[ART: SARA ARIEL WONG/CALIFORNIA]

Maria Williams is a single mother of four: oldest boy Anthony, Montell, Kevin, and youngest Ke’Juan. The last three sons were born a year a part; there’s a two-year gap between the first born and the second. The boys were young together. They were teenage, when it happened.

This was February 2009. Williams’ GED testing finished up early so she thought why not volunteer again at her youngest boy’s school, South Wayne Elementary, across the street.

The students called her Ms. Jones because of her boy’s last name. And Ms. Jones was told that a bully was going to beat up Ke’Juan, age 11, at recess. She told him to go to the library instead, but he wanted his mom to join in the kickball game. She gave in.

Outside…while Williams was distracted, the bully pushed Ke’Juan down; he was stomping the boy’s head on the cement. Mom broke it up, and the bully blamed the no-blood scratch on his face, not on Ke’Juan who admitted to it, but on Williams who was arrested. The judge and others called her a child beater.

Her court-appointed attorney said the bully had told the truth. But Williams was still sent to Rockville Correctional Facility in Rockville, IN, wrongfully convicted, for two and half years (two years, do only one) for felony battery, “all because I tried and protect my son.”

Williams cried every night in prison, blamed herself. “If I wasn’t the good parent that I am, I wouldn’t have been in that situation,” she thought. And “I kept thinking, I should have just hit him, to be honest, if I was going to be charged for something I didn’t do. It just messed me up mentally.”

She left her kids behind, without knowing how they were being treated. Her four sons stayed with their father. “But mother is better.”

There was a support group of mothers in prison, some were doing ten years, more were hooked on drugs, and not all of them spoke about their children. Williams did. “We just all got together as mothers and did what we had to do, to go home,” she said.

Phone calls were intermittent and not enough; letters weren’t sent enough. Two of her sons ran away because they didn’t want to live with their father and follow his rules. The boys’ father couldn’t drive on the highway so Williams didn’t see her children until she was work-released seven months later.

Her father, Elbert, who worked for Indiana/Michigan Power, was her “big, big support. He helped me make it through. ‘Just think about it this time next year, you won’t be there’.”

Lula, her mom, was stay-at-home with 11 children (10 now). Maria didn’t like to babysit all of those kids, so she ran away a couple of times, got caught, and was sent to Indiana Girl’s School at age 16. After her release, she straightened up.

Williams had Anthony after graduating high school, after she was told by a doc she couldn’t have any children because she was so small. When she had Ke’Juan early at eight months, his little heart stopped beating and an emergency c-section was done “so I felt everything,” Williams said. Technically, she died and was revived. “But I knew it wasn’t my time, I had to raise the boys.” This was 1997.

It was her and the boys, with little support. The assistance she received for her children (one was severely asthmatic, and another was learning disabled) made it possible for her to be a full-time mom,. She stayed at other folks’ homes with four crazy-legged boys, then a small apartment, and then the house she lost when that boy lied on her.

The gospel song, “Never Would Have Made It,” kept coming on the radio, got her through.

After doing her nine months (and six months of house arrest), she moved into her brother’s living room with her sons. The family was split, but they came back together, close again.

Ke’Juan blamed himself, other folks blamed him, for what happened. He tried the drug Spice and almost died. Now he has seizures, up to seven a day. Maybe the drug-try was his way of coping, she said. “We have to learn to forgive and not forget. We just have to let it go.”

Before prison, Williams described herself as having a cloud over her. She was unmotivated, to say the least. “But look at momma now,” she said. “I got a job. I’m doing good. I’m proud of myself.” She described herself as outgoing.

Elbert saw his daughter come home before dying of cancer some years back. It was a good reunion. He asked her not to go back to prison. He called her Pumpkin when he did.

Sara Wong’s work can be found at SaraArielWong.com.

Maria Williams with sons, after her release [PHOTO: COURTESY]