PART 3

The hallway went quiet. My father, handcuffed, turned around before they could put him in the elevator.

“Don’t go near her!”

The old man didn’t move. He only answered, with a sadness that seemed to come from a long way down, “I have been gone too long.”

The elevator doors closed, and my family’s voices disappeared with them. For the first time in my life, nobody was yelling at me or blaming me for existing.

Chief Briggs came back in. “Do you know him?”

I shook my head slowly. “No.”