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After I close the door, he drives away, and I find a patch on the vast lawn out the front of the building. Slumping down on the grass, I fold my legs to the side. I place the picket on the ground beside me and plonk my black Gucci purse in my lap to hold my dress down at my crotch. Dumb choice of attire; I just wanted to look nice for my dad.
Around me, there are picnic tables for visitors,I guess.Normal people, who do not steal and carry pickets around.
Or maybe the benches are for school students on an excursion.
I vaguely remember going on an excursion to a prison when I was little. It was exciting, I think. The dogs sniffed around my legs as the guards talked us through a day in the life of a prison warden.
I had giggled.
Now, though, that I have a family member detained inside, my sixty-nine-year-old crook-of-a-father, my own Brer Rabbit, it seems in poor taste to flaunt the facility.
That picket on the side of the road says it all, really. The world doesn’t care. If you break the law. You mean nothing. It’s… nauseating. Inhumane.
Crushing my teeth together, I unzip my bag and pull out the three little Sylvanian Families figurines and the grey fencing I brought for the occasion. I run my finger gently down the fur, a twitch of a melancholic smile wants freedom. In my own company, I don’t even feel silly.
I used to do this.
All the time.
I set the fencing up, fluffing the grass around it so it looks natural and overgrown. Like it’s been there for years. I use the pointy bit of the Remand Centre picket to break the dirt beside it and dig a hole. Then, through a long sigh, I place Father Rabbit in the ditch.
A tear rolls down my cheek, but I wipe at it with the back of my hand and keep setting up the prison escape scene.
I put the little girl rabbit on the grass above the hole. Father Rabbit is climbing out, so I position his arms up, reaching for her. He’s in an orange shirt with a pumpkin on the chest. I found that shirt in my Halloween Badger set; I’m not sure if that is the colour my dad will wear, but I sawOrange is the New Blackon Netflix, so…
Then I grab the black-and-white dog from within the silk-lined pocket, placing him on the other side of the fence. He is holding a small plastic chain—I couldn’t find handcuffs, but I did have a small chain from the Sylvanian Families Limited Edition Horse-and-Cart my dad bought me for my ninth birthday. That was in the case, too.
I saved most of my families.
With the prison break set, I pull out my iPhone. I curse my dumb dress and lie with my stomach on the grass, propped up with my elbows so that the remand centre walls are the backdrop. I snap a few pictures from different angles.
The sun cuts across the scene in a really sharp, aggressive way, creating the feel of Father Rabbit’s first encounter with its intensity for many months.
Years.
I flip onto my bum, my fingers sliding over the digital display. Adding my favourite filter,Sierra, first, I double check the account I made when I was five—@SylvanianDiarys—is still set to private, once, twice, and breathe out hard, hitting the post button.
I spelt diaries wrong.
The prison break scene appears on my Instagram feed, andthe chip in my teal-coloured shellac catches my eye as I run my thumb over the new post, then the scene I last staged, which was three years prior, titled: My First Kiss. A little mole and a little rabbit kiss beside a cream-coloured locker.
I never kissed anyone that day. That was the first day of year twelve when I watched Tracy Smith kiss the boy I was crushing on all summer.
My Sylvanians don’t experience my version of events; they experience the better version. The one I want.
A few moments pass before I decide it’s time. I stand, wipe the grass from my backside and stomach, and head toward the remand centre.
Hiding the picket behind a bin by the rear wall, I glance around before walking between the two buildings, through two gates, keen for fifteen minutes ofqualitytime with my dad.
After a guard sits me at an empty table across from a single chair, I place my hands in my lap and wait. The room is empty but for tables and chairs and a little rug with toys.
I stare at the toys, then at my bag with the Sylvanian Father and Daughter Rabbit safely inside.
A smile plays on my lips. This might be the first time—ever—that my dad isn’t pulled away from me. No business meeting. No calls from other women. I wonder why I like that notion. Like that he’s all mine for fifteen minutes—we don’t have to split our time with greedy hands.
It’s not long before my dad walks towards me. He’s not in orange. Instead, he’s in a blue shirt that enhances the smiling ocean-like eyes that settle on me before bouncing expectantly around the large, staged space. “You’re alone, sweetheart. Where is your mother?”
I roll my eyes. “She’s unpacking everything. You know, she has to have everything”—I motion with my hands— “Just. Right. Each meaningless thing, each uncandid portrait set just so. Even in a motel. Oh my God,Dad, you should see it.” I laugh just once. “We all have a different single room with a tiny bathroom. Shower over the bath. Mum’s fussing over everything like normal. Like her stuck-up friends are going to come into our rooms and check the beds are made.”
