Chapter 25 Knox
KNOX
For fourteen years, every day bled into the next. Every minute hollow and soulless, filled with nothing but time to think about how much I was missing.
My parents. Every birthday, every Christmas, I wasn’t there.
I wasn’t there to help my mother navigate her paralysis.
Paralysis that came the day of my sentencing.
My sister, Dakota, had broken down sobbing so hard, she’d run out of the courthouse and straight into traffic.
My mom saved her. The price tag was the use of her legs.
All because of me.
Throughout my time here, I’d often felt hopeless.
I couldn’t help anyone I loved from inside this prison, and if I couldn’t help anyone, what good was I to them?
I felt depressed at times too. I hated admitting that to myself.
A stronger man wouldn’t let himself feel depressed, but five thousand days and nights in a concrete tomb will hollow you out whether you want it to or not.
But mostly, I felt alone.
Which wasn’t even true. A better person would recognize how not alone I was. It was selfish to let that loneliness creep in when I had four men who’d never left my side. They visited me. They cared. And my parents did too. So did my sister.
But somehow, it was like I was a fish trapped in a bowl, pressing my face against the glass, watching the world move on without me. Waiting for my life to begin again.
Pathetic.
My absence was a black hole. It sucked the light from everyone I loved, and I couldn’t do a damn thing to stop it. The only way I got through any of it was by convincing myself that they were all better off without me.
Because they were. Every single one of them.
And then there was my ex. While she and I had not been deeply in love by any means, we had a daughter to raise, and she had to do it alone. Without any help from me.
While I stood by what I’d done, and frankly, I’d kill the guy again if I had the chance, it didn’t mean it was easy on her. Or fair.
Raising a kid with no college education. Expenses. Sleepless nights. I couldn’t even contribute money.
It was ironic that I’d gladly traded my freedom to protect my daughter, but the very act of protecting her had turned me into a deadbeat dad who couldn’t even pay child support.
That knowledge chipped even more of my self-worth away.
No wonder my ex stopped bringing Gwen to visit. What did I bring to their lives?
Nothing.
When I’d killed that man to save my kid, I didn’t realize at the time that I also killed my chance at seeing her.
But now Gwen was eighteen. My ex no longer held the controls. And that terrified me more than any inmate in this place ever could.
Chances were, Gwen would want nothing to do with me.
Hell, I had no idea what my ex had told her about me. Did Gwen think I didn’t fight to see her? Did she think that when I reluctantly, painfully accepted my ex’s begging to stop contacting them so Gwen could have a chance at a normal life, I hadn’t spent that next year existing like a zombie?
I’d thought about fighting my ex on it. Figured Gwen would need a father, inmate or not. She at least deserved to know her father wanted her.
But then I thought about the life of a little girl. Barbies and bike rides. Running through the sprinkler, the water creating rainbows against the sun. Pink outfits and pigtails. Later, slumber parties and braces.
And then I pictured that same girl having to drive all the way to Coldwater Penitentiary. A dark concrete cancer of a building. Going through security checkpoints, being stared at by rapists and pedophiles and abusers in the visiting room. And for what?
So I could get to spend time with her?
How fucking selfish of me.
Still, it took me a long time to finally let her go. And once I did, I cried myself to sleep every night.
I know. What a tough guy, eh?
Looking back, I know that’s when I changed. I used to be softer. Believe it or not, I wasn’t born a hardened asshole who never smiled. I transformed into him.
Losing my daughter was a disease that infected my body, causing cellular death at every level.
My lungs cycled air differently, like the bronchial tubes had permanently narrowed.
My gut churned food into poison. And my vision changed.
It stopped processing colors anymore. Everything was just different shades of dark.
Even still, I wouldn’t change it. I’d gladly sign up for hell on earth again, every single day, if it meant saving my little girl.
But now that little girl had turned eighteen.
Sometimes, late at night, my mind wandered to dark places. I’d imagine the milestones in Gwen’s life that I had been absent from. Gwen at sixteen, getting her driver’s license. Gwen at prom, spinning in some dress I’d never see. Gwen graduating high school, throwing her cap into the air.
And in every single one of those images, she was smiling. Not thinking about me. Not missing me. Not wondering where I was or wishing I could be there.
While she was the sun in my solar system, I feared I was nothing more than a speck in her universe that she never thought about.
And that? That fucking gutted me, imagining I was simply forgotten. A stain they’d scrubbed from their existence.
I hated myself for that pain. It was selfish. Only a terrible father would hurt at the thought of her moving on with her life without him. I wanted my daughter to thrive. It was the whole purpose of letting her go to begin with.
And yet I guess it was part of being human. When you love someone that much, it felt like someone was dragging a blade across my chest every time I pictured her living without a second thought to me.
When Harper suggested I reach out to Gwen, hope took off in my chest like a bird escaping a cage.
Maybe it was time to actually mail one of my letters.
Maybe I could see my kid again. Maybe I could find out what her life was like.
Was she going to college? Did she have lots of friends?
What career did she want? Did she still have that dimple on the right side of her mouth that was the cutest fucking thing I’d ever seen?
Did she remember me? Did she want me to reach out to her? Or would she slam the door in my face?
Worse. Would she feel no emotion at all?
My damn eyes burned at that thought.
But Harper was right. Gwen deserved to know she had a father who loved her and wanted her. And if she wanted nothing to do with me, I’d have to find a way to accept that.
But at least she’d know she was loved.
Sighing, I sat in the prison computer lab, second-guessing if sending an email rather than a letter was the right way to contact her.
A letter would be something she could hold in her hand, but with the prison mail room having to intercept and read it, with how slow and potentially unreliable the post office was, I couldn’t live forever, not knowing if she ever even got it.
So, an email it was.
A row of ancient monitors lined the wall, each one bolted to a desk that had seen better decades. The chair groaned beneath me as I leaned forward, staring at the login screen.
Behind me, Officer Daniels sat at a monitoring station, his eyes flicking between his own screen and the backs of our heads. Every email we sent got filtered through the prison’s system first. Read. Flagged if necessary. Approved or rejected before it ever reached the outside world.
Nothing was private in here. Not even this.
I typed in my inmate number and waited for the interface to load. The prison used some bargain-bin email system that looked like it hadn’t been updated since 2005. We got thirty minutes of computer time, twice a week. Thirty minutes to reach out to anyone who still wanted to hear from us.
I pulled up a new message and typed Gwen’s email address into the recipient line. My mom had given it to me a couple years ago, just in case. I’d memorized it instantly. Stared at those letters and numbers like they were a map to buried treasure.
My family’s contact with Gwen had been whittled down to almost nothing.
Birthday cards. Holiday gifts. All at her mother’s request, and I’d gone along with it because I got it.
My family was an extension of me, and she wanted distance from anything that carried my name.
But sitting here now, I was second-guessing all of it.
Because Gwen wasn’t just missing out on her father.
She was missing out on grandparents, her aunt.
An entire half of herself she barely knew existed.
The cursor blinked in the empty message field.
What the fuck do you say to your daughter when you haven’t spoken to her in years?
I positioned my fingers over the keyboard.
Subject: From Your Dad
Gwen,
It’s been a long time since you heard from me. I want you to know that not a single day has passed where I haven’t thought about you. Where I haven’t wondered if you’re happy. If you’re safe. If life has been good to you.
More than anything in this world, Gwen, I want you to be happy. That’s the only reason I cut all ties. I thought it was best for you to grow up without the burden of having a dad in prison. Without having to explain me to your friends. Without carrying that weight on your shoulders.
The memories of our short time together … that’s what gets me through each day in here. When the walls close in and the nights feel endless, I go back to you. To us. I wonder if you remember those times too. If any part of you held on to them the way I have.
I think of your pigtails dancing in the light. I wonder if you still have that pink elephant I gave you for your third birthday. I’d taken you to the toy store and let you walk around the entire place. Three times. And out of every toy in that rainbow-colored store, that’s what you picked.
You carried that pink elephant everywhere you went.
And you took such good care of it. When its trunk suffered a tear, you and I worked together to fix it.
I bought a needle and thread, and you held the lamp for me while I sewed it back together.
Your little fingers kept adjusting the angle of the light, so serious, like you were assisting in surgery.
Do you remember that?
You probably don’t remember that I bought three of those elephants afterward, so you’d always have one if anything happened to the first.
I wonder about a lot of things while I’m in here. I wonder if you remember me at all. You were only four when I went away, and I read in parenting books that memories before that age are often forgotten.
But I remember everything about you.
I remember how you used to sleep on your left side, with your little hand tucked beneath your cheek.
How you’d wake up before the sun even came up and drag that pink elephant behind you, its trunk bumping against each stair, until you climbed into my bed.
I’d pull you against my chest. Sometimes you’d fall back asleep, your breath warm against my collarbone.
Sometimes you’d put your little hands on my cheeks and say, “Up time, Daddy.”
You don’t know how many times I’ve wished I could go back in time for just one day. If I could, I’d pick one of those mornings. And I’d never let you go.
Gwen, I need you to know that I didn’t want to let you go. But I felt like it was the right thing to do.
You’re not a little girl anymore. You’re eighteen.
I’m up for parole soon. Well, technically, it’s called early release these days. But most people know the word parole, so that’s what I call it.
If I get released, I’d give anything to see you. Even if it’s just once. Even if it’s just for five minutes.
If you don’t want that, I understand. I do. But if there’s any part of you that wants to meet the man who’s thought about you every single day for fourteen years, I’ll be here. I’m not going anywhere.
This is my inmate email. You can reach me through this system if you want to.
Please know that I love you with everything in my soul, Gwen. I pray that you have a beautiful life. I let myself imagine what you must look like now, and every time I do, I picture you with a big smile, twirling in the sunshine the way you used to.
Stay in the sunshine, Gwen. Always stay there.
I love you more than Reese’s Pieces.
Love, Dad
I stared at the screen until the words blurred. My throat was raw, like I’d swallowed glass.
“Five minutes, Blackwood,” the officer called out.
I didn’t acknowledge him. Couldn’t. My finger hovered over the Send button.
One click. That’s all it would take. One click, and this message would route through the prison’s monitoring system, get stamped and approved, and land in my daughter’s inbox like a grenade she never asked for.
Or maybe it would land like an olive branch.
Or maybe she’d see the sender line, prison email system, and delete it without ever reading a word.
I bit the inside of my cheek. Then I clicked Send before I could talk myself out of it.
The screen flashed.
Message sent for review.
I logged out and pushed back from the desk, my chest tight.
One email. One message that could change everything or confirm what I feared: that I’d lost her a long time ago.
That I was already forgotten.
I took a deep breath, the stale computer lab air burning my lungs, wondering:
Would my daughter even write back?