have a few new faces tonight so let’s begin by reviewing the ground rules,” Greg says. He smiles, a flash of teeth appearing briefly between his lips. His voice is even and smooth, the kind of voice that can put me in a trance if I’m not careful. Once, in elementary school, we had a firefighter visit our class and talk to us about fire safety. His voice was pure buttery gold. I couldn’t tell you the first thing about evacuation plans or fire extinguishers, but I remember the feeling of a thousand tingles on my neck and back and arms as he spoke. His voice was warm and inviting, a lullaby I could feel with my entire body, hushing me into a dream, a state of almost-sleep.
Greg takes a manila folder from his canvas messenger bag, one of those soft-sided cases with a shoulder strap. It’s tan and worn and faded with use, or it might be secondhand. Any thrift store worth its salt has a healthy bag and purse section, those items people spend far too much money on, according to my mother. She’d never spend more than five dollars on a bag.
Greg pulls a small parcel of white paper from the folder, and hands it to the kid next to him, who takes one and passes the rest on to the next kid, and so on. The papers float along a conveyor belt of hands until they reach me. The handout looks like it was typed on a typewriter and photocopied badly. There are stray black streaks and smudges around the corners. Greg reads the ground rules out loud, and my eyes follow the words on my paper.
WAVELENGTHS GROUND RULES
“And remember, we really must strive to abide by these rules,” Greg says. “They are the foundation on which we build a supportive environment. And within that environment, we can do the work. Together.” Greg glances around the circle, nodding a little too vigorously. Some of the teens nod and smile along with Greg while others appear to look right through him. “You may choose to participate at any level you wish. You may ask questions, answer questions that are posed, or simply listen and observe. Sound good?” he asks the group but he’s looking at me. I whisper the word yes, my throat still too hot to make audible sound.
“Excellent!” Greg says cheerfully, his voice taking on a higher note now, a few shades brighter than the voice that read through the ground rules. “Let’s get started. Our topic tonight is acceptance. I’ll begin by discussing a few things that will help us understand the topic, and then we can have an open share.”
Greg is the sun, and we are fixed bodies around him. Like tiny planets without orbit, we are forced to remain in place while the sun sets off solar flares, sudden flashes of brightness ejecting clouds of electrons toward us. Greg wants to bathe us in sunbeams, a red-hot glare that dazzles and burns. He seems to know about the shadows within—the gloom and murk and muck that lives inside of every person—whether your parent is incarcerated or not—and his mission is to extinguish all of our shadows with the light of support and acceptance.
My mother has checked books out of the library on incarceration over the years. Some have been clinical and evidence-based, written by doctors and other experts in the field. Some have been more self-help or “new age” as the section usually reads in the bookstore. There’s an entire business built around helping the friends and families of prisoners—helping us with our grief, our guilt, our anger. People see us as the ones left behind, the widows and widowers, the motherless daughters, the fatherless sons.
I understand the idea of getting help, of asking for support. I understand that it might help some people to realize that they aren’t alone in all of this. But I’ve never understood why I have to accept it. Acceptance is heavy, an anchor that sinks to the bottom of the sea. When you accept something, it becomes real, permanent, and unmovable, a boulder you push and push up a mountain until you reach the top and you stay there, staring at the giant rock that will never get any smaller no matter how many times you try to chip away at it. Acceptance is Virginia Woolf walking into the river, her pockets weighed down with rocks. She walked into acceptance, one step at a time, acceptance up to her knees, her waist, her chest, and over her head, until she was submerged in it—acceptance finally filling up her lungs, stealing her breath.
I won’t accept that chemicals will flow into my father’s veins, a current of drugs that will feel like an anvil placed on his chest, heavy and unyielding, to make sure he stays submerged, to make sure he never comes up for air.
Greg is a confident leader, although at the beginning of the open share period he looks a bit nervous, beads of sweat appearing at his hairline like a message in Braille. The group members also seem to be experiencing various levels of uncertainty. Some are exhibiting the classic signs of avoidance, shrinking and sinking and hoping not to be seen, lowering their energies so they won’t be called upon against their will. Others look restless and fidgety, twirling strands of hair around their fingers or bouncing their knees up and down rhythmically, a sign that they can’t bear to be still. A boy who looks about my age raises his hand. His ears are stretched by wooden discs the size of nickels. Greg smiles and calls on him. “David, great. Thanks for sharing,” Greg says.
“You’re welcome,” David begins. He sits up a little straighter in his chair, which causes a ripple effect throughout the circle, most of us correcting our posture too, like a choreographed dance, the mass movement of a hive mind. “So, when I think about acceptance, I think about all the stuff my mother has told me over the last two years, how she still loves me and how my father still loves me. She accepts the fact that I’ll always love my dad, even though he hurt us.” David pauses, his eyes shining through glassy tears that never spill out. They just remain, suspended like a liquid shield. “Sorry,” David says, sniffling.
Greg tilts his head to one side, his face more serious than before. “It’s okay. Take your time, David.”
“And I also think about how my mother accepts me as a man separate from my father,” David continues. “I mean, I’m sure she hates that I look almost exactly like him.” David laughs gently, and the circle laughs, a small puff of air that lightens us. “I guess that’s all. He’s still my father, and I still love him, in spite of everything. And my mom understands.”
Greg doesn’t miss a beat. “Amazing, David. Thank you so much for your words. That’s exactly why we’re here, to share our experiences and to know that our words can help others. Sometimes it will help in big, monumental ways.” Greg stretches his arms out as far as he can, attempting to measure the biggest breakthrough. “Sometimes it will help in smaller ways.” He collapses the space between his hands so that his palms are almost touching. He squints one eye like he’s looking through a microscope to see the tiniest of breakthroughs, epiphanies in miniature.
David looks younger to me now, his features softened, his hands small and folded on his lap. My vision blurs out of focus for a moment, and when I can see clearly again, there’s someone standing right behind David. Is it his father?
They do look alike—they have the same bushy eyebrows, the same ears that stick out slightly, the same slanted nose. David’s father puts his hands on David’s shoulders, and then slides them around his throat. He starts to squeeze, crushing David’s windpipe. David tries to pry his father’s hands away, but his father is too strong. David opens his mouth but makes no sound. His face turns red; his eyes become bloodshot. His father’s body tenses as he squeezes tighter and tighter, as he stops David’s breath.
Do you still love me now, David? Do you still love me now?
I had more control over these visions when I was younger, could freeze the frame before it went too far. Now it’s harder to make them stop. Closing my eyes doesn’t help, for what I conjure in the darkness is worse than the visions that materialize before me, those ghosts only I can see. So I just have to watch. Then remind myself that it’s not real.
I look down at my copy of the ground rules. We have the right to ask questions and the right to refuse to answer. We try to accept people just as they are. Our goal is not to change people. I fold the paper in half, then in fourths, then eighths, sixteenths, thirty-seconds, sixty-fourths. With each fold the paper becomes thicker, less defined, until it can no longer be folded anymore. When I finally open it up, it looks like failed origami—all those lines and creases come undone.
I look up again, and David’s father is gone. There are no handprints around David’s neck. His eyes are clear and blue. David wipes a tear from his cheek as Greg calls on the next person to share.