Visiting AJ

About a week ago, I paid a visit to my son AJ at Fort Starch Military Academy.  Putting him (and Sety) in that school was bar none the toughest thing I’ve ever had to do. 

Fort Starch is this huge campus with wood cabins surrounding the main building. 

I approached Sergeant Downey, the commandant in charge of AJ’s regiment (Sety has a different commandant and is in a separate regiment) and asked him if I could see my son. 

“Our different regiments have different visitation days and hours,” he explained.  “In your son’s case, his visiting hours are from 10 to 3 on weekends.”

“But it’s Tuesday afternoon.  I’m going crazy here, I have to see my son.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Cheesman, no exceptions.” 

It was the first time I’d ever been called Mrs. Cheesman.  I wasn’t sure I liked it.

I found out later that Sergeant Downey was the father of the boy AJ so mercilessly tormented.  Whoops. 

 

Just then I caught a glimpse of my son coming out of one of the cabins.  I barely recognized him.  His hair had been lopped off, he had lost weight, and his eyes took on that lost-puppy-dog look.  I hoped that he had been chastened by his time at Fort Starch – indeed, it didn’t look to me to be a very forgiving place. 

“Hey mom.”

“Here, I brought you something.  Your favorite.”  I handed him a box of coconut crème cookies.  The butler baked them – but he didn’t have to know that.

 

We stood there for a good ten minutes, just staring at each other.  Other than having my mom’s chestnut hair, he looks exactly like his father.

“Can I come home, Mom?” he begged.

It took every ounce of my strength to tell him no.  In a perfect world I would have scooped him in my car and taken him and no one would have been the wiser, as he is my son and the last thing I want is for him to suffer. 

“You have to serve out your sentence,” I told him, “if we let you come home, who knows what the consequences would be?”