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He stared at her across the table. They'd stopped mentioning Alice's and Robbie's names some time ago, without really acknowledging that they had. "Alice?"

Footsteps pull her back to the present. She looks up keenly, shoving the phone and its shitty email into her pocket. But it's an older man with a straggly silver beard, walking with a slight limp. Chrissy looks back at the prison. What if there's been a problem? A complication...a delay to Leo's release? She knows it happens, but it never occurred to her, foolishly, that it might happen to them. Maybe she should go in and check. Leo asked her to wait here, though, said he wanted her to see him walk out.

That's it, she can't stand it anymore. She tosses back her hair and strides toward the prison entrance. Reaching the external reception booth, she peers through the holes in the glass screen at the uninterested man poring over crosswords that she has never, in two years, seen him finish.

"My son—my son's being released today," she says. "It should've happened already. Do you know if there's been a...a problem?"

He shunts the crossword aside. "Name?"

"My son's?" she says, then feels stupid. She tries to speak clearly as she tells him Leo's name, but her tongue sticks and she flubs her lines.

The man types something into his computer, narrows his eyes, then turns his back to pick up a phone. After a minute or so he swings around to face her, putting down the phone in the same motion.

"My colleagues inside the building are checking."

He returns to his crossword and Chrissy is left standing there, craving a cigarette, churning her keys in her pocket. There are some visitors arriving now. A woman with three children in tow and a baby bawling in her arms. Must be a special visit, extended family time; she remembers hearing about those. She has a precarious sense of wading against the current even though she's standing still. Preparing to leave with her loved one—please don't tell me otherwise—instead of going inside for regulated hugs and muted conversation. The longer she waits, though, the more her thoughts spiral. What if Leo's ill? What if he did something stupid, got in trouble just before his release? What if they're having second thoughts about him living in the village, even after all those discussions?

The phone in the booth rings. The guard picks it up without glancing at her, and she presses her face to the holes in the screen. He is nodding, frowning, not giving much away. She hears him mumble something like, Thought so, before he drops the receiver and looks up.

"Leo Dean was released an hour ago." 

Chrissy stares at him. "What?"

"All paperwork was completed. He was free to go. And"—he gestures toward the main gates—"he went."

"But..." She feels her whole face start to twitch. "How did he...Did anyone collect him?"

He shrugs. "Sorry. Not our job to check that. Once the paperwork's—"

"I was almost here! Why didn't he wait? Where did he go?"

Something changes in the man's expression. "Hopefully to the agreed address or to his probation officer," he says, peering over his glasses. "As per the terms of his release."

Chrissy's stomach lurches. She steps back, clamping her mouth shut.

The guard continues to frown at her. "I don't know what to tell you, Ms. Dean. He's gone. If he knows what's good for him, he'll report to his PO ASAP."

"Yes..." Chrissy backs off, fumbling for her phone. "He will, of course he will."

Alice's email is still on the screen, an extra taunt. Chrissy closes it and brings up Leo's number, walking briskly away from the guard. She hasn't dialed her son's mobile in two years. Their last message exchange is too painful to dwell on and she stabs at the call icon. It goes straight to voicemail, as if his phone is still locked in a box, and she realizes, with a mental slap, that of course it wouldn't be charged.

Even so, she pleads with his voicemail. "Where are you, Leo? Are you okay? I'm here at the prison. I don't know what's happened. We agreed you'd wait if you got out early. And we've...I've..." Her voice catches, and she can't even finish her sentence: I've been waiting for so long.

Hanging up, she looks around desperately. Could he have made his own way back to the village or to his PO? But there aren't any buses; a taxi would cost too much. And why would he, when she'd promised she would meet him, cook him anything he wanted for dinner?

She drums out a text: Leo, please let me know you're okay xx