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I fish my wallet out, and then my ID, and hand that over to Garza after he passes everything over to the scowling security guard. We go back to the check-in counter, and Garza types away at the computer, before handing over a visitor’s badge that I pin on my shirt. “The area that your father is being kept in is lower security. No guards, just orderlies. But the orderlies will intervene if they need to.”
I know what he means when he says that. ‘If they need to’means if my father decides he needs to try to kill me again. I’m sure they feel that his anger is focused on me, and they’re concerned he might relapse.
I nod, not bothering to tell him I’m not worried about him physically attacking me. No, I’m more concerned he’ll try to hex me, which the protections from Cohen and the Consequences should take care of.
Garza comes back around, and guides me back to the security desk, where I’m given back my bag and my box of donuts, and then Garza is ushering me through the locked door and into the facility.
My fingers tighten on the box. My heart beats faster, almost painfully so, while my stomach decides it’s a good time to do somersaults. The last thing I need right now is to have a panic attack. So I focus on my breathing, focus on pulling in air through my nose and pushing it out of my mouth. It helps, but my chest still feels tight as Garza guides me down a long hall with white walls and dark wood floors, a thick red runner extends the length of the corridor and brings a sense of luxury that I wouldn’t expect from a facility for the criminally insane.
But then, as Garza had said, this is the minimum security section, so maybe they’re given more comforts than in the maximum security ones. Like carpet.
Garza is chatting happily about all the things available to the inmates, a library, a gym, an extensive garden and an arts and crafts room. “Your father spends most of his time in the art room. He’s a drawer, did you know that?” He looks at me, but doesn’t wait for an answer. “The scenes he creates are amazing, things of fantasy. If he ever decides to leave, I’m certain he’d make a killing as an illustrator.”
I don’t recall my father ever drawing before, not really. I mean, he used to sit at the kitchen table with me and doodle or color, but that was more like a father spending time with his daughter than anything close to being an illustrator.
The employee takes a left and then a right, and my panicky brain makes a note of those turns, just in case something goes terribly, terribly wrong. The last thing I want is to get lost if I have to make a run for it.
Though I suspect if it comes to that, one call to Kohaku would have him sweeping in to gather me up and save me.
We come to a stop outside a set of double French doors, glass and white, and through the windows I can see what is clearly an art room. There are a few tables grouped in the center and a few inmates—patients—are at them, paper and markers and glitter and glue spread out in front of them. There’s a wall full of cabinets and a long counter with a sink, used paint brushes, washed and drying scattered about. Near the wall of windows, there are a few easels set up.
And there, sitting in the far corner, in an armchair, is a man with gray hair and hazel eyes that match my own. He’s wearing a maroon cardigan over a gray t-shirt and chinos. Looking not at all like the patient or prisoner I’d expected. He’s looking down at the sketchpad on his lap. Garza and I linger in the door and I watch as he makes a few more lines on his drawing and then he looks up.
Right at me.
Chapter 20
My heart, already running rampant in my chest, does a flip, stutters, and then picks up a double beat. He stares at me, almost expressionless for a full minute, while Garza looks between the two of us, shifting on his feet with excited energy.
“Are you ready?” he asks me in a voice that is far too enthusiastic for my tastes, given that this is the first time I’ve seen my father for years. Literalyears. Almost half of my life.
But this is what I came here for. I’m here to see him, to talk to him, to get answers. A nudge at my mind draws my attention. I don’t know if it’s Kohaku or one of the guys, but it feels soothing, calming, letting me know that they’re with me.
I take a deep breath and nod. “Yes,” I breathe out, not taking my eyes off my father. He also hasn’t looked away from me. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t blinked once since he laid eyes on me.
His unnatural stillness as Garza pushes the door open and leads me in makes a chill run down my spine. This is not what I’d expected. I hadn’t thought he would just sit there, watching me walk toward him with zero expression on his face. I’d expected some emotion, happiness, sadness, guilt, anger…something.
Garza and I stop next to him, and my father doesn’t look away from me as the orderly says, “You’ve got a visitor, Max.”
My father’s lips thin even more at the announcement, and then he nods slowly in acknowledgement. Garza looks between the two of us, like he’s expecting something, but whatever it is, he doesn’t get it. He sighs and then drags a small table over, followed by another chair. For me, I presume.
I look away from my dad long enough to slide the pink box on the table and settle into the chair as Garza still hovers, eagerly waiting for the fireworks he’d expected. I look up at him. “Thank you, Garza. If I need anything, I’ll let you know.”
It’s a dismissal, but the man doesn’t seem to understand it, lingering until my father’s expression finally changes and he glares up at him. “Leave,” he hisses in a voice that sounds nothing like the man I remember.
Garza blinks, ducks his head and hurries away, leaving me and the man who nearly killed me alone.
I settle back in my chair, and he does the same on his side of that little table. The sketch pad he’s been drawing on lays face down on his lap, his fingers stained with charcoal. I can feel him looking at me, feel his perusal, taking in the changes wrought over the last ten years, in the same way that I am with him.
He has more lines on his face than I remember. His hair is totally gray, no longer dark brown. He has a pair of glasses perched on his nose, and stubble on his cheeks. He looks older, but not… worse. Not like I would expect someone to look after being incarcerated for ten years.
There’s a tattoo I don’t remember on his left arm, of a tiger and a wolf fighting, sharp teeth and open mouths.
His hazel eyes are the same, except for the lack of emotion.
Maybe they have him on some kind of medication that does that? That removes his feelings.
Fuck.
