Chapter 6 - The Glass Between Us
The visitation room at the federal detention facility in New Bern smelled of stale bleach and low-grade floor wax. Unlike the local county jail, the visiting area for high-security federal detainees was divided by a thick panel of scratch-resistant plexiglass, pierced only by a small, perforated steel grill for sound.
Daniel Mercer looked like he had aged twenty years in four days.
He wore an oversized orange jumpsuit that hung off his narrow shoulders like a sack. His silver hair, usually impeccably cut and styled, was oily and stuck to his forehead. Without his daily grooming routine and the expensive suits that had provided him with the illusion of stature, he was just a frail, hollow-eyed man sitting on a metal stool.
When I sat down across from him, dressed in my seasonal Service Charlie uniform—sharp creases, ribbons perfectly aligned above the left pocket, rank insignia pinned with geometric precision to the collar—he flinched.
He couldn't look at my ribbons. He couldn't look at the small purple bruise still visible along my jawline.
“Maya,” he whispered, his voice trembling through the metal grill. “Thank you for coming. God, Maya... look at you. Look at what they did to you.”
“Look at what *you* did to me, Daniel,” I corrected him, my voice completely devoid of inflection.
He pulled back as if he had been slapped. “I didn't touch you! You know I didn't touch you! It was Lenora... she went completely out of her mind. She told me we were just going to talk to you. She said we were going to bring you dinner, that we were going to sit down and work out a payment plan for the trust! I didn't know she brought the pry bar. I didn't know Brooke was going to lose her temper!”
I sat in silence, watching his hands twitch against the stainless steel shelf beneath the glass.
“You held the umbrella,” I said.
Daniel blinked, confused. “What?”
“When Brooke kicked me into the table, you didn't drop the umbrella. When Lenora told her to break my arm, you didn't drop the umbrella. You took two steps backward, Daniel. You stepped behind your wife so you wouldn't get my blood on your shoes.”
“Maya, I was in shock!” Tears began to pool in the corners of his eyes, spilling over into the deep creases around his nose. “You don't know what it’s been like living with Lenora all these years. She’s controlling. She’s vicious. She threatened to leave me, to take Brooke, to ruin my practice... I was trying to keep the family together! Everything I did, I did to keep a roof over our heads!”
“With my mother’s money,” I said.
Daniel froze.
“Sarah worked eighty hours a week while you were in your specialty residency,” I said, every word measured, deliberate, and heavy. “She built that commercial portfolio while she was undergoing chemotherapy because she knew she wouldn't be here to see me grow up. She trusted you. She thought that even if you were weak, you loved me enough to protect what she left behind.”
“I do love you, Maya,” he sobbed, pressing his trembling palms against the glass. “You’re my daughter. You’re my only blood. Please... talk to the prosecutor. They’re talking about eight years in a federal penitentiary. I won’t survive in a place like that! My heart... the doctor said my blood pressure is dangerously high. If you write a letter to the judge, if you tell them that this was just a domestic dispute that got out of hand, they’ll give me probation! I can pay you back! I can sell the practice!”
I looked through the glass, through the reflection of my own steady, calm eyes, straight into the ruined face of the man who had abandoned me twice.
“The practice has already been placed in receivership by the state licensing board, Daniel,” I told him. “The bank foreclosed on the Monument Avenue house yesterday afternoon. There is nothing left to sell. There is nothing left to save.”
He stared at me, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly, the reality of his total devastation finally crushing the last remnants of his denial.
“And as for the letter,” I continued, leaning in slightly toward the steel grill, “I will be writing one. I will tell the federal judge that for ten years, you watched a child be physically and emotionally tormented under your roof. I will tell them that when your wife and stepdaughter broke down my door in the middle of the night, you stood guard in the hallway. I will tell them that you are not a victim of Lenora Vale. You were her accomplice.”
“Maya... no... please, Maya! I’m your father!” he wailed, his fingers scraping uselessly against the thick acrylic barrier.
I stood up, adjusting the belt of my uniform.
“My father died the same day my mother did,” I said. “You’re just the man who spent her money.”
May you like
I turned on my heel and walked toward the heavy steel exit door, not looking back once, even as his muffled screams and weeping bounced off the cold cinder blocks behind me.
***
