My dad could get out.
My body reacts before my mind can catch up—lungs forgetting how to work, fingers going numb against the steering wheel. I’m drowning in contradictions: part of me wants to call my father immediately, another part wants to throw the phone out the window and drive until I hit ocean.
“Taio? You still there?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.” I drag my palm across my stubbled jaw, desperate for clarity that won’t come. “What do I do with this information?”
The line goes quiet. The kind of quiet that makes you check if the call dropped.
“Rina?”
“I’m here.” She sighs, and there’s something heavy in it. “Taio, I need to be honest with you about something. And I need you to hear it as someone who cares about you, not as a judgment.”
“Okay…”
“I’ve spent a lot of time with these case files. I know what your father was convicted of. I know the scope of it—the families he hurt, the lives he destroyed, the way he manipulated everyone around him for years.” Another pause, and when she speaks again, her voice is careful.Gentle.“I think he’s exactly where he should be.”
Her words hollow me out from the inside.
“Rina—”
“I know. I know he’s your father. I know you love him. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t—family is complicated, and you don’t get to choose who you’re related to. But listen, your father is a grown man who made choices. Bad choices. Choices that hurt a lot of people, including you. And I think… I think sometimes the most loving thing you can do for someone is let them face the consequences of their actions. Even when it’s hard. Even when it hurts. As far as the information I just gave you, I couldn’t withhold that from you. But we can pretend this conversation didn’t happen if you want.”
Through the windshield, I watch strangers move through the gas station lot—a woman laughing into her phone, a man wrestling with a map, a teenager counting coins for a soda—all of them blissfully unaware that my entire world is being rewritten in real time.
“You think I shouldn’t pursue an appeal.”
“I think that’s not my decision to make.” The phone line crackles with her deliberate pause. “I’m simply telling you how I see it. What you do with this information is up to you. I’ll support you either way.”
“But you don’t think he deserves to get out.”
A long pause. “No. I don’t. I think he’s a man who’s never faced a real consequence in his life, and prison is the first time anyone’s told him no. I think if he gets out, he’ll find new ways to manipulate, new people to hurt, new schemes to run. Because that’s who he is.” She exhales. “But I also know that’s a terrible thing to say to someone about their father. And I’m sorry if it hurts.”
It does hurt. It hurts like hell. But beneath the sting, I feel my shoulders drop a fraction, as if someone’s finally lifted a weight I’d been pretending wasn’t there. She’s voiced the thought I’vebeen swallowing down every time it rises to the surface—the dangerous idea that’s been hiding in the corners of my mind during every prison visit.
Did Dad get what he deserved?
“I don’t know what to do,” I admit. “Part of me wants to pretend you never called. Just let his lawyers put two and two together if they stumble upon it. Maybe that’s destiny? Let it happen without my involvement.”
“You could do that.”
“But I can’t, can I? Because now I know. Andnotacting is still a choice.”
“True.” Rina’s voice is sad. “That’s the real bitch of it.”
I sit there for a long moment, watching life unfold around me. A woman at the next pump curses under her breath as the nozzle sticks, while her toddler performs a slow-motion jailbreak from his car seat. Their frustrations seem so beautifully uncomplicated. What I wouldn’t give to wrestle a stubborn gas pump and a squirming kid versus make the decision on whether or not to save my dad.
Backward or forward?
Right or wrong?
I don’t know. But it’s time to decide.
“Can you forward the information to his legal team?” I regret the decision the moment the words leave my mouth. “As soon as you can.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “I’m not sure about anything. But he’s my father. And if there’s a legitimate flaw in his conviction, he deserves to have it examined. Whatever I think about whether he should be in prison…that’s not my call to make. That’s what courts are for.”
