Total pages in book: 27
Estimated words: 25416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 127(@200wpm)___ 102(@250wpm)___ 85(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 25416 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 127(@200wpm)___ 102(@250wpm)___ 85(@300wpm)
But sleep like this doesn’t bring comfort. I toss and turn, and when I’m not tossing and turning, I’m dreaming of Lucas and my father. I wonder if they talked about me while they were in prison, wonder if they laughed about how stupid and gullible I was.
When I wake, early the next morning, my eyes are red and puffy like I’ve been crying all night, and I think I might as well have been.
I shower and try to apply a nice face of makeup, but when I’m finished, I look like I’m trying too hard. I’m about to wash my face again and start over, until Nina pokes her head into my room to announce we should get going.
“What’s the matter?” Nina asks.
“Nothing,” I say quickly, grabbing my purse and sidling past her into the hall. She follows hot on my heels.
“Then why does your face look like that?”
“Like what?” I snap. She hesitates for a moment, and I decide to let her off the hook. “I’m fine, Aunt Nina. I’m just nervous about seeing my dad again.”
She pats my back and nods in understanding.
“You’ll feel better once we get the tunes going.”
We climb into her VW Bug and wait for the garage door to open. Before she backs down the driveway, Nina turns to me with a troubled expression.
“Tatum,” she says gently. “I don’t want you to get your hopes up, sweetheart.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I know you and your dad have been writing letters—” I cringe internally. “—but I don’t think that a person just…changes who they fundamentally are.”
“And who is he?” I ask. “Fundamentally?”
“He’s selfish, honey. He always has been. He’s not evil, he’s just a deeply selfish man.”
“If he’s so awful, then why are we driving all this way to help him?”
“Because he’s family, kiddo. For better or worse. And maybe I’m as hopeful as you are that I might be wrong.”
The drive is long and boring; we don’t talk much. By the time we reach the prison, the day is overcast and humid, the sky as grey as the concrete buildings that loom before us. Fences topped with razor wire line the exterior, and I try not to picture Lucas locked inside. He doesn’t belong in a place like this, no matter what the law says. Then I remind myself how he hurt and betrayed me, and I wonder if maybe he isn’t exactly the type of man who deserves to be in a place like this.
This is where they put the liars and thieves, and isn’t that what he is?
Nina and I climb out of the car, but we don’t have to go far to find my father, because there he is, standing in front of the entrance, wearing jeans and a tee shirt that hangs off his slim frame. I guess not everyone bothers to bulk up in prison. He carries his belongings in a clear plastic bag slung over one shoulder.
He approaches the car with heavy steps.
“Thanks for coming to get me,” he says to Nina.
“Well,” she pats him on the shoulder, “what are sisters for?”
He eyes me dubiously, and it takes a second before recognition lights in his eyes.
“Tatum,” he says. I tell myself this isn’t the man I’ve been writing to. But a small, lonely part of me wants to believe what Lucas said isn’t true. I rush toward him and throw my arms around his neck. He pats me awkwardly on the back and gently pulls away. “It’s…uh, nice to see you, too.”
He climbs into the passenger seat of Nina’s bug and leaves me to crawl into the back through Nina’s car door.
We’re on the road again, and my dad doesn’t say anything for a long time. I have so many questions I want to ask him, about his life, his time in prison, whether or not he missed me, but also about Lucas. I want to know what he thinks about his former cellmate. And I want to know why my father would throw the birthday card I sent him on the floor, how he didn’t notice that his cellmate was stealing his letters and replying to them for four years.
But I don’t know where to start, so for a long stretch of road, I say nothing at all.
“Is anyone hungry?” Nina asks, after a while. My dad just grunts his response.
He’s probably not used to making conversation, I tell myself. It’s up to me to get the conversation going.
“I would have thought that you’d be super excited about your first meal on the outside,” I say. But my father doesn’t say anything. I guess he isn’t hungry.
Or he doesn’t care.
I fight back tears. A replay of last night’s hurt and betrayal threatens to come pouring out of my eyeballs. But there’s something else there, braided into the pain and sadness. It’s jagged, like broken glass, and suddenly I taste it. Anger. I’m angry about the fact that my dad isn’t saying anything, that he doesn’t have a million questions for his own daughter whom he hasn’t seen in eight years. I’ve idolized a version of this man—albeit a false version—and he doesn’t even want to know me.