I was 12 when Mum went to prison. Instead of crying, I threw myself into planning everything we’d do once she came back. The plan looked something like this: shopping for cute dresses at Westfield, getting sushi afterwards, discussing the latest episodes of McLeod’s Daughters … times a hundred. We’d never really had that many opportunities to do those things before – too much bad stuff had happened in the lead-up to her going to jail – but I told myself we’d make up for lost time once this chapter ended.

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Mum walked free shortly after my 18th birthday. Our first meeting took place at a beach in Sydney.

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“We should get a photo together,” was the first thing she said.

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We got two. In both of them, we stood shoulder to shoulder but didn’t touch, like two strangers politely sharing a frame. Then we briefly talked about coffee prices, what my degree at the University of Melbourne was about and how she would get back home that evening. An hour later, the reunion was over. That’s when I cried. In fact, by the time my plane landed at Tullamarine, I had no more tears left inside of me.

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How could the woman on the beach be my mother if I didn’t recognise her at all? And, to make matters worse, I couldn’t shake the feeling that she hadn’t been all that happy to see me. Where was the cinematic, tear-jerking reunion I’d replayed in my head so many times?

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A few months later, Mum took the bus down to visit. Apparently, just booking the ticket had taken her weeks of planning. She seemed nervous. My heart swelled with hope – was this the moment when everything would finally feel okay? The next day, we went to Westfield, just like I’d dreamed we would. When Mum suggested we go look at some dresses, I put my arm around her waist like I’d seen other daughters do. In the store, she picked out a pink, ankle-length dress with a floral print for me.

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“That’s not really my style,” I said.

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“You used to like pink,” she responded, burying her nose in her phone, cheeks flushing.

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A few minutes passed. “Can’t you just ask me what I like?” I finally snapped.

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She flinched, but I pretended not to notice. It all went downhill from there.

It took me years to understand what had really scared Mum about coming to Melbourne. Turns out, we were both waiting for a version of each other that didn’t exist.

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When a parent goes to prison, the love you feel for them doesn’t go anywhere. At the same time, incarceration is a weird in-between: you’re both alive, but showing up for life’s big moments takes a lot of extra effort. As a child, it’s hard to understand that there is a limited amount of phone calls an inmate is allowed to make per week or that, sometimes, people get so deeply sad in prison they can’t bring themselves to call at all. Inevitably, you wait to be compensated for all those lost moments.

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You think that, after they’re released, your parent will be the same as before. Except now their whole life will revolve around you.

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The truth is, after Mum’s release, I couldn’t let go of the version of her I’d created in my head. And, when she failed to live up to that version, I punished her for it.

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Years later, once I’d made sense of everything I felt, I was finally able to see her, not just as my mother but as the layered, imperfect, extraordinary person she was.

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I understood just how much she had been learning to do again and how much she was doing for the very first time. I understood how incredible it was that she rebuilt her life after prison, with no one and nothing to fall back on.

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And I also accepted that my own reactions, however ugly, were also deeply human: none of us are given manuals on how to deal with stuff like this. Unfortunately, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of thinking the trauma you carry around as the child of an incarcerated parent will go away on its own the moment the parent is released. The best thing you can do for yourself is start the work of healing on your own terms.    

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Despite all our attempts at having a relationship, Mum and I don’t speak anymore. Maybe one day we’ll find our way back to each other. And, if that day ever comes, I hope we can offer each other just one thing: the mercy of no expectations.