One of the cell doors behind us slammed open and two officers came out, dragging a shackled prisoner between them. Watching the prisoner struggle to keep up with the officers’ strides, when he had a chain between his ankles restricting his movements to a short trot, was almost painfully frustrating, even as a mere observer. And something about that made me feel strangely better.
I suddenly found myself fantasizing about my father’s trip from his cell to where he and I would meet. I was actually smiling when we turned the corner, imagining how humiliated he would feel to engage in a silly little trot like that in front of his fellow officers. I could envision him being pushed out from one of the cells right in front of me, so that I could smirk along with them.
But that wasn’t to be. We made our way through card-locked double doors and then stood in front of a door marked INTERVIEW 3.
DS Day put his hand on the door handle and looked back at me over his shoulder. “You ready?”
I met his eyes without answering, and he quickly looked down like the submissive dog he was, then opened the door for me.
Stepping into my father’s interview room was perhaps the most surreal of the collection of moments I’d had all week. I thought I’d been transported back in time, or to an alternate universe where he’d never been caught, where I’d become someone who visited my father at work, where the police invited their daughters to observe interviews and we were still waiting for the criminal to be brought into the room.
Literally nothing was as I’d expected. Where I’d thought to see a prison uniform, my father was dressed in street clothes, a suit jacket flung over the back of his chair. I’d thought to see him chained, at the very least to have his hands cuffed to the bar on the table. More than mere free hands, though, he was shoveling the last bits of breakfast into his mouth with one hand while the other grasped a mug that, when I was prodded closer, smelled more like whiskey than coffee. He even laughed, a sound I hadn’t heard in more than a year.
In all the scenarios I’d imagined for that day’s visit, not one included my entering to see my father distracted by his own storytelling in a room full of his friends, cheering him on as he finished a proper English breakfast. But something was off. A glance at DS Day provided my first clue. He seemed as stunned as I was, which shouldn’t have been the case if he’d set up this little meeting. So I started to look closer.
Dad’s wrists were my next clue. When he brought his drink up to his mouth, his shirtsleeve material pulled too far back along his forearm, telling me two things. First, he’d been shackled until very recently, going by the remaining impressions of handcuffs at his wrists. Second, he wasn’t wearing his own clothes. The shirt was too small for my dad, short in the sleeve and narrow in the shoulders, which probably explained why he wasn’t wearing the jacket.
“You’re here,” my father said, as if I was the help coming to clear away his tray.
I tried my very best not to grin at all his dramatics, and I didn’t flinch away from his gaze, which swept over me in one quick, studying movement. “I didn’t realize we’d have such an audience,” I said. “Perhaps I should come another time?”
DS Day made a gesture with his head, but the other officers seemed wary to leave. They kept glancing between my father and me, as though they could predict what would happen just by judging the space between us. Finally, one of them tapped the other’s arm with the back of his hand, and they started for the door, only stopping short to drop a warning for DS Day. “Something happens and it’s your arse.”
Day nodded and stayed behind after the officers were gone. I stood next to the interview table, watching him fidget by the door.
“Out,” my father barked, coming closer to his true self.
Day jumped a little at the command, but he still managed to sound authoritative when he said, “Recording’s off, but I’ll be watching. Not so much as shaking hands. I mean it.”
My father smiled and gripped his hands around the bar atop the interview table as some kind of consoling gesture that meant nothing. I knew this visit would end with one of us being dragged out of the room; I just wasn’t sure yet who it would be.
Once DS Day left us alone, I sat across from my father before he could offer the seat to me. I stared him down, waiting to see what he wanted from our little chat. His first question wasn’t unexpected, but I wasn’t focused on what he actually said, only which words were chosen and what they implied.
“How are my sons?” Ownership, prioritized concern for their welfare. Both false.
“My brothers are no longer your concern.” I watched him dampen a flare of anger at my words and decided to push the button again. “I wasn’t lying when I said you won’t see them, so you might as well strip them from your mind.”
He shifted his position and cleared his throat. “I hear Alice is playing at being an adult. How long until she takes off on you?” Attempt at making me feel insecure, insult to the only adult left in my life who could help me.