“Guess what, Mommy? I made a Christmas present for you. Grandma helped me wrap it. It’s under the tree!”
Her voice was bright and full of joy. It took my breath away. But as I sat on the cold cement bench of a jail cell, gripping the phone, her words felt like shards of glass slicing through me. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth — that I might not be home for Christmas, or even the next.
I had been arrested in Madison, Wisconsin, and separated from my 5-year-old daughter, Kristil, three weeks before. As Christmas approached, the weight of my absence grew heavier. She didn’t know where I was, only that I wasn’t there to bake cookies with her or decorate the tree like we’d done every year before.
Her father, J., wasn’t there either. He’d been arrested months earlier for burglary and was on his way to serve a 10-year prison sentence. Now I was sitting in jail too, waiting to be extradited to Crown Point, Indiana, facing felony forgery charges.
I prayed to God every night, begging for a second chance. I promised to do better — to be the mother Kristil needed and deserved. But this wasn’t the first time I’d made such a promise.
When I found out I was pregnant six years earlier, I’d vowed to defy the odds stacked against us. I was a single mom. Kristil’s father had gone to prison the first time when I was pregnant. I knew the statistics: Children born to single mothers and incarcerated fathers were more likely to live in poverty, struggle in school and end up in trouble with the law themselves. I swore Kristil wouldn’t be one of those statistics.
As a single mom, I vowed to do everything I could to give my daughter a good life, but a series of bad choices led me astray.
For the first five years of her life, I did everything I could to keep that promise. Being Kristil’s mom was wonderful, but parenting alone was hard. I never seemed to have enough money, time or energy. I hoped that when J. got out of prison, we could finally be a family, where there were two of us loving and supporting Kristil.
When J. first got out, it seemed possible. I believed prison had rehabilitated him and that after spending three torturous years away from his family, he would never return to prison. He got his old job back, and I went back to school to finish my degree. J. was helping carry the load, and we were finally living together as a family. But after two years, our relationship began to unravel. Arguments turned into fights, and one night, after J. became violent, I packed up Kristil and left.
A few months later, J. called and asked to see Kristil. I agreed, and we met at our favorite bookstore downtown. He looked thin and agitated, and he said he was struggling with depression. When we met again the following week, he admitted that he’d lost his job and his apartment and started using drugs to cope. He was living between his mom’s house in Wisconsin and his uncle’s place in Illinois. I was terrified for him. I wanted to help, but I didn’t know how. I worried he was going to end up back in prison — or worse.
One summer afternoon, Kristil and I came home from a bike ride to find the phone ringing. It was J., and he sounded frantic. “Can you come pick me up downtown? It’s an emergency,” he said. I quickly put Kristil in her car seat and drove to get him. When I arrived, he asked me to drive him to Chicago. “There’s a warrant out for my arrest,” he said, his voice shaking. I was scared but agreed to drive him.
Three hours later, we checked into a hotel in Chicago. For the next two days, we ignored reality and spent time together. J. bought Kristil new clothes, shoes and toys, and we spent our evenings watching movies and eating dinner. On the last night, we went to the hotel pool so Kristil and her dad could swim.
I sat on the edge of the pool, watching as they played Marco Polo. Kristil’s laughter echoed off the walls, and for a moment, it felt like everything was OK. “Again Daddy, again,” she said, asking him to play one more time. But deep down, I knew it was only a matter of time before J.’s choices caught up with him. Worse yet, I knew that if I continued seeing him under these circumstances, I was putting myself and Kristil in jeopardy, too.
As Kristil and I drove back to Madison the next day, leaving J. in Chicago, I knew it would be the last time we saw him. As much as I loved him, I loved her more.
Two months later, I got a phone call from J. He’d been arrested and was in the Dane County Jail. I went to visit him and brought a bit of money for his commissary account. Halfway through our visit, a guard approached me. He was holding my driver’s license.
“Are you aware there’s a warrant out for you?” he asked.
My stomach dropped. Fear overcame me, and the room began to blur. J. started yelling from behind the glass, “She had nothing to do with it.” Moments later, the guard arrested me and booked me into the same jail.
They charged me with forgery for signing a $500 check J. had in his possession during our trip to Chicago. We’d crossed into Indiana to cash it. J. had told me we wouldn’t have money to get back home unless we cashed the check. What he didn’t tell me until we were in line to cash it was that I would be the one who had to sign it. I felt pressured and scared, and deep down, I knew it was wrong. I signed the check anyway.
Sitting in the Dane County jail for over three weeks, I waited to be extradited to Lake County, where I’d face my charges. Until I got there, nothing could happen. I didn’t know if I’d be offered bail or how much it would be. I grew more terrified with every passing day as I overheard inmates and guards talk about others who had gone to prison for charges like mine.
Finally, in mid-December, the Indiana Sheriff’s Department came to get me. After making the four-hour trip to Crown Point, Indiana, my horror intensified. The Lake County Jail was much worse than I’d imagined. After dragging my mattress down the hall, a guard led me to a vault-like door that opened to a dim, fluorescent-lit area with multiple cells. The cells were small and rusted, with graffiti-covered walls and peeling paint everywhere. Each had four bunks and an open toilet at the back. There was a faint sewage odor that hung in the air.
Within hours, I felt the tension among inmates. By my second day, I’d made enemies with two after refusing to act as a lookout when they engaged in intimacy and smoking in their cell. That night, lying on my bunk, I broke down crying.
The next morning, still shaken from the night before, I called my brother Dave.
“You’ve got to get me out of here,” I said.
“Are there people who can see you right now?” he asked.
“Yes,” I whispered through my tears.
“Stop crying right now,” he said. “You can’t let anyone see you like that.”
He understood what it meant for me to show weakness in that environment in a way that I did not.
I pulled myself together, but the fear didn’t go away. Every night, I begged God for a second chance. I thought about Kristil’s voice on the phone and the kind of mother I wanted to be. If I ever got out, I swore I would reprioritize my role as her mother. Nothing and no one would come before her ever again.
Finally, in late December, I was taken to court. I was formally charged and given a bail of $5,000. Two days before Christmas, hanging by a thread, I heard the jail guard call my name. “Grab your stuff, you’re leaving,” he said. My brother had taken up a collection to bail me out. I was never so grateful in my life. My court case wasn’t over, but for now, I was able to go home.
It was early evening when we made it back to Wisconsin and pulled up in Mom’s driveway. Eager to see Kristil, I couldn’t get out of my brother’s car fast enough. My heart sped up as I made my way to the front door where Mom was waiting. Mom hugged me tightly. “She’s upstairs,” Mom said.
I rounded the corner toward the living room, which was warm and dim but for the glow of the Christmas tree. Opening the door to the stairway, I looked up. Sitting midway up the winding staircase on the wooden platform, wearing her jammies and holding her teddy, was Kristil. Our eyes met, and her mouth widened in surprise. “Mommy,” she said as I rushed up the stairs to meet her. I dissolved into tears the moment I held her, feeling her soft cheek against mine, never wanting to let her go.
Today my daughter is an Ivy League graduate and living in France.
A month later, I traveled back to Indiana for sentencing. Because I had no prior criminal record, and because J. came forward and admitted to his part in the crime, my felony charge was reduced to a misdemeanor. They sentenced me to one year of probation and I never saw the inside of a jail cell again.
Over the years, Kristil and I faced our share of challenges, but we were always together. I raised her on my own, and she flourished. She graduated from an Ivy League university and earned a master’s degree in Sweden. Watching her walk across the stage at her college graduation was a reminder that the second chance I’d been given had created a brighter future for both of us.
This year, Kristil will be home from France, where she’s been living the past three years, for Christmas. Just like when she was 5, we’ll sip hot chocolate and watch Christmas movies together by the glow of the tree. I’ll remember that cold December in jail, listening to her tiny voice over the phone, so full of excitement for a mother who wasn’t there. I’ll remember with gratitude the grace I was given that made all this possible.
This article was originally published on TODAY.com