Chương 15
“What was in it?”
“Mostly the same things as the tape. Less organized.”
“Did you ask me to visit?”
“Yes.”
Ryan rubbed his jaw.
“Why only once?”
Daniel looked down.
“Because no answer is an answer after a while.”
“It wasn’t my answer.”
“I know that now.”
Ryan remembered Walter saying Daniel’s letters stopped six years ago.
The timing fit.
“You stopped writing Walter after that.”
Daniel looked surprised.
“You know a lot.”
“People finally got talkative.”
Daniel smiled faintly.
“Twenty-three years late.”
“Yeah.”
Ryan leaned forward.
“Why did you attack the inmate?”
Daniel’s face closed.
There.
A boundary.
Ryan recognized it.
Not from Daniel.
From himself.
“What happened?”
Daniel looked toward the correctional officer.
“He was running a debt thing.”
“What does that mean?”
“Gambling. Food. Phone access.”
“And?”
“I got involved.”
“How?”
Daniel did not answer.
Ryan felt disappointment arrive before the facts.
“You weren’t defending someone.”
Daniel met his eyes.
“No.”
“You owed money?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
“And you attacked him?”
“He attacked me first.”
Ryan stared.
Daniel sighed.
“I went to his unit to threaten him.”
“So you started it.”
“Yes.”
“And that added time.”
“Yes.”
Ryan leaned back.
For years, part of him had imagined the surviving father as trapped by circumstance.
Now circumstance kept shrinking.
Choice remained.
Daniel said, “You look angry.”
Ryan almost laughed.
“You think?”
“Fair.”
Ryan stared at him.
“Do you know what the worst part is?”
Daniel waited.
“I came here wanting one thing I could use.”
Daniel’s face tightened.
“Use for what?”
“To decide.”
“Decide what?”
“Whether I hated you.”
Daniel looked down.
Ryan continued.
“But every answer is mixed.”
Daniel nodded slowly.
“People usually are.”
“Don’t give me wisdom.”
“Sorry.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
Ryan rubbed his eyes.
“I wanted Mom to be wrong about something important.”
Daniel said nothing.
“I wanted Walter to be wrong.”
Still nothing.
“I wanted you to have a reason.”
Daniel’s voice was quiet.
“I had reasons.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.”
Ryan looked at him.
For the first time, he saw no defense.
No tape.
No carefully written letter.
Just an older man in prison clothes.
“What do you want from me?”
Daniel swallowed.
“Another visit.”
Ryan felt anger again.
Daniel lifted a hand slightly.
“You asked.”
“Anything else?”
“No money.”
“I wasn’t offering.”
“I know.”
Daniel looked embarrassed.
“I’d like to know what you do.”
Ryan gave a short laugh.
“Walter didn’t tell you?”
“We haven’t talked in twelve years.”
“I’m a carpenter.”
Daniel smiled.
“Of course you are.”
Ryan’s face hardened.
Daniel’s smile vanished.
“Sorry.”
“I’m not your continuation.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Daniel took that.
Ryan asked, “Did you want me to be like you?”
“No.”
“Then why the box?”
Daniel looked toward the wall.
“I wanted you to know I existed.”
“That’s selfish.”
“Yes.”
Ryan waited.
Daniel added, “I also wanted you to know you weren’t why I left.”
Ryan’s throat tightened.
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
Ryan looked away.
There it was.
The oldest question.
The one he claimed he had stopped asking.
Daniel leaned forward.
“You weren’t even born when I became the man your mother had to leave.”
Ryan stared at him.
“You don’t get to make me feel better.”
“I’m not trying to.”
“You are.”
“Okay.”
Daniel sat back.
Ryan took a breath.
“Walter says he fixed the roof.”
Daniel stared.
Then he laughed.
The sound came out rough and surprised.
“He finally did?”
“Yeah.”
Daniel shook his head.
“Twenty-five years.”
Ryan almost smiled.
“Apparently.”
They spoke for another hour.
Nothing changed completely.
That mattered.
Daniel asked about school.
Ryan told him he hated algebra.
Daniel said he did too.
Ryan resented the similarity and admitted it.
Daniel laughed.
Ryan told him about Mark.
About work.
About his truck.
Not about girlfriends.
Not about everything.
He did not owe everything.
At the end, Daniel said, “Will you come back?”
Ryan stood.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel nodded.
“That’s fair.”
Ryan looked at him.
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“No guilt.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
Then he smiled sadly.
“I’ll try.”
Ryan left.
In the parking lot, he sat in his truck for twenty minutes without starting it.
He did not cry.
He thought he might.
Nothing came.
Eventually he called his mother.
She answered on the first ring.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
A pause.
“How was he?”
Ryan looked at the prison buildings through the windshield.
“Old.”
His mother laughed once.
It turned into a sound that was almost crying.
Ryan leaned his head against the seat.
“He said he wrote me when I was eighteen.”
Silence.
There.
Ryan closed his eyes.
“You got it.”
“Yes.”
His anger returned, cleaner than before.
“What did you do?”
“I burned it.”
Ryan gripped the steering wheel.
“Why?”
“I was afraid.”
“You had no right.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that now.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying it.”
She went quiet.
Ryan breathed through his nose.
A younger version of himself would have hung up.
Maybe thrown the phone.
He could feel the impulse.
Instead he said, “I’m angry enough that I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Okay.”
“So I’m not going to.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll call when I get home.”
“All right.”
He ended the call.
Then he sat for another five minutes.
Not forgiving her.
Not punishing her.
Just refusing to make the next decision while angry.
On the drive back, he stopped at a roadside diner.
He ordered coffee and pie.
The pie was terrible.
He ate half anyway.
A family in the booth behind him argued about whether to visit a museum.
A toddler dropped a spoon four times.
Ryan stared out the window at trucks moving along the interstate.
He had expected meeting his father to change his life immediately.
Instead he still needed gas.
His back hurt.
He had work Monday.
His mother had lied.
His father had hurt people.
Walter had helped crimes happen and then helped prosecute them.
No revelation had made any of them simple.
May you like
The world continued.
That was almost comforting.
