It is what it is.

Since he had a late lock-in tonight, I got to talk to Shawshank twice today. I had been dreadinghis lunchtime call. I’d been sitting on the info that he most likely won’t be able to sponsor me once I cross the border since Wednesday night. I knew if I kept it from him much longer, he’d be able to tell something was wrong. As expected, he could tell I was upset within seconds of me accepting his call.

“What’s wrong, you sound sad.”

“I am,” I replied. “I was looking into things and I think you’re going to have trouble sponsoring me, if you can at all.”

“Why, because I’m a criminal?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Well then we’ll deal with that when we need to. There’s nothing to be done for it now,” he said. “It is what it is.”

Shawshank took it amazingly well. Far better than I handled it, to be honest. We spent the rest of the call chatting about mundane things that didn’t involve immigration. He proudly boasted about how he finally cleared out his book hoard, and returned 12 books to the library cart. This left him with 12 books stashed in his cell, 10 of which he’s read at least once, and that total didn’t include any of the books I’ve mailed him. He’s rereading either Foucault’s Pendulum or House of Leaves right now.  I guess it’s better than Twilight for the fifth time.

No one tell him, but he’s got a box of birthday books coming his way this week.

We’re really hoping the state opens up visitation soon. The facility stopped visits back in the beginning of March. Mostly, we want to see each other at least once before he leaves, whenever that might be.