The first time Mia learned how to give a kiss, she practiced on everything — her stuffed rabbit, the plastic cup she carried around, even the family dog, who tolerated her slobbery affection with saint-like patience. She was at that age where every discovery was magic, where every new skill felt like a superpower.

But there was one person she wanted to give a kiss to more than anyone.

Her daddy.

And she didn’t understand why, every time she leaned in toward him, all she tasted was cold glass.

A Mistake That Broke More Than One Life

Ryan had been behind bars for fourteen months now — fourteen months of replaying the worst night of his life over and over again. One stupid decision. One night when he was too confident, too careless, too drunk to realize what he was risking.

He didn’t kill anyone. But he easily could have. And that truth ate at him every night.

He wasn’t the kind of man who had spent his life running from consequences. This time, the consequence was unavoidable. He took the plea, accepted the sentence, and told himself he deserved every second of it.

But he hadn’t understood what it meant to lose time.

Time with Mia.

Time he could never earn back.
Time no system could return to him.
Time that had stretched, tightened, and folded around him like a punishment far deeper than any cell.

When he entered prison, Mia was barely walking. She still held onto Jessica’s fingers for balance, her steps tiny and wobbly. She didn’t talk, except for the occasional babble that made no sense but filled their home with warmth.

Now she was speaking.

Now she ran.

Now she understood things.

Except one.

Why her father wouldn’t pick her up when she reached for him.

The Visit That Both Heals and Hurts

Every visiting day, Jessica packed a small bag for Mia — snacks, juice, a picture book she insisted on showing her father every week, as if the story might change somehow. Jessica never missed a visit. She’d made herself a promise the day Ryan was sentenced:

Mia would never be punished for his mistake.

So she came. Rain, shine, exhaustion, busy workdays, tantrums — she came. And Ryan loved her more for it than he had words to express.

But visiting days were also torture.

Because he could see them.
But not touch them.
Hear them.
But not hold them.
Love them.
But not live beside them.

A thick wall of reinforced glass separated him from everything he cared about.

The Hour He Lives For

Just before 2 p.m., he’d take his seat, hands trembling slightly as he picked up the small black phone mounted to the wall. He always arrived early, as if somehow that would allow him to steal extra time.

“Hi, Daddy!”

Those two words — bright, bubbly, squealed into the phone — were enough to unravel him completely. Mia held the receiver too close to her mouth, making her voice crackle with static, but he cherished it. Every sound. Every syllable. Every laugh.

She showed him her shoes.
She showed him the stickers stuck to her shirt.
She pressed her face against the glass to show him her missing baby tooth.
She babbled about a cat she’d seen outside: “Daddy, kitty run fast! Like— fwshhh!”

Ryan laughed every time, then cried after every visit, alone in his cell.

He studied her. Memorized her.
The curve of her cheek.
The new way her hair curled at the bottom.
The tiny birthmark on her chin he hadn’t known about until she pressed her face right against the glass one afternoon.

He memorized her because he feared he might forget something.

And forgetting — even a single detail — felt like failing her all over again.

The Kiss That Never Reaches Him

Every visit ended the same way.

The guard would step forward.
“Time’s up.”

Ryan’s heart always dropped, even though he’d known it was coming.

Jessica lifted Mia gently.
“Give Daddy a kiss, sweet girl.”

And Mia — sweet, innocent, full of love she didn’t yet understand — leaned forward and pressed her small mouth against the glass.

A messy, open-mouth toddler kiss.
A kiss full of joy.
A kiss meant for him.

But it stopped on the cold barrier between them.

Ryan pressed his hand to the spot where her tiny fingers spread against the glass.
Pressed his lips to the place her mouth touched.

It was the closest he was allowed to get.

A kiss that never reached its destination.
A touch that never met skin.
A moment that broke him every week, no matter how much he prepared himself.

And he always whispered the same thing, even though she couldn’t hear it:

“I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

Jessica Saw Everything

Jessica watched him through the glass, watched the way his face crumpled each time Mia reached for him. She saw the guilt in his eyes. The longing. The regret. The love.

She knew she had every reason to be angry at him.
She had every reason to move on.
Every reason to protect her daughter from a man who had made a dangerous choice.

But she also knew the whole story — the man he had been before the mistake, the man he was becoming after it.

She wasn’t excusing him.

But she wasn’t abandoning him either.

Because families aren’t made only for the days when everything is perfect.
Sometimes they’re made stronger in the broken places.

What He Hopes For

When the officers finally led him away, he always took one last look back — at Mia’s tiny hand smudging prints on the glass, at Jessica’s tired smile.

He carried that image into his cell.
Into the long nights.
Into the mornings when shame sat on his chest like a stone.

He promised himself something:

When he got out, he would be the man she believed he already was.

He couldn’t take back the night he’d made that terrible mistake.
He couldn’t undo the hurt.
He couldn’t return the lost time.

But he could make sure the rest of her life wasn’t spent kissing cold glass.

And that thought…
that hope…
that image he replayed every night…

…was the reason he kept going.

**Because some mistakes imprison you.

But some love sets you free.**