Another state prison in Oklahoma. Photo via Flickr user Kenny Breedlove
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He explains that earlier that day on Highway 412, my wife's vehicle crashed into a tree and burst into flames. There was a child in the backseat. Neither the driver nor the passenger survived. He needs to know if April had been driving the car and if the child was mine, because the bodies were burned beyond recognition."Yes," I think I say.She and he left visitation just a few hours ago. They would have been traveling on 412.Sitting in that conference room, my world implodes."It's okay to cry," Wendy says.Prison has made it wrong for me to cry. I can't be weak."He must be in shock," she explains, as if I'm not there."Can I go back to my unit?" I whisper."No, not yet."The state trooper takes me by the arm and escorts me to the segregation housing unit, where he leaves me in a sterile cell. Fluorescent light bounces off the walls. The room has a stainless steel toilet and a mat with restraint straps at all four corners. There is nothing else in the cell.This is the Department of Corrections' idea of a "safe observation" room. I don't know what I should have expected—I am incarcerated, after all.For three days, I stay in that cell. I spend most of the time sleeping. When I'm awake, I'm crying. From time to time, an officer stands at the square window in the door and asks me how I'm doing.Prison has made it wrong for me to cry. I can't be weak.
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