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When Carl's mum comes to visit him, he's both glad and torn to bits. He feels like the tissues she renders into flakes as she speaks, even while he assures her that he's fine, just fine, the food isn't too terrible, and he's been playing his guitar. Talking about his guitar means he talks about Pete. Funnily, Carl doesn't realize until then, gesturing with his free hand, just how much Peter has become the one thing that's making his incarceration bearable.
"We've been writing songs, Mum. They're good, really good. I think after, maybe, we could do some gigs, him and me."
His mother nods, still composting her tears between her fingers. "I'm glad you have a friend, Carlos." To his ear it sounds like the last thing she is is glad. Honestly, he can't blame her, friends made in prison shouldn't be the kind you keep afterwards.
Still, Carl wishes there wasn't this glass between them. He wants to take her hands, squeezing them between his fingers and palm. He wants to explain how Pete feeds him more than lyrics, how he gives Pete more than the shape of the chords under his fingers. He wants to tell her how Pete offers him comfort and a small measure of humanity in this place wshere it's all deliberately stripped away. But all the coaxing from Pete, all of his drawing out of the poetic words Carl has no idea he had in him, all fail at this critical instant. All he can manage is to press his palm up against the thick glass that separates them, and do his best not to cry himself, not until she's safely away, and he can soak single ply toilet paper with his longing.