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When I got older, I even wrote to the Innocence Project, but they got flooded with thousands of letters a year. They only had the bandwidth to take on one percent of the cases, which meant ninety-nine percent of the desperate pleas for help went unanswered. Including ours.
Mom had long given up by that point, accepting the injustice. She disapproved of me dedicating all of my time to my father’s case, telling me I was being foolish and wasting my life, chasing false hope. Which created a strain in the relationship between my mother and me.
“Are you seeing anyone?” he asked.
“Dad…”
“I worry about you. You dedicate every waking hour to this case, and it’s not healthy.”
“Sitting in a prison cell isn’t healthy.”
“No father would ever want to sentence his daughter to this kind of life. You need to make friends, Luna. Date. Go to clubs, whatever it is young people do these days. I don’t want you to wind up alone because of this.”
He’d been trying to convince me to give up on him for a long time now.
“I’m fine, Dad.” How could I move on with my life while my father rotted in prison? I couldn’t ever truly be happy unless his wrongful conviction was overturned.
“I know how expensive that private investigator was that you hired.”
“Dad…”
“He didn’t find anything new.”
“That’s not true. He made a list of next steps. Like hiring a second medical examiner to review the autopsy.”
“And how much will that cost, Luna?”
“You let me worry about that.”
My dad frowned. “Please, for my sake, just let this go. It’s been almost twenty years.”
“Only two of which I’ve been a lawyer,” I reminded him. “I believe we can demonstrate that your original representation was inadequate, Dad. There were some procedural things your public defender should have done differently. Please be patient and trust me.”
My cell phone buzzed. I almost didn’t look at it, heartbroken by my dad’s hopelessness, by his lack of excitement that things had finally been put into motion. But when I did check it, my heart started racing.
“Oh my God.” I smiled. “Dad. I need to get you a suit.”
I turned my phone to show him the email.
“The judge has set a date for our hearing.”
“Does that mean he granted it?” Dad asked.
Did he not listen to any of our prior conversations?
“When you file a writ of habeas corpus, they schedule a hearing. You and I will stand before the judge, and he’ll rule on the motion then.” If he declined it, it’d be game over. “If he approves it, we begin the process of requesting a new trial.” Which was another step. “Point is”—I smiled—“the hearing for the habeas corpus is actually on the calendar.”
“Time’s up.” A guard tapped my dad’s shoulder.
Hot tears threatened to spill, the familiar pang of separation clutching at my heart, as it did every time we said goodbye. I wanted so badly to bring him home to a warm bed, and a homemade meal with me. Not let him go back to suffering in a concrete cell with bars.
“I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, sweetie.”
His smile, tinged with sadness, lingered in the air as he shuffled toward the imposing steel door. Its deafening bang echoed the finality of our parting.
Every departure was a jarring reminder of the reality we’d been thrust into. A reality where a cold, unyielding gate stood between a father and his daughter.
