Editor’s Note: Press play above to listen to the author read her story aloud.

Hamzah came home and headed right to our door. We didn’t know he was coming that day. His last letter said he was going to face the board, and then nothing, and then he was standing there with a few hundred dollars, eight years’ worth of prison labor, which he handed me, and said, “Put y’all shoes on so we can get some food.” We went to the buffet because he loved that bogus Mongolian grill and all that orange soda. He loved those well-rationed crab…