But we gave up when we realized that we don’t have a clue if he will even stay to talk once he sees Jordan. If we can’t anticipate how he’ll react to Jordan’s presence, how can we hope to guess how he might respond to our questions?
The guard opens the door and leads Daddy in. His face is tense from the moment he enters, but when his gaze lands on Jordan, it’s clear that throwing him off balance is a tame way to put it. His eyes go so wide they seem to bulge out, and he actually stumbles over the guard’s foot, landing with his shoulder against the guard’s chest. Even though it is immediately obvious that this was an accident, the guard reacts as though Daddy just pulled a knife.
He grabs onto the front of my father’s jumpsuit and slams him hard against the doorframe. The guard shouts directly into Daddy’s face, “Don’t move!” Which seems redundant since the force of being slammed against the frame has obviously knocked the wind out of his body.
Jordan comes suddenly to his feet, eyes wide. I slide quickly over, grab his shoulder, and gently push him back down into the seat. “Be still. If you do anything it will only get worse.”
We’d learned that the hard way over the years.
The guard turns Daddy around and shoves his face against the wall with enough force that his cheekbone starts to swell immediately. I want to shout at the guard, to scream and claw his back. Anything I can do just to make him stop, but I’ve tried that before. I was escorted out of the building, and Daddy wound up in the infirmary.
I’ve spent years trying not to focus on the problems with prisons, but it’s impossible not to recognize how messed up it is. Daddy has lost fifteen pounds in just the last year. He’s been served rotten food or not received his meals at all. The skeletal body he has now barely resembles the pictures of him before his arrest. He’d been healthy and strong and now he’s becoming sickly and weak. Which only makes it easier for the guards to “keep him in line” like this. Guilty or not, people are people and shouldn’t be treated worse than animals.
The guard checks his pockets for anything my father might be hiding. The only thing he pulls out is a picture that shows Daddy and me when I was little. I’m sitting on his shoulders and he looks up at me with a wide grin on his face. I’ve never seen that photo before.
The guard starts toward the garbage and Daddy moves to take it back. “Please, no.”
“Against the wall, inmate,” the guard growls. This time he holds the picture up in front of Daddy’s face and then rips it in half. My heart suddenly feels the same rip.
Jordan grabs my hand on the table, squeezing it in an effort to comfort me, but when I see Daddy’s gaze focus on the motion, I immediately push his hand away. The fierce and protective anger in my father’s expression is something I’ve never seen before. For the first time ever, I’m a little glad that he’s wearing handcuffs and am nervous for the guard to remove them.
The guard finally eases up, spins Daddy back around with his back against the wall, and gets right up in his face. “Don’t—touch—the—guards.”
Daddy lowers his eyes, looking completely submissive. It works to mollify the guard and he pulls his key out to unlock the cuffs. When he’s free, Daddy steps toward me and gently reaches for a hug. After the look he gave us when Jordan grabbed my hand, I’m nervous, but with the guard still watching, I go for it.
Once I’m in his arms, Daddy whispers in my ear, “What do you think you’re doing?”
I don’t know how to answer yet, so I just move back toward the table. As soon as we’re seated, the guard exits, closing the door behind him. I see him throw Daddy’s picture of us into the garbage outside. I can’t help but wonder if, by bringing Jordan to this visit, I might be doing something similar to my actual relationship with my father.
Shoving aside that awful thought and the guilt that comes with it, I sit awkwardly beside Jordan and across from Daddy. They stare at each other openly, Daddy with obvious malevolence, Jordan with something bordering on defiance.
This is going downhill even quicker than I’d thought.
“So, I guess I don’t need to introduce you two…” I give a sputtering laugh.
“It’s nice to see you again so soon, sweetheart, but when they told me I had two visitors today, I’d been hoping your mother had come,” Daddy mutters, looking only at me. Apparently his next option for dealing with this is to pretend Jordan isn’t here.
“She isn’t feeling well.” I cut myself off before I end up spitting out anything less true.
Instead, I try to ease into the discussion we need to have. It was the entire reason that Jordan came with me, after all. “Jordan is trying to help us.” I phrase it in the best way I can, hoping maybe Daddy will soften a bit with this knowledge.
He looks directly at Jordan with clear skepticism. “He is, huh?”