COLE
Back Then
My father doesn’t visit me while I’m here.
He barely even calls.
His preferred method of communication is snail mail—long, neatly typed letters printed on thick cream-colored paper. He includes motivational quotes at the top of every one, like I’m enrolled in some self-help course instead of serving time. He always signs them the same way:“With love and faith—Dad.”
There’s always money in my commissary. Always an extra twenty slipped in when the week rolls over. As if that somehow makes up for everything else.
His letters talk about forgiveness. Over and over again. Like if he says the word enough times, it’ll eventually sink in. Like I’ll stop remembering what actually happened and just let it all wash away.
I don’t write back.
What would I even say?
The guards are huge fans of his.
They pass around his paperbacks during downtime and nod along to his podcast in the breakroom like it’s gospel. They call him“a good man,”a“truth-teller,”someone who“owns his mistakes and lifts others up.”
And all I can think is—if only they knew my real name.
If they knew the son he was always bragging about, the one who supposedly “decided to take a year to focus on himself,” was sitting right here—right in front of them—eating state-issued cereal and folding his laundry with trembling hands.
Maybe then they’d understand who he really is.
Then again, probably not.
People see what they want to see. And my father’s been selling the fantasy for so long, they wouldn’t recognize the truth if it punched them in the face.
41
COLE
Back Then
Weeks after my release—armed with a padded bank account courtesy of my father—I take a trip to New York.
It’s supposed to be a fresh start. A way to channel the chaos into something cleaner. Legal. Strategic.
But the city doesn’t let me forget him.
I walk out of every law firm the second I see one of his books sitting on a shelf. Hardcover reminders of the man I took the fall for. Of the lie I let bury me alive.
By the time I reach the last name on my list, I’m ready to give up. Ready to take the silence as a sign that I should just deal with the hand life gave me—the one I played poorly—and walk away.
But something stops me.
It’s the most expensive firm in Manhattan.
Hamilton & Associates.
I know I can’t afford it. Not really. But I remember my father bragging about being one of their clients once. Loudly. Publicly.
He isn’t. I checked.
That makes this the perfect place to start.
