Brenda trailed him. She had on a large print dress and heavy shoes. Her hair was up and looked welded to her head. She saw Timber first, and jabbed Eldon in the ribs and pointed him out. They waded through the children playing with toys on the floor and made their way to him.

Eldon sat heavily and leaned back in his plastic chair as if trying to maintain as much distance as possible from his son. He looked tired and beaten. Four hours in the pickup with Brenda could do that to a man, Timber thought.

“I didn’t think you were coming,” he said.

“Sorry we’re late,” Brenda responded, settling her bulk into a flimsy plastic chair directly across the table from him. “We had a long night. Bull and Cora Lee were going at it again. We had to stay long enough this morning to make sure they wouldn’t wake up and remember the fight and try to kill each other.”

“Cora Lee,” Timber said derisively. “She’s a real c—”

“Don’t say that word,” Brenda snapped. “You know I hate that word.”

Timber bit his lip.

“You were right about Nate Romanowski’s release from the feds,” she said.

He nodded. “Guards talk to guards and things get around real fast in here. Some of us knew they were cutting him loose before he even did.”

“You’re wearing a blue shirt,” Brenda said, studying him. “That’s good.”

Timber nodded. In prison, new inmates wore yellow, death row wore white, violent felons wore orange, and the general population wore blue or red. Up until a month ago, Timber had worn orange.

“So you’re keepin’ your nose clean,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“You’re so pale and thin. Are you eating right?”

“The food is shit.”

“You need to eat it anyway. I wish they would let me bring you some home cooking. You need to get strong again.”

“I’ve been working out,” Timber told her.

She said, “We got a letter stating you might be released tomorrow. Have they said anything to you about it?”

He scowled. “Nothin’ official, but they moved me to a new cell. It’s how they do it—they move you to a kind of holding area while the paperwork clears. Then they give you back the clothes you wore when you came in and let you go. I’m thinking they’ll release me any day.”

Brenda bobbed her head. She was thinking. He wondered if she’d ever get new glasses.

“I’m not fond of those tattoos on your neck,” she said.

He raised his hands in a What you gonna do? gesture.

“Is that a skull?” she asked, peering at the left side of his neck.

“A flaming skull,” Timber corrected.

“Oh, it has to be flaming, does it?”

He grinned, but he wasn’t sure it looked like a grin as much as a grimace. Under the table, his leg twitched harder. He was afraid it might start drumming the bottom of the table like a jackhammer, so he slipped his hand down and tried to take control of it.

“Can you get it removed later?” she asked.

“Ma, is this what we’re going to talk about? My neck? It’s just a thing. It don’t mean nothin’.”

Brenda looked to Eldon, and Eldon said, “Don’t sass her.”

Timber leaned back and held his tongue. When he extended his leg, it didn’t bounce so high. He wondered if she’d always have that effect on him.

—

SINCE HIS INCARCERATION, Brenda had sent him envelopes filled with newspaper clippings of Dallas winning rodeos all over the country. Sometimes she included a note. The note was usually about Dallas. If she knew that Timber tore up the clippings and never even read them, she’d disown him and he’d be out on his own with his demons. So he never told her to stop sending them. She assumed he was as proud of Dallas as she was, when all he wanted to know was, What about me?

He’d told his cellmate about the “Chicken Thigh Game” they used to play at home. Brenda would assemble all three of her young boys shoulder to shoulder in the kitchen and ask, “Who loves their mama the most?” The winner would get an extra fried chicken thigh.

Bull would go first. He’d say he loved his mama the most because she was the best cook in the world and he loved her food. Brenda would urge him to go deeper, but Bull had never been deep. Instead, he’d repeat what he’d said the first time, but with more emphasis.

Timber would say he loved his mama the most because she stood up to the neighbors and she was a good driver. He varied his response from game to game in an attempt to finally hit a chord that resonated with her. He said she was the smartest, prettiest, funniest. She’d nod along until it was Dallas’s turn.

Dallas would squirm and smile and turn red. He looked cute doing it. He’d say, “I love my mama more’n anything in the whole wide world.”

Dallas would get the chicken thigh.

Timber still didn’t know what to say or do to make her love him best.

—

“YOU’VE GOT TO STAY CLEAN and keep your head down for one more day until they let you go,” she said to Timber. “You should have been out months ago. I want all my boys back home. It’s time to be a family again. Dallas is there now, you know.”

“You told me.”

“So it’s time for you to come home. Try not to get into any more trouble in here. It’s only twenty-four hours. Sometimes you gotta turn the other cheek for the greater good of your people,” she said. “You need to think long-term, which is something I know you’ve never been very good at. But if you lash out every time somebody does you wrong, you’ll stay in this damned place forever.”

Timber said, “If someone does something to you in here, you gotta retaliate or it just gets worse. This is a fuckin’ jungle.”

She looked around the room at the families, and the children scrambling around on the floor.

“It ain’t like this inside,” Timber said wearily. “There ain’t a bunch of rug rats crawlin’ around.”

“I wouldn’t know,” Eldon said, “since I was never dumb enough to get caught and sent to prison.”

That was his issue, Timber knew. It wasn’t that his son was a convicted felon who was sent to the penitentiary in Rawlins. It was that he’d been dumb enough to get caught.

“I’m ready to come home,” Timber said to Brenda. He ignored Eldon. Ignoring Eldon was getting easier to do.

“We’re ready to have you back,” she said, but with a beat of hesitation.

“What?” he asked, ready for another lecture about staying away from drugs and not hooking up with his old crew. She didn’t realize that most of his old crew was either dead or in prison with him.

“Before you come straight home, we need to know you’re with us,” she said. She reached out with both hands and cupped his left. His right was still under the table, trying to control his leg. She stroked the back of his hand with her pudgy thumbs and studied him closely. She always seemed to know what he was thinking even when he tried to hide it from her. It was like she could see into his soul. Sometimes she knew what he was thinking before he was even sure.

She said, “We need to know you’re willing to be part of the family again—that you’ll contribute. We need some proof of your loyalty before we can welcome you back with open arms.”

Timber stared at her. He knew she couldn’t be overheard by the guard because of the noise in the room and the blaring television above his head. The CCTV would show them talking to each other, but there weren’t recording devices to pick up what they said.

“Are you still working in the infirmary?” she asked.

The question came out of the blue. “Yes. But it’s not like I have any responsibility. I just mop shit up.”

“That’s not important,” she said. “What’s important is that you know your way around a medical facility. Even if it’s with a mop in your hand.”

He sat back and tried to read her face for clues. As usual, she gave nothing away.

“We need you to do something for us where nobody knows you,” she said. “It’s got to be done in a way so it won’t connect back to us in any way. But you can’t do that unless they let you out of here free and clear and within the next couple of days. You’ve got to hold your temper and think long-term, like I said. Store up that angry feeling. Don’t retaliate if someone does something to you.”