It took Laila one day of planning, $100 for a bus, and three hours to get to the Massachusetts State Penitentiary to see her mother. 

When the bus arrived at the prison, she grabbed her backpack and went straight inside to the officer sitting behind the window. 

“Um, excuse me,” she said. 

The officer barely looked up from his book.

“What?” his scratchy, metallic voice asked.

“My name is Laila Grant. I have an appointment to see my mom at 1 o’clock and—”

“Yeah, yeah, just pass your ID under, kid.” 

Laila took out her wallet and put her driver’s license in the metal container beneath the window. She clenched and unclenched her hands to keep them from shaking. 

The guard typed something into his computer for a few seconds before grunting.

“You can go through the doors. An officer will take you through to see your mother,” he said without looking up again. 

Laila blinked. “Oh, okay. Thanks.”

She readjusted her backpack and headed to the doors where another guard greeted her. The guard said nothing as she took her through to a room with round tables. There were some people already sitting down at a few of them, talking to ragged inmates in orange jumpsuits.

“Someone will bring your mom around to see you in a few minutes,” the guard said. 

Laila found a place to sit and set her backpack down next to her. She looked around the cold, dull room. The doors on either side were covered in what looked like fiberglass and had officers that just seemed to be sitting around. Other than the hushed voices around her, everything was quiet. It was depressing.  Being in that room only made her more tense as she anxiously waited to see her mother for the first time in three months. 

The door in front of Laila buzzed, and an officer escorted her mother out in handcuffs. 

“Mom!” 

Laila jumped up to go and hug her mother, but before she could, the guard pulled her mother back and put his hand up. 

“No contact with the inmate,” he said. 

“But she’s my mother, she’s not going to hurt me—”

“No contact until the inmate is seated,” he repeated firmly. 

“It’s okay, Lai, just go sit down,” her mother said.

Laila glared at the guard before she sat down at the table. The guard unlocked the handcuffs and sat her mother across from her. Laila waited until he left before she jumped up and gave her mother a bear hug. 

“I’ve missed you so much,” Laila muffled against her mom’s clothes. 

Her mother gave her a kiss on the head. “I’ve missed you too, Bug.”

They stayed like that for a good few minutes before letting  each other go. Lucy reached over and clasped her daughter’s hands. 

“So how’ve you been, Bug? Are you safe? Are you happy? You with a good family?”  

Laila rolled her eyes. “They put me with this woman who’s insufferable. She’s falling over herself trying to get me to like her.”

“So is she buying you stuff?”

“Uh huh. Her name’s Cassidy. She tried to take me to get ice cream the first time I met her as a way to ‘bond’.”

Her mother squinted her eyes, a tell she had that said she was thinking about something. 

“Does she give you an allowance or something like that?”

Laila cocked her head, caught off guard by the question. 

“Well, no,” she said slowly, “but I would never ask her for that.” 

“But if you did ask her, she’d give it to you?” 

Laila tensed and started to pull back from her mother, confused. 

“Mom, we’re supposed to be talking about how soon we can get you out of here,” she said. 

“Baby, I am thinking about that,” her mother said as she squeezed Laila’s hands. “Listen, I’m thinking that if we can just pay off one of these people to look the other way, then maybe—”

“Wait, are you actually suggesting that I bribe a guard?” Laila asked incredulously.

“Don’t think of it like that, Bug. We could be together. Just like old times,” Lucy said. 

“The old times where you got busted for having a meth lab in our basement?” 

“That was just a misunderstanding.”

“Well, it won’t be a misunderstanding when I get in trouble for bribery,” Laila gritted out. 

Lucy let go of Laila’s hands and threw her hands up in the air in exasperation. 

“What the hell else am I supposed to do then, Laila? How am I gonna get out of here?” Lucy hissed, making Laila flinch. 

“I-I don’t know. Maybe they can let you out early or something.”

Lucy scoffed. “I made a pound of meth, Laila. That’s 20 years. When the hell do you think they’re gonna let me out, huh?”

Laila started to clench and unclench her hands. 

“Mom, I don’t know.” Her voice quivered. 

Lucy leaned in, holding eye contact with Laila.

“What you need to do is get that foster mom of yours to give you some money,” she said. 

Laila shook her head. “Mom, I can’t—”

“Then what the hell else are you good for then if you can’t get me out of here?” Lucy yelled. 

The other inmates and visitors started to look in their direction. 

“I’m sorry—”

“Get out of my sight! Get out!” 

The door in front of Laila opened, and the guard who had escorted her mother into the room walked in with handcuffs to take her out. 

“Visitation is over,” he said roughly as he handcuffed her mother and led her away. 

“Mom, I’m sorry,” Laila said. 

Her mother wouldn’t look at her as the door closed behind her. 

Laila sat there in tears. It had been three months since the day she saw her mother being taken away by the cops after she had come home from school. They didn’t have any living relatives, so Laila had immediately gone to foster care and, surprisingly quickly, was placed with a woman who was looking for a teenager to foster until they aged out at 18. 

But Laila didn’t want to be placed in a different home; she wanted to be with her mother.

***

Quietly, Laila shouldered her backpack and headed out. When she ran away, she didn’t have a plan on where to go afterwards. All she had been focused on was seeing her mother, and now that she was thinking about it, Cassidy definitely wouldn’t take her back.

Laila exited the entrance of the door and went to sit down on the curb to think. She had a little bit of money saved up from a couple of odd jobs she had worked, but it wasn’t much, and she wouldn’t exactly find a cheap motel in Massachusetts. A pit formed in her stomach as she realized that she would probably be homeless. Laila put her head in her hands, rubbing away the tears that were starting to form.

“Laila,” a gentle voice said. 

Laila looked up to see brown eyes and blonde hair pulled into a bun. 

“Cassidy?” 

She was shocked. She wasn’t expecting her to come all the way down to the edge of Massachusetts, but she did steal $100 from her, so of course she would track her down. Cassidy had probably already called the cops. Laila would be locked up and she would never see her mother, or anyone, ever again. 

“How was the visit?” Cassidy asked. 

Laila stood up abruptly, clenching and unclenching her hands. 

“Listen, Cassidy, I’m really sorry about taking your money, I just really needed to see my mom and I know that you’re going to press charges and–and…” Laila’s words trailed off as her voice started trembling. She was looking anywhere but at Cassidy as she began to sweat. 

“Laila, look at me,” Cassidy said as she gently lifted Laila’s chin. “I’m not going to press charges. I just want you to come home, okay?”

Laila blinked. Then she blinked again just to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. 

“You’re not going to call the cops?” Laila asked meekly. 

“You wanted to see your mother. I can understand that,” Cassidy said. “When my mom died and I went into foster care, I remember wishing that I could see her again, just one more time.” 

Cassidy frowned after she spoke of her mother. Laila had already heard the story about Cassidy’s mother dying, but she hadn’t known that Cassidy had gone to foster care. 

“I’m sorry,” Laila said. 

Cassidy gave her a rueful smile. “I know we don’t know each other yet, but I do care about you, Laila. If you want to see your mom again, we can come back any time you want.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” Cassidy said. “So, are you ready to go home?”

Laila looked back at the building and thought about her mother. She knew she would be back—she couldn’t just abandon her mother—but maybe having Cassidy in her corner wouldn’t be so bad either. 

“Yeah, I’m ready to go.”

Laila readjusted her backpack as they walked to Cassidy’s car. 

“So how about that ice cream?” Laila said.

Cassidy smiled. “So how about that $100?”

Laila grimaced. “Touché.” 

Cassidy laughed and nudged her shoulder. “We can find an ice cream place on the way home, yeah?”

Laila smiled. “Sounds good.”