As if he truly could not comprehend that the world would side with me.
I watched until the video ended, then I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling.
The people who had once seen me as a wallet, a resource, a safety net had become what they always should have been: accountable.
That afternoon, my lawyer accompanied me to the detention center.
The building was gray and functional, the kind of place designed to drain warmth from every conversation. The visiting room smelled like disinfectant and stale air. A thick acrylic partition separated visitors from detainees, holes drilled through so voices could pass but nothing else.
My lawyer sat beside me, quiet, ready to intervene if needed.
When my father was brought in, I barely recognized him.
He looked shockingly aged in only a few days. The hair product that had always kept his gray hair immaculate was gone, leaving it flattened and uneven. His shirt was wrinkled and torn at the shoulder where he’d resisted arrest. Dark circles sat under his eyes. His posture, once so forceful, sagged with the weight of reality.
The moment he saw me, his face twisted into fury.