End of Sentence

~Andrew~

Fresh Start's small bedroom is a slice of pure blue heaven. The clean white curtain blows freely over a wide window — the room's walls are powder blue, its forgiven solitude, its white painted door that won't slam shut. Can I handle this blessed silence, lost friend of so long ago? The crucifix above my bed stares down on me. It's time to abandon all old bitterness.

I shower and dress in clean second-hand Salvation Army clothes that fellow inmate Ennis had tossed my way. "You'll need better duds if you go looking for work." He laughed. That sure was Ennis, a laugh that never exactly rang true. This inmate knew the miles of walking that lay ahead. "Andy, these leather boots are your size." I'll be sure to keep them going in his name.

Downstairs, a pot of coffee simmers on the front burner. My hand shakes as I pour a fresh cup, everything coming at lightning speed. Look at this kitchen, these appliances, this tiled floor! I butter the burnt toast, spill the soft yellow gel on the floor. What am I feeding on? Can this be freedom I'm eating?

I take a seat near a window. One starved cat runs across the lawn from an incessantly barking dog. You're here, Andrew, for a maximum of ninety days while you look for employment. If that doesn't work, you're on your own. The manager's meaning suggests I'll be pounding Orlando's streets in true Bumstead. Well, okay, but first I'm gonna treat myself to my dream ever since lockup. I'm heading out — there's an ocean waiting!

I hitch a ride. A baldheaded black man sits behind the wheel. He needs a listener. I put up with the droning, capable after all I took away from those blabbing inmates, just another weird encounter. Okay, but now I can begin to handle the unexpected. Finally, his mouth shuts as he lets me off. I put my feet to work the rest of the way.

Florida's ocean waves me a true homecoming. Blue horizon stretches above roaring surf. I can hardly breathe — winds, waves, seagulls — capture me totally. I'm home! One bird flies right over my head. I raise my hand to salute. "Hello, flying cousin." Everything I'd ever believed in resides right here, owned by no one. Nature has been waiting for me. I drop to my knees. The ocean's pounding rhythms escort me back to story time with my two kids at the beach. "Daddy! Daddy, read this one!" And so, I read their favorite, Winnie-the-Pooh.

Christopher Robin came down from the forest to the bridge, feeling all sunny and careless, and just as if twice nineteen didn't matter a bit, as it didn't on such a happy afternoon, and he thought that if he stood on the bottom rail of the bridge, and leant over, and watched the river slipping slowly away beneath him, then he would suddenly know everything that there was to be known.

I remain all day, walking the shoreline, picking up shells, dusting them off, throwing them back, wishing my hands held a camera for this perfect sunset. One fisherman on the surf's edge snaps his reel, a familiar Florida sight. Thoughts of that island deliver creepy sadness to my memory. I grab a pebble, rub it, forget what needs to be forgotten, drop it in my pocket.

I curl up behind a grassy dune for the night, with mere geography of blinking stars and the fullest orange moon, glowing dusk. I'm pulled into their light, torching my faith, reminded of an old Jesuit teaching at Georgetown, St. Julian of Norwich: All is well and all will be well.

* * *

In the morning, waves send salty smells that awaken me. Dancing sea grasses dazzle my entire spirit under rising sunbeams. The beach is empty. No fisherman, not even early risers, nobody. Nobody except swirling sea gulls, hopping sandpipers, and vast swells watering my parched spirit. They send me back to three words I jotted the night before my release, three words to keep pondering until I got them down tight: Slowly ... Steadfastly ... Patiently. Chosen words from every pointed angle of clean crisp breathing. At last. This is what freedom tastes like.

On the highway, I hitch a ride back to Fresh Start, the place where men leaving prison are given a home for at least the time it takes to free themselves for independent living, meaning until they get money dropping into their pockets, find their own shelter, and eke out their own living style.

This time I sit in up front, a two-seater beside a silent old Hispanic, his beard sweeping the steering wheel. He owns a Pinocchio nose, eyes that play sly detective. He doesn't trust me. Of course! I'm only learning to trust myself. I'm not sure of anything, of talking, of asking questions. I'm like foreigner not knowing what to say to strangers I don't yet understand. The open window delivers salty air.

He drops me by a phone booth near a laundromat. The scent of clean clothes perfumes the air. I suck it in, take deep breaths, jangle the few coins in my hand, capture my courage, thumb and finger slide that quarter given me by guard Moses into the phone slot.

"Hello."

"Honey, it's me."

"Daddy! Daddy! Is it really you?"

And there it is — my little girl's squeal.

"Oh, Kelly, I'm out!"

She squeals again and just the sound of her voice floods the memories: my ten-year-old howling after tripping on a backyard wire, how I lifted her close, shushed her sobs, traced my finger down the perfect curve of her bruised cheek: "Daddy's here, honey. Daddy will always be here."

Kelly, my little Jiminy Cricket is a woman now, a strong fighter who from birth battled her shorter leg, her obvious limp, a foot that could not be medically repaired. She battled depression, battled the boys who desired her loveliness, battled her mother.

But never, never did she fight with me. We were buddies from the start. Poetry pals. Even after they escorted me behind bars, my years in the joint produced Kelly's recipes for healing: weekly letters, packages of poetry books, and loaves of my favorite home baked banana bread. Best of all, her words, hard as they were to hear after what I'd done. "Dad ... someday, you'll find yourself again, the self that fathered me with so much loving care." More than once, Kelly had insisted that finally a right partner would come along, "a woman you...