I promised Kimmie that wherever she landed, I’d make an effort to bring the kids to see her. It took a little while before she felt ready. I guess adjusting to prison life has challenges I’ll never understand. When she finally called, asking for the long-anticipated visit, Jack and I coordinated our schedules so we both had a Saturday off. Jordan is missing a club climbing event he was looking forward to, but we promised we’d make it up by taking him and a few of his friends from the club to Pilot Mountain in North Carolina for a weekend climb as soon as school let out for the summer.

In the time since Kimmie was sentenced and sent to Fluvanna Women’s Correctional Center, the kids have all had birthdays, they’ve grown several inches each, and our life together as a family has settled into an easy, comfortable routine that feels like its working for everyone. With most of the drama of the last year behind us, I was reluctant to throw this wrench into the works and tell the kids it’s time to drive four hours across the state to go see their mother—in prison.

I didn’t know how they’d react.

Joey was nonplussed by the suggestion. He seemed more excited by the idea of taking a road trip than he was about seeing his mom. Chrissy—per usual—had little to say, except that she wanted to take the photo album from our spring break hike of the Appalachian Trail to show Kimmie, so Kimmie would know Jack and I were doing fun things with them.

Jordan had a little more to say about it. He asked a lot of questions about the place where his mom was, and if there would be guards with guns watching while we were there. He asked if Darryl was there, and when we assured him he wasn’t, he seemed to soften to the idea.

The family visiting room at the prison is roughly as Kimmie said it might be. It’s less like a penitentiary and more like a day care with large windows, colorfully painted walls, some toys stacked in bins for the little kids to play with. There’s just one guard, a heavy-set woman with keys on her belt but no firearm, sitting behind a small desk, mostly ignoring the noisy goings-on.

We’re taken to the visiting room first, before Kimmie is brought in. Jack and I settle the kids at a metal picnic type table by one of the big windows. Outside there’s a bird feeder crowded with competing starlings and robins, all trying to get their share of the meager offerings. The room around us is populated mostly by women; younger ones in prison garb, older ones with children in tow. The kids are like kids everywhere, some distracted, some happy, some withdrawn, some peering around the place cautiously, looking for a chance to escape.

When Kimmie comes in, I’m struck by how much taller she seems to stand. She’s filled out too, like she’s working out. Her skin is clear and bright with no traces of the drug she’s been addicted to for years.

The kids remain stand-offish while she approaches them, smiling awkwardly as she remarks on how much they’ve grown. Joey refuses to leave Jack’s side, fidgeting with his belt all while gazing across the table at his mother, as if he’s trying to find the face in his recollection. He knows he’s supposed to know her, but he can’t quite connect this calm, healthy woman with the fading memory of his rail thin, strung-out mother.

Chrissy is easier. She takes Kimmie’s hand, sitting tall and confident beside her, turning pages in the photo album, narrating every step of our three-day hike in the mountains. Kimmie listens, enraptured, commenting on how steep the climbs appear, how pretty the wildflowers are, how handsome Jordan and Joey are, how strong Chrissy is.

Chrissy’s presentation is obligatory, delivered patiently, as if she’s speaking to a stranger who she wants to put at ease.

It’s an awkward visit. Just as Joey doesn’t seem to know his mother, she regards her own kids as if they’re almost foreign to her. She treats them like they’re fragile, like they might break.

Jordan hangs back, just watching. He says nothing. When the allotted hour of visitation time is almost up, Kimmie gathers herself, addressing Jordan directly.

“You’re so big, and so strong,” she says, smiling weakly. “You look like Dillon, handsome and fierce. I worry so much that I’ve been a bad mom, and you haven’t had a good life because of me.”

He clenches his jaw, unblinking as he regards her. When he finally musters himself to speak, his words gut me.

“Don’t worry about us, Mom,” he says without hesitating. “Dillon and Jack are amazing parents. It’s like we won the lottery. We’ve got it made now. You need to take care of yourself. It looks like you’re doing that here. Me and Chrissy and Joey, we’re doing just fine. Dillon and Jack make sure of that. Every single day. They love us just like we’re their own kids. Maybe even more.”

The drive away from the correctional center, heading west toward home, is solemn. The kids sit in the back in silence, their eyes cast out the windows, quietly taking in the rolling countryside as their brains process the last hour with their mother and her circumstances.

Chrissy grips Joey’s hand, holding it snug in her lap. Jordan is slightly bowed away from his siblings, his shoulders hunched, his face drawn with sadness. My brain flashes back to that first drive we took, bringing them to my house after their parents were arrested and taken away. They were fractured, traumatized, scared to death. Today’s visit has brought a little of that trauma back.

Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. It’s hard to know what the right thing to do is.

All I know for certain is Jordan’s assessment of our little family echoes exactly how I feel. It’s like I’ve won the lottery, and it’s changed everything for the better. There are only a few small things I’d alter to further improve things, and I’ve got a plan in place to do just that.

I glance in the rearview mirror, addressing my glum passengers.

“Who wants burgers, milkshakes, and dinosaurs?” I ask, halfway smiling.

Before we set off I had every idea this visit might result in long faces and pensive moods. I’m going to inject some unexpected, silly entertainment into this day and see if we can bring the kids back to their usual, happy kid selves.

Jordan looks at me full of question, his brow furrowed. Joey pipes up, “Dinosaurs!?” he asks, laughing. “Who’s got dinosaurs?”

“You will, in about fifteen minutes,” I say. “Yankee eating dinosaurs are just up the road.”

If Dinosaur Kingdom isn’t Virginia’s weirdest roadside distraction, it’s certainly its most absurd one. It’s a park, complete with a path through the woods made up like a Civil War battlefield, populated with life size, cartoonish representations of (mostly) Union soldiers in blue uniforms, their tortured bodies caught in the razor-sharp teeth and jaws of surprisingly realistic fiberglass dinosaurs.

The dinosaurs are all brightly painted and ferocious looking. The best part, of course, is that they’re huge, and they’re designed so kids can climb and play on them.

The kids are awestruck with the dinosaurs, and the crazy images of 19^th century soldiers being eaten by them. Chrissy and Joey instantly climb on the back of a brontosaurus, while Jordan finds the tallest of the artificial beasts, scaling his legs, finding handholds and footholds, making his way up the neck of the thing.

In being Saturday, the park is well-populated with plenty of other kids. Soon, they’re all running around together, wandering through the couple acres of amusement park, exploring, finding trenches with fake nesting dinosaurs feeding bits of fake soldiers to their young.

The whole place is slightly macabre and fun, in a completely absurd, over-the-top sort of way. It’s a place for kids, but I’ve got a plan for Jack and me too; lunch and our first chance at grown-up conversation in many days.

“Let’s go get a brontosaurus cheese burger at the Jurassic Café,” I suggest to Jack.

He gives me a look; two-parts amused, one-part disbelief, that I’ve brought him to this place.

I flash my brightest grin. “Admit it, you’d have loved this place when you were a kid. It’s so stupid, it’s fun.”

The café offers typical roadside tourist food, burgers and fries, chicken salad and Cole slaw, but everything is themed to the place (just like a Disney cruise, but way lower-rent.)

Chicken salad is ‘creamed velociraptor.’ Fries are ‘triceratops spines.’ We order a couple of brontosaurus cheese burgers with ‘rainforest foliage’ on the side (lettuce and tomato,) triceratops spines, and a couple of sweet iced teas to drink. Dining is outside, under a Flintstones style shelter complete with a statue of a bipedal dinosaur in a red wig, wearing an apron, serving food from a tray. She’s even wearing lipstick.

Jack gives her a sideways glance before observing, “You take me to the nicest places.”

“Yeah,” I agree, diving into my burger, popping a greasy, salty fry in my mouth. “Speaking of that, we’ve both earned some vacation. We should start thinking about what we want to do next. But before we talk about that, I wanted to run something else by you, to see what you think.”

I’ve been trying to screw up my courage to have this conversation for a long time now. I think I’ve hesitated because things have been going so well, I was afraid to rock the boat. But after what Jordan said at the prison today—about me and Jack being the kids’ parents—I just can’t put this off any longer.

“What I think about what?” Jack asks, biting into his burger.

“I think we need to get a bigger house,” I say. “Something with more bedrooms, so all the kids can have their own.”

Jack nods. He doesn’t seem surprised. “Makes sense,” he says. “Chrissy and Joey can’t share a room forever.”

“No,” I agree. “And it would be great if you and I had a little more space to spread out in. A real master bedroom with dual closets and two sinks, so we’re not crowding each other so much, and you have room for all your stuff.”

Jack pauses, peering up at me, mid-bite. “Am I crowding you?” he asks.

I shake my head. “No, baby,” I say. “But you keep your t-shirts in a Rubbermaid bin under the stairs, and you leave your work boots in your car because you think there’s no room for them. I want you to have all the space you need. It’s our home.”

He seems taken aback by this, but I still haven’t told him everything I’ve been thinking.

“Millie has her place in Florida up for sale, and she’s been looking at property here, but I was thinking—if you like the idea—we might find some place that has one of those mother-in-law suites attached, or maybe an apartment with a separate entrance? She wants to be here to be close to you and so she can help with the kids, so why not all of us throw in together? We could start our own little compound, kind of like the one I grew up with out at Uncle Charlie’s.”

Jack puts down his burger, his eyes wide, shocked.

“Are you for real?” he asks. “That’s um… that’s a really big—”

“There’s another thing,” I say, interrupting. “I’m also hoping that along with a new place, and maybe Millie joining us, you’ll also marry me?”

Jack stares at me a second, the color rising to his face.

“What? What… did you say?” he asks, stunned.

I put my burger down, reach out and take his free hand in mine.

“Marry me,” I repeat, fixing Jack’s gaze in mine. “I love you so much. You’re the single best thing that’s ever happened to me, and you’ve been the best partner I could ever conjure in my wildest dreams. Let’s make this official, with rings, and promises, and flowers, a fancy honeymoon somewhere. And then we’ll come home, file the adoption papers, and give our kids our last names. What do you say?”

He never expected this.

Not now. Not here at Dinosaur World in the middle of no-fucking-where, Virginia. Not after the day we’ve had. Not over brontosaurus burgers and triceratops spines with sweet tea.

“Yeah,” Jack replies after an interminably long time trying to put it all together in his head. “Of course.” He breaks out in a big, sappy, ear-to-ear grin, tears coming to his eyes, his cheeks flushed pink. “Of course, I’ll marry you!”

“What?!”

Jack and I turn in unison toward the exclaiming voice. Jordan stands, stopped in his tracks ten paces from us, his eyes wide, a glowing smile spreading across his face. “You guys are getting married?!”

I smile back, nodding. “Yep,” I say, squeezing Jack’s hand, drawing it across the table, kissing his knuckles. “Am I lucky, or what?”

Jordan walks forward, regarding us both with curious circumspection. Then he frowns, shaking his head disapprovingly.

“But Uncle Dillon, you didn’t do it right. You’re supposed to have a ring and get down on your knee. All you did was buy Jack a hamburger. That’s not romantic at all.”

I can’t help but laugh. Jack laughs too.

“I’ll have you know, that’s a brontosaurus cheeseburger,” I state dramatically. “That shit right there is the stuff of legends. You’re gonna tell your grandchildren about it.”

Jack waves Jordan over. “Come here,” he says, moving his basket of burger and fries toward Jordan. “Try that and tell me that’s not the best burger you’ve ever had.”

Jordan takes a bite, chews, then smiles.

“That’s a pretty good burger,” he admits, glancing at me. “But you still need to get a ring to make it official. I don’t care how great a burger it is. Right now, you’re just coming off as cheap.”

He backs up, then turns toward the park where his brother and sister are still playing. “Just wait ‘till I tell them,” he calls back, still grinning from ear-to-ear. “They’re gonna freak!”