Chapter 7: The Visiting Room

My father's message on the phone had been brief.

"Saturday. Bring the investigator."

Then the line cut off, because they give inmates fifteen minutes and he had used his on a pause.

Now it was Saturday.

I sat in the visiting room at Leavenworth with Isaiah beside me and a plastic table in front of us.

The room smelled of floor wax and old coffee.

A guard stood at each corner, and a child at the next table was drawing on a napkin.

I had rehearsed what I would say for four years.

All of it fled when the door opened.

My father came in slowly, in a tan uniform that hung off his frame.

He had been six foot one and two hundred and ten pounds.

Now his collar stood away from his neck, and his hair, once iron gray, was white and cut very short.

He stopped when he saw me.

He stood there with one hand on the doorframe.

He looked like a man who expected a gallows and had been shown a garden.

"Tam," he said.

"Dad."

"You cut your hair."

"Four years ago."

"I wouldn't have known."

"You know me."

He crossed the room and sat down across from us.

For a minute he only looked.

Then he turned to Isaiah.

"Chief Warrant Officer Doran."

"Colonel."

"I used to be."

"You're still Colonel to me, sir."

"Fort Merrow?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who do you report to?"

Isaiah did not look at me.

"Colonel Redfern," he said.

My father shut his eyes.

He sat that way for a long time, long enough that I put my hand on the table and almost reached for his.

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