It’s the third week of September 1992, and Lou doesn’t have to report for seven more days. But over the years managing a busy household and three children, I know to prepare ahead of time when something is important. Always leave time for the unexpected. A child with the croup. A flat tire. A meltdown with the kids. A husband going to prison.

Standing in our cozy kitchen, I stare at the papers Lou hands me. U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons typed at the top—a carbonless, triplicate form detailing the approved items for new inmates. The yellow copy for the inmate’s records. The pink copy for the guard at check in. The blue copy to be placed into the bag carrying the approved items.

Several days of shopping together, and we accumulate everything on the list.

2 pairs tennis shoes
2 t-shirts (black, grey or navy only)
4 pairs of underwear
1 sweater (black, grey or navy only)
1 pair of jeans
2 collared polo-type shirts
1 heavy jacket
1 wool hat
A dopp kit
Contact lenses and contact lens solution
1 toothbrush
Reading glasses

I’m vigilant about studying the fine print—no tags, no logos, no deviation from the list. I lay everything out on our bed. Lou tries on the clothes one more time and rechecks the list.

Oddly, this ritual of folding and organizing feels very familiar. I’ve packed the black Tumi bag countless times, helping Lou get ready for business trips. With list in hand, I cross off each item as I put it into the cheap, maroon duffle bag purchased for this occasion. I put the blue copy at the top of the bag and give it a final zip closed.

Six months ago, it became a certainty that Lou was going to prison for approximately three years. A white collar, financial crime. About a month after the sentencing, we were told he’d be incarcerated in Yankton Federal Prison Camp, located in Yankton, South Dakota. The most direct route was a flight from Dallas to Omaha and a drive from there. We hashed and rehashed ideas, trying to decide who would go with Lou on this expedition. We agreed that taking the kids was a bad idea. Leaving the kids home with a babysitter so I could go with Lou was also out of the question. I needed to stay home to help the kids adjust to all this.

We decided that John Broude was the best choice. Lou and John had been friends since the ninth grade. Best friends from eleventh grade when they both played tackle on the St. Mark’s football team. From the time they were old enough to secure summer jobs, they worked for half the summer, waiting tables or sorting mail at the post office. Midsummer, they turned in their resignations, packed up the car and drove to Montana, camping and fly fishing along the way. They always ended up on the Madison River, wade fishing for beautiful rainbow, brown, and cutthroat trout. Always catch and release. They’d roll back into Dallas, sunburned and happy, just in time for the new school year to start.

As young men, they remained close, and it wasn’t long after Lou and I fell in love that I met John and his new bride, Judy. John was in our wedding, and he landed in Fort Worth to build his law practice and raise his family. Lou and John collaborated on legal matters, invested in oil and gas ventures, and sometimes partnered in real estate deals. John was certainly Lou’s most trusted friend.

Over the years, Lou and John’s fishing trips remained as sacred and as consistent as Thanksgiving or Christmas. I endorsed these adventures. Time with Johnny was good for Lou, and time with Lou was good for Johnny. I always sent them off with a huge tin of homemade chocolate chip cookies—half with pecans and half without. I did laugh when the guys optimistically decided to carry their favorite fly rods on the trip to Yankton, hoping they might get one last chance to hook a big one on the Missouri River that ran right past Yankton.

It’s Thursday, October 1, the day of Lou’s early morning flight to Omaha. Fall has only barely begun, and there is a hint of cool air, refreshing and much appreciated after the long summer months. Sharing our coffee at the kitchen table, Lou and I notice that the light outdoors has changed, as it does every year around this time.

One by one, the kids wander sleepily into the kitchen. Lou reads the comics to McKenzie and roughhouses with Beau while I, feeling a bit foolish, again unpack the maroon bag to inventory and repack the contents one last time. Katie holds the list and checks off each item as I put it into the bag.

The five of us load up in the Suburban and head to DFW where John is meeting us at Gate 24. Lou is agitated but focuses all his attention on the kids, reassuring them that he, and they, will be fine. This is just another adventure.

Once at the gate, small talk with John helps pass the time. We all try to keep it light in any way we can. When boarding announcements begin, John edges away, giving us privacy to say our goodbyes. After much hugging and kissing, each of the kids competing for the last caress, Lou picks up his duffle bag. I hand him the white tin of cookies and watch the two men walk down the jet bridge.

Burlier and a head taller than John, Lou lumbers with his slightly uneven gait. He has two bad knees—one from a football injury and one from a motorcycle accident. Lou holds the duffle in one hand and the cookie tin in the other. John carries the fly rod cases in one hand and places his other hand on Lou’s shoulder. Both men wear the beat-up fishing hats they’ve taken to Montana for years. I watch as they get smaller and smaller, walking farther and farther away. Things are fine. But then they turn the corner and are suddenly out of sight.

And I fall to my knees.

There is a sound I’ve never heard before. It’s somewhere between a scream and a howl. And, it’s coming from me. I am blind to everything around me. I am deaf to any sound outside my own. I can’t find any air to breathe, yet I am floating, untethered. I am turning inside out—the rawest part of me on the outside now.

For the last six years, even before McKenzie was born, our lives have been colored by the threatening menace of Lou’s legal problem. The investigation. The indictment. The lawyers. The sentencing. It was pounding and relentless. I’ve been the guardian of our family’s emotional life through it all. But suddenly, culminating in a moment, it’s too much for me to hold myself together.

I am not the same person I was a few minutes before.

The first thing I feel is a tiny hand slide into mine. My vision coming back, everything is blurry. But I can see the kids, kneeling on the floor around me. They stroke my arms. They pat my head. Intuitively knowing their touch is the healing power. It reminds me of the way adult bison gather around a new calf when there is any danger of a wolf nearby. Except this time, the roles are reversed. I am the calf, and they are the bison.

I catch my breath and look at the kids, expecting them to look terrified. This is a whole new iteration of their mom. This is a mom they have never seen before. Instead, I see sadness and empathy and understanding on their beautiful faces.

We cry together for a few minutes. I wipe their tears away and they wipe mine. Echoing his dad’s words, Beau reminds us that we will all be okay. This is just another adventure. And for this moment, the whole world is just me and Katie and Beau and McKenzie, huddled up together, kneeling at Gate 24.

“Excuse me. Are you all right?”

I look up and see an American Airlines gate agent, seemingly appear out of nowhere. She leans in and stoops over our pathetic quartet. Apprehensively, she asks again if we are all right. If we need anything.

Her kindness brings me back to our new reality. Barely ten feet away from us, a father reprimands his son for staring at the scene we’re making. At the next gate over, passengers board their flights, side eyeing our dramatic spectacle. Across the concourse, a man, oblivious to our plight, buys the Dallas Morning News and a bottle of water at a kiosk. All around us, life continues, uninterrupted.

As we help each other up, I feel as though there is our little pod—the four of us, one unit, a team—and then, there is everybody else.

Later, after dropping the kids off at school, I pull into our driveway and turn off the motor. Instead of getting out of the car, I close my eyes and sink back into the seat. I dread the idea of going into our house. Moving feels impossible—like I’m pinned to the seat. I feel that once I get out of the car, I’ll have to emerge as this new person. My feelings are confused and unexpected. I’m afraid of what the future looks like. I’m worried that I won’t be able to handle all my new responsibilities. I wonder if our marriage can survive anything as we’ve always told ourselves.

But most unexpected of all, I am relieved. I am relieved that Lou is gone. It means now we can start counting the days until his return. With the many years of terrible, looming uncertainty finally resolved, I can begin knitting the family back together in a different way.

I slowly get out of the car and walk into the house. Back in our cozy kitchen, I putter around. I tidy up the pile of mail by the telephone. I put the morning’s breakfast dishes in the dishwasher. Gather and sort a load of laundry. Write a list for the grocery store. I can afford a few more hours, pretending to be an ordinary housewife. A stay-at-home mom. The mundane so comforting.

Soon, the kids will come home from school. We’ll sit at the kitchen table and share stories about our day. No one the worse for wear. We’ll chuckle about the scene we made at the airport. Then snacks and homework. The four of us left behind, waiting for the collect call from Lou. Waiting to hear his voice. Waiting for proof that he’s still out there.

Eating dinner, our conversation will slow down. A heavy sadness oddly punctuated by the skittering sounds of the new hamster in the next room. I’ll notice Katie pushing food around her plate with her fork. My gut will tell me that we all dread the evening without Lou. Especially the bedtime routine. Lou, the funny disrupter of my insistence on quieting down before bed. The one who roughhouses with abandon. The one with the biggest hugs. The one who makes us all feel safe.

And when the phone finally rings, the kids will fall over each other, pushing back their chairs and running to be first. I’ll wait patiently, listening to the kids ask and answer a stream of questions. And Lou will picture us right where we are, sitting at the well-worn table in the kitchen, the heart of our home. His chair empty.

When it’s my turn, I’ll shoo the kids away, telling them they can get in my bed and watch a cartoon. Lou will sound okay, but then he’ll thank me for being so meticulous about packing his maroon duffle bag. A strange compliment that I won’t understand until he explains that only some of the items we carefully purchased and packed are actually allowed. The official list we were given weeks ago will no longer apply. Contact lenses are allowed, but not contact lens solution. He’ll be given a pair of regulation steel-toed boots—mandatory for work. A size 13. The largest size they carry. Never mind that he wears a size 16.

He’ll tell me everything, describing in detail the guard’s welcome remarks, the endless forms he’ll fill out, the body search, the dorm he’ll be assigned, the roomies he’ll have. And with the assignment of his inmate number, the transformation will be complete.

Lou Reese becoming #52760-080.

– Susan Reese

Author’s Note: Most people don’t think about the fact that when one family member goes to prison, the whole family actually goes, too, in one way or another.