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In the last days before he leaves the compound for good, he tries to remind himself that it is not C.J. he is angry at, but himself for his own pride six years ago and every year since. He has to purge the rage from his veins before it lashes out of him, at her, in a few short days. Pride had stayed his hand from applying for a pardon or commutation; it would be an admission and acceptance of his guilt above and beyond just the letter of the act, and he could not find it in himself to do that. Not for years.
Not while the Earth spun on on its tilted axis as his world receded daily until it barely reached the walls of his cell.
His children had grown into full-fledged personalities only seeing him every other weekend or so, not for the lack of Andy and C.J.’s trying. They had grown into calling C.J. their second parent, and him the third, not for the lack of Andy and C.J.’s reminding.
He made this bed for himself, he knew, but the rage burned all the same.
Neither of them deserved his rage. Not for finding light in the darkness. Not when he had been barely more than absent in his children’s lives before the brief window between his confession and the sentencing.
But when Andy called him on behalf of their children, and Huck spoke a mile a minute about what Momma had let him help make for dinner, or Molly rambled about the new trick Mom had taught her on the ice, something in his gut bubbled like magma in a way he cannot deny or push away.
He does what he always did before – he writes. He writes letters, some angry, others dripping with remorse, some hateful, others brimming with gratitude that they’ve both raised Huck and Molly with all the love they could possibly have.
The first thing he does when he gets out and feels the sun on his face is burn the letters he has written.
Then he goes to shul. Just to sit, because no one is there in the liminal hours between shacharit and mincha on a Wednesday a few weeks after the crest of the new year and its flurry of accompanying chagim. He sits until the rattling in his bones and the fire in the pit of his gut have settled into a dull thrum. He sits until the urge to pace a hole in the carpet eases. He sits until his hands stop shaking, until his eyes can tear again, until he feels like he can breathe.
Then, only then, he goes to the house on D Street where they live. He stands three houses down for a moment as the school bus pulls up and two redheaded children run out, too tall to be the toddlers he left behind.
The door opens before they run up the driveway. C.J. lets the children plow into her with an ear-splitting beam on her face, before hustling them through the door and out of the building cold.
The magma bubbles up again, and he winces at the burn.
He cannot convince himself to take the steps forward that it will require to see his son and daughter again, and yet he cannot instead turn his back and go. He rocks on his heels, shivers as a gust of wind catches him by surprise. It is odd, he realizes, that he has forgotten how to be outdoors for prolonged periods of time.
He does not deserve them, yet he wants, selfishly, to be the only one who deserves them.
The front windows are tinted and curtained, just enough to let light in but keep eyes out. Just enough, it feels, to keep him at bay.
He knows, rationally, that none of it is personal. Not when he had been the one to refuse the pardon process flat out, when he had turned away visits and calls with any measure of regularity. The part of him that had fancied himself hardened and solitary in his repentance and his remorse had been too self-righteous to face the possibility of not punishing himself in every imaginable manner for as long as his sentence had lasted.
All they had done was to keep pace with the world as it kept spinning, while Toby stayed stubbornly in place, learning to walk backwards.
All they had done was to love what he had loved, what he still loved, with as much of themselves as he wished he had given.
He stares, still, at the dark blue of the front door.
He wonders if they take their shoes off on a rack like C.J. had done in every place she’d ever owned. His lack of a coat interjects with an involuntary shiver up his spine.
A car horn sounds.
Geese honk overhead.
A door closes a few houses behind him.
He does not want to beg, he realizes. Not for space in already full lives, nor the right to be accepted as a parent, nor the distant possibility of softening, loving, and sharing in a life again.
That realization alone is enough to set a fire under his feet.
He nearly turns his back and returns to his penance.
He nearly walks backwards so he can stay in place on the swiftly tilting planet.
He nearly, nearly, nearly, nearly–
A car door opens, then shuts. The driveway is no longer empty. Red hair, hazel eyes, the same gray coat and sandy beige suit.
A soft, no-nonsense, “come in”.
There is a space at the table, he learns on sight. He learns later, still, that there has always been a space at the table. The world has kept on turning around him, but they have made a space, for him , like potters’ hands on a wheel.
The penance, he finally admits between them in the quiet of night, is over. He will put down the yoke, so he can lift up the share of this home he had put down too many years ago.
The rage and the pride chafe for longer than he would like to admit, but he finds it in himself to control their release. He makes himself learn that third place in this case is not a condemnation, just a fact, and not an immutable one. He learns again to use his knees to bend, to yield, to move, to pray. He learns that his knees are meant for more than begging and atoning.
He learns again that softness is his birthright.
The world spins, he loves, and he is loved. He learns again what it means to have, to hold, and to be held.