I initially remained motionless when I heard the knock. In the kitchen, I was cleaning the same cup that I had cleaned three times before. My hands needed something to do, anything to divert my mind from the thoughts that accumulated every evening when the home became too quiet, not because it was dirty.
There was another knock. This time, firmer.
I heard footsteps outside my cell and turned toward the door, my heart thumping as it used to. However, this was not like the others. It was not intended for me to have any guests. No more. Not since I left. Not since I was left in this abandoned area with more boarded windows than lit ones by parole.
Then I heard it. A voice.
“It’s me, Dad.”
I went cold.
17 years. It had been that long since I had heard Nate’s voice. He refused to look at me when the judge read the punishment the last time, which was in a courtroom. His shoulders bowed as they uttered “thirty to life,” and I can still picture it. I believe that’s when he became someone else and ceased to be my son.
I walked to the door and opened it gently, almost fearing that if I moved too quickly, he would vanish.
He was there.
taller than I had recalled. When I last saw him, his eyes were shaded by the years he had lost, and his beard was cropped. A young girl was standing next to him. No more than six could have been. She peered up at me as if I were a figure from a fairy tale she hadn’t really bought into, holding a plush rabbit in one hand and her father’s pants in the other.
“I told her you were my dad,” Nate continued, sounding as though he was having trouble maintaining his composure. “I informed her that you had just returned.”
Return.
As if I had just returned from an extended business trip. Not surrounded by barbed wire and concrete walls, charged with a murder I didn’t commit.
I moved aside and widened the door. I managed to say, “Come in,” hardly recognizing my own voice.
My landlady hadn’t bothered to take off the plastic covering the couch, so we sat in the living room. With occasional chuckles, the girl, whom he called Liana, began to press all the buttons on the remote control as if it were a spaceship console.
Nate appeared uncertain about his presence as he sat rigidly. He seemed to be waiting for me to lose it, cry, or ask for forgiveness.
After a long pause, he remarked, “She always asks about her grandpa.” “I reasoned that it was time for her to learn the truth.”
I gave a nod. Words that I didn’t know how to say were stuck in my throat.
“I—I apologize,” he said. “I genuinely believed you accomplished it. Mom also did.
He took a folded-up photograph out of his coat pocket. The colors had faded and it was aged and wrinkled. At the county fair, we were both smiling broadly as I held him on my shoulders. That was prior to the end of the world. before a parking lot shooting claimed the life of my best friend. prior to the police determining that I matched the profile. My fate was sealed before I swore that a single fingerprint wasn’t mine.
He turned the picture over and said, “She drew this.” A small girl holding hands with a tall man with large ears was sketched in childish lines with a crayon. “Even though she has never met you, she called him ‘Grandpa.'”
My hands trembled as I grabbed for it.
Nate, however, withdrew it. His eyes darkened abruptly.
“First, I need to know something,” he stated.
I gave him a look. “Anything.”
He tightened his jaw. “Did you tell me a lie? Just once? Regarding that evening?
It was there. It was the question that had been pending for seventeen years.
“No,” I replied. “From beginning to end, I told you the truth. Devon wasn’t killed by me. I saw him fall and tried to aid him. However, someone had already reported it, and the police only noticed me bending over him. They only required that.
As if weighing my comments against a lifetime of suffering, Nate gazed at me.
“Three months ago, I received a call,” he muttered. “A private investigator. said that on his deathbed, a confession to the crime was made. claimed to have known you fell.
I blinked. “What kept you from telling me?”
Since I was unsure about what to believe. I didn’t want to think that I had been mistaken about you throughout my life. He took a deep swallow. “However, I was.”
He gave the drawing to me. “I apologize, Dad. I ought to have put in more effort. I ought to have inquired further. However, I was only a child.
I gripped the page as though it were glass. “You are not to blame.”
In actuality, I had given up pointing the finger at him years prior. You are consumed by blame. Furthermore, I had already wasted too much time.
Liana rushed towards me and pulled at the leg of my pants. “Can you read me a story, Grandpa?”
I glanced at Nate to get his OK. He gave a nod.
On the shelf, we discovered an old picture book that must have been put there by the previous tenant. She cuddled up to me as if we had known each other for ages as I read to her in a voice I didn’t realize I still had.
An hour later, Liana was dozing on the couch with her rabbit nestled under her chin when Nate got up to go.
“She’s stunning,” I remarked.
When he grinned, I briefly caught a glimpse of the youngster he once was. “Her mother is the source of that.”
I led them to the entrance. Nate walked out after turning. “Next Sunday, we’re having supper at my house. Liana desires that you go.
I blinked. “Are you certain?”
His eyes were steady as he gazed at me. Indeed. I’m positive.
I felt a peculiar tightness in my chest as I watched them go down the porch stairs. As if I had just received something I was unaware I had been lacking. Not simply pardoning. However, a future.
And Nate glanced around one more before they got to the car.
He cried out, “Oh, and Dad?”
“Yes?”
“I didn’t tell you… However, I used to carry that picture in my wallet. even following the trial. Before all of that, I wanted to remember who you were. I simply forgot for a time.
He didn’t hold off until I answered. simply got into the car and headed out into the evening.
I returned inside, closed the door, and sat quietly. However, it was no longer hefty. It was calm.
I finally had something to look forward to after all these years.
Truth and the opportunity to start over can heal certain wounds more effectively than time.
Please share this story if it touched you. Enjoy it. There may still be someone waiting for a knock on the door.
