I intend to watch my granddaughter grow up. I'm going to build a foundation in your mother's name. I'm going to live, but you'll be back. He said it like a man clutching at a rope. You'll come and visit.
I looked at him one last time, not to memorize his face, but to release it. No, Declan, I said. I won't be returning. But 10 years is a long time, he said, his voice stumbling. I know, I told him.
Make something of it. I set the handset down. Dad, wait. His voice pressed through the glass, muffled, reaching. Dad, don't go.
Dad. I turned away from the glass. I walked toward the heavy steel door at the far end of the room. I could hear his palm striking the partition behind me, his voice still calling, but I didn't slow my pace. I didn't turn around.
I raised a hand to the guard. The buzzer sounded flat and loud, the official declaration that the visit was over. I passed through into the corridor. The door swung shut behind me and his voice cut off completely. The silence that replaced it was something very close to beautiful.
I walked the long hallway out past other visitors, past checkpoints, past uniformed staff. I moved through the final door and stepped into open sunlight. I located the rental car and settled into the seat. I pulled a slow breath, checked the mirror, put it in gear. I drove away from that facility and pointed myself toward the highway, toward the airport, toward whatever portion of my life still remained.
I was Walter Dunore. I was 70 years old. And for the first time and longer than I could account for, the road ahead of me was unobstructed. One year has gone by since I walked out of that prison corridor and left my son behind. The seasons have completed their full rotation.
The punishing Houston winters are a distant memory now traded for the gentle, persistent rain of the Pacific Northwest. I did precisely what I said I would do. I relocated to Eugene. I found a modest house within easy distance of where Naen and her husband had made their home. No penthouse, no marble underfoot, no gilded fixtures.
It is a Tudor cottage with a weathered front porch and a garden that had been starved of attention for years. I love every room in it because every room is mine. My name sits on the deed. My name appears on every utility bill and when I turn the lock each night, the key is in my own hand. Naen comes by every Sunday without fail.
We cook together. We talk about the large things and the inconsequential ones in equal measure. Sometimes I sit watching her with her daughter, my granddaughter Willa, and a tightness climbs into my throat. I see the same brightness in Willa's eyes that I once recognized in Declan's. This time I am not going to miss it.