On Thursday we sat in the Visitor’s Centre of the Dame Phyllis Frost Maximum Security Prison and waited for E. Decorated for Christmas, the room was slightly less roadside cafeteria-like than usual. The decorations were strange hand-knitted and painted numbers. Their festivity was in direct relationship to their lopsidedness. We sit, Louisa and I, and watch the prisoners and their visitors every second Thursday. We watch the strained relations as kids hit out, punishing their mums for absence, or cling desperately to their oh-so-brief allocated time, their every move watched over by DHS staff.

The women have to wear green coveralls, a one-size-fits-all variety, that are fastened with zip-ties and have long lycra cuffs at the ankles and wrists to prevent drugs or other contraband being smuggled in. They don’t fit all and when E. arrives, looking unexpectedly glum, she has to pull at the neck of hers to stop herself choking. She will probably be searched for that action, if the lingering guards catch her. Her face was puffy and swollen, blood in the corner of her mouth from an emergency tooth extraction.

We had been anticipating her to be exuberant. She is due for release in two days and we are here to discuss our arrangements for her collection. Instead her sad face compelled us to rise and hug her, and to sit close on the couch, bookending her with concern. We like E. She is a sweet, round-faced girl who, at twenty two years of age, has been in prison for the bulk of the last four years, something that has both aged her, but simultaneously rendered her child-like.

She once spotted five bucks floating out of the pocket of my dress. Her eyes lit up at the unusual sight of money (they don’t have actual currency in jail, but operate on a credit system). ‘Can you buy me a can of Coke?’ she asked eagerly. And then, when the Coke was finished, she imparted the very sideways teenage request of ‘I really like chocolate’. I bought her a bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk, which she savoured while she told us the ins and outs of jail life and her concerns about leaving the safety of her cell to go home.

Her past is a bit obscure but I do know that she has been in and out of care since she was twelve and that she has had the same boyfriend since she was thirteen. He is serving a sentence in the Men’s prison and they maintain their relationship via phone and letters. An inmate who happens to be a fortuneteller predicts she will be pregnant by next year and I probe into how she feels about having a baby with her boyfriend. She seems too young and the topic moves on quickly but I guess by the shine on her face that she would be secretly pleased.

She is currently incarcerated for breaking her probation but her original crime was holding up a service station. Wasted on Xanax, a drug used to treat anxiety and sleeplessness, she remembers nothing of the incident. Her recollection of the incident only starts when she woke in the police station. Short-term memory loss is a common side effect of taking too many Xannies, a drug that is over prescribed and overused on the streets. Cheap, readily available and causing inhibitions to be thrown to wind, they are a disaster waiting to happen for people living on the shadowy borders of acceptable social behaviour.

Come Saturday and I tumble out of bed before daybreak. We arrive at the jail as the sun is rising over the barbed wire buildings. While we wait I photograph. I photograph a pair of brothers who are also waiting (for their mum as it turns out), and I take a photograph of Louisa silhouetted by the sunrise, but mostly I aim the camera at the door, waiting. I want to capture the moment she bursts out, beaming with the joy of release, but my plans are intercepted by a pair of good-looking young guards who saunter out and make me put my cameras away and delete the frames I have already taken.

I give in to a moment of frustration, but as not photographing is the accepted protocol, I focus on just being there. The sight of the mum walking out of the prison with a guard twangs my resolve. She is looking for her sons who have retreated to their car. The sun stretches the shadow of her high-high-heeled boots towards us as we lean on the chain link fence. I cringe, wanting desperately to capture the moment, the photograph perfect in my mind. Instead I yell out, as they stand confused, that her kids are that-a-way. She thanks me and they have a reunion behind us, hugging and kissing. She tucks under one of their arms and they leave.

Still we wait, the sun creeping higher and higher in the sky. Then she makes her entrance, a shock in her civvies, and we rush to hug her, repeating the greeting we have just witnessed. She grins widely for the camera from back seat, smiling, happy to be free. First stop ciggies, then Maccas and coffee. She is unsure at the counter, trying to order yet feeling like she doesn’t know how. We reassure her that she’s doing great but I hesitate to photograph as much as I’d like to because I can see it’s adding to her distress at dealing with the transaction in the service station.

She feels looked at and judged, disjointed and weird. I once did a ten-day silent retreat and when it was over I went to get some things from the supermarket. So overwhelmed by the noise and the chaos and the process of choosing and paying once I got there, that I turned on my heel and decided to go hungry rather than face it. After four years of jail I can’t even imagine how strange the world must seem. Particularly if you have become used to having the decisions made for you, rather than making them for yourself.

The first challenge over E. chirps at us from the backseat while drinking eating and smoking almost all at once. She told us how her friends had covered her in eggs and flour the day before, a kind celebration of her graduation from jail. She gives herself heartburn scoffing her bacon and egg roll. Her glee is mixed with trepidation, but as we drive through the sunshine the car buzzes with excitement. She is going home. First, to her sister’s house because she wants to surprise her with a wake up. I can understand. I would choose to go to my sister’s first too.

It’s an ordinary suburban home, the number written on the letterbox with a permanent marker. She tumbles out of the car, legs giddy under the weight of having arrived, and yells through the window of the house. Another reunion in a morning jam-packed with them. This one is my favourite. They hug, a light and dark reflection of each other. But I can see her baby sister has turned into an adult while she has been in prison. E. is going to struggle with a rearranged family dynamic; another component to a difficult transition.

And it’s going to be the hardest thing she has done (and she has done it hard), to keep focused on staying out and making something of her life, placing her feet on the floor each morning and taking on another arduous day. She let down her hair on the way home, and told me as I leaned back to look at her, ‘I have beautiful hair. It’s really thick and glossy and beautiful.’ ‘It is,’ I told her. ‘It is really beautiful.’ I looked at her framed with her beautiful hair, her face adult and terribly young at the same time, and hoped she finds her place. It’s all there is to do.