It was to be the last visit.  "Over?" he had queried.  "Over, for good" she had replied. "We are so... done".   The silence thundered between them and the look on his face darkened as rapidly as a fast moving storm.  Amazing how that line between love and hate can be crossed so quickly.  She was not afraid: there were bars between them.   Of course there had always been the bars, she just hadn't been able to see them.

He had robbed again and again and finally when someone had fought back: then, he had killed.  A professional at thievery, an amateur at murder. Leaving DNA, weapon, fingerprints et al, like an inept protagonist in a five cent novel , the cops caught him quickly;  the trial and conviction, toting him like a speeding freight train straight to prison.

She had visited every week...at first.  Soon that got old.. and what gets old, also gets stale.  A heart once delicate and pliable had turned dry and brittle.  Inevitably, brittle breaks into little bits and the time had come to sweep away those pieces, sweep them out the door; let them catch on the wind.... once and for all, blow him out of her life.

Fear kept her courage from speaking the truth for a long while, but eventually, as always the case when truth finally raises it's head, she realized the nature of their relationship and he would forever be culpable .  No, it wasn't the long drives upstate to the prison.   It wasn't that he was a thief or even a murderer.  It wasn't that he was a bad man, all around.   It was the bars. She had finally been forced to see them.  His incarceration brought it all into the open. When her heart had hardened, her eyes had cleared.  She once had been the one trapped behind bars and in the trading of places now she was free.

On Location, Mondays:

Behind bars