Page 8 of This I Know
I reach the entrance and I pull over. I lean across the steering wheel.
“Shit,” I whisper.
Everything looks exactly the same. The compound is huge, and to get to the parking lot I’ll need to wind my way back through an expanse of trees and gates and checkpoints and driveway. The building is visible in the distance – that’s the detention center. It’s a brown brick building, long and flat and hidden behind hazy layers of razor wire.
Can I really do this again?
Maybe this was a worse idea than I thought. Hell, I’m sure it is. This is going to suck. But here I am. I’m doing this for me, to gain some kind of closure, even though a mere day has passed since everything happened. If it has to go down at all, I want it to go down like this. To get it out of the way, try to figure out why he did what he did so I can just enroll in the therapy, or whatever it is I’m supposed to do to reverse all the damage this guy’s done to me. Then forget him and get on with my life.
I shift my truck back into drive and make my way toward the entrance. As I pull into a parking spot, my hands start to shake against the steering wheel. I clench and unclench my fists over and over in an attempt to relax. I take a deep breath, and then reach to the seat beside me and grab that food. I try to eat some of my makeshift breakfast, those Poptarts my mom gave me, but I can’t stomach more than a few bites, so I shove the rest in my backpack. I zip it up and leave it resting on floor of the passenger’s side and then, without thinking, I head inside.
The entire compound is huge, and the building I’m entering is no exception. I remember how it scared me before, when I felt so young, but now it just makes me depressed as shit.
I try to keep up that non-thinking thing and enter the building. I submit to the search, and a heavyset guard, her hair in a tight ponytail and tattoos running own her thick arm, holds her hand out for my phone without a word. I knew this was coming; I’d already prepared myself for the mental loss of such a lifeline. I place the phone in her hand, along with my keys and wallet. I purposefully didn’t bring anything else with me.
Once the quick pat-down and metal detector routine is done, the same guard leads me to the waiting area. When we arrive, she holds her arm out in yet another lazy message. She hasn’t said one word. Judging by her worn expression, if she had to open her mouth to say something to me, I bet it’d be something pissy, something along the lines ofTake a seat … bitch.
“I’ll just take a seat,” I say to her.
She walks away.
The seat I take is a good distance away from anyone else, which isn’t hard to do; there are only a few other people here, and most of them look like they want to mind their own business, too, putting on a strange resemblance to the grumpy guard.
I sit with my arms crossed and my head down, waiting to be called. I slide my eyes to the right. There are a few small families, bundled together with a mother trying to keep her children occupied. No one’s talking, but I wish they would. It’s not like it’s forbidden, for crying out loud. This isn’t a goddamn library, and it would sure help ease the tension in here.
An officer eyes me from behind his desk, glaring up. I sink a little lower. Okay, maybe I get it.
After a few minutes, I hear my name. “Harrington.”
I stand and I’m greeted by another officer, this one a man holding a clipboard and a buzzing walkie-talkie-style radio.
“Come with me,” he says.
I walk through the series of thick metal doors, exactly as I’m directed. The guard I’m following is yet another burly one, stone-faced and unfriendly, who soon mindlessly gestures for me to take a seat. The déjà vu hits me. God, this place hasn’t changed. My father hasn’t changed.Obviously, Ethan.And now here I am, once again. It’s pathetic – how I can still hear my father’s words, the ones he spoke to me the last time we were here. He’d said, “I promise it’ll change.I’llchange. I promise.”
I don’t realize that I’m frozen in place. I’m sitting here, in the middle of a long aisle, reliving this moment in such surrealism that I don’t even notice when he arrives. Now he’s so close to me; just a few feet away, holding the bright yellow phone attached to the wall by a chain, looking at me through the glass.
He may be acting the same, but even in my uncomfortably, briefest glance at him, I can see he looks different; once a powerful, healthy-looking man, his face is sunken and stressed. And his eyes are steely. I look away.
Then I snap myself out of it. I can do this. I take a deep breath, refusing to look him in those crazy, dark eyes, and then pick up the phone.
What I want to say, with anger, is,Do you remember what you said last time we were here?But I don’t. Instead, I say, “Hi, Dad,” and I finally lift my gaze to his, daring to truly take him in.
I was right. He looks like hell.
My body outgrew his a long time ago, so it’s no surprise to see him appear rather short in stature compared to me; but now … now he looks pathetic. His posture is slumped, and his hair is long and scraggly. His eyes look tired and old, his crows feet set deeper in his skin. The bright orange uniform he’s wearing is far too big for his frame, which is odd for him – he must have lost weight in here already.
“Son,” he says. His voice comes out gruff and raspy through the phone.
I move my eyes down to my free hand. “What are you doing in here?” I say it as if I don’t already know. I say it as though I’m expecting an explanation, as though anyone could provide any reasonable explanation for breaking the law.
He shifts in his seat. “Come on. I know they’ve told you that.”
That raspiness again. God, he even sounds different. Somehow he evensoundsolder.
“I want to hear it from you.”
“You want to hear it from me, huh?” He laughs nervously and rubs his temple. “Why did you come if this is what you want to do?”
