What’s your view of Alan as father?

Alan is a very, very quite guy. Alan would get a little loud when he had to put his foot down, but he was a force in those kids lives. And they know it. They want their daddy. They’ve been hanging all over everybody. They’re hanging all over you. They want their daddy and I don’t blame them.

Alan is the only father Josh has ever known and Alan is the best father that Donnie has ever known. He’s a very strong force, even now, in their lives. He’ll call and the boys’ll be like, “Hey Daddy.” And then they’ll run off. But you know they know that daddy’s going to come home. I just said to them a little while ago, “How do you think your daddy would feel if he knew you were acting like that?” But the kids are so emotionally stunted right now.

Last year I had to move two and a half hours away from here. My nephews are very, very close to me and I didn’t want to tell them that I had to move, even though I was only moving two and a half hours away. I didn’t want to tell them cause I knew how they were going to react. It slipped out. We were having a barbecue and it slipped out and Donnie just started crying. Tears started streaming down his face and I said, “Well Donnie, I’m only in South Carolina.” And Donnie says, “I don’t care. You’re moving away and everybody leaves.”

Are you worried about the boys?

Donnie is the one that I worry about the most. He’s got so many emotional problems going on with him. If you could look at that kid - he’s such a depressed kid. He didn’t have that close of a relationship with Alan when he was here, but he feels that it’s been ripped away from him. Just like when my father Mark died. Mark was a force in Donnie’s life, and now Mark’s gone and Donnie’s just floundering and he needs somebody. He needs a male influence. He needs a male to say, “You’re a great kid. I love you.”

Right now he’s got all these women around him. And I feel guilty that I don’t live down here to be with them. And I feel angry that Alan could be down here. Even if he was in prison down here he could be closer to the kids. Donnie does miserable in school. He sits around at home all the time. He eats all the time. He doesn’t want to go out. He doesn’t want to play. I don’t know if he can share his emotions. But I knew if he had his daddy here I wouldn’t worry about getting a call some morning saying that Donnie killed himself. And that’s what I worry about.

Josh is a handful. He’ll act like nothing bothers him. He’s got so much spunk in him. But this kid has done a lot of little rotten things; to his brother, to his family. He’s done some stealing. And in the back of his mind he’s thinking, “If I go to jail I can be with my daddy.” And I’m thinking "oh my gosh, this kid is going to grow up and be like this?". Is he going to grow up and go down the wrong path because he thinks, “my dad did it, my dad was there.”

Your thoughts on Alan’s return to the family?

Alan is going to see a new life. For the first time in her life Becky’s alone. She’s raising the kids alone. She’s had to make changes in their lives. She’s had to be the sole disciplinarian. She’s made changes in her personal and physical being. Her personal life, the way she views things. She’s become more independent. How is Alan going to fit into that now?

Alan wrote Becky a letter a while back that said - why don’t you go ahead and find some one else because I don’t know when I’m coming home again. What if Alan comes home and Becky says something. Like mentions a friend that he’s never heard of before. You know he’s gonna think, “What were you doing in your life while I was gone?” You know if he goes to discipline the kids - are they going to listen to him? Or are they gonna look at him and say, “You’re not my daddy.”

How is he going to fit in? Is everybody going to treat him the way we did before? Or are we going to be scared and walking on eggshells around him because of what might have happened to him in prison? You know the kids are going to be overjoyed to have him home – it’s the connection and the bond that will still be there. Has time and space done anything to that? There are all of those questions.

Is the prison system at all concerned about how his life is going to be when he comes out? For the offence that he did and the amount of time that he is serving. We all know what happens to prisoners when they’re in there. We all know about the prison rapes, being a boyfriend to someone. We all know what it does to your psyche. And a lot of people have a hard time adjusting.

Is he going to be able to get a job? Is the family going to be living in poverty still? What is the stigma going to be once they know they have an ex-con living in the neighborhood? And if they find out why he was in prison - what is that going to do to Donnie and Josh?

I’m sure Alan has thought about all of this. So writing that letter to my sister saying maybe you might want to find somebody else because I don’t know when I’m coming home - that’s all of his fears right there. He saying “when am I coming home and what am I gonna do when I come home?"

I don’t know of anything that’s set up, any type of program that is set up for prisoners who are ex-cons who are coming home to adjust back into family life. You know. I don’t know if it’s there. I don’t know what his future holds. But we’ll have to work through it.

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