Page 19 of Mistletoe & Mayhem

He bristles. “I’m here because my daughter is a traitor. You sold me out. You poisoned the only family you ever had.”

This, finally, I’m prepared for. “No,” I say, “you destroyed yourself, year by year, cruelty by cruelty. I was loyal until the day you put a bullet in the dog that slept at my feet. I was loyal even after my mother’s heart stopped. I was loyal when you secretly banished the only man I’ve ever loved. The only thing I ever betrayed was your illusion.”

He shakes his head, but the fury drains from him, replaced by something shabbier.

“You know what killed you?” I continue, voice so calm I barely recognize it as my own. “It was never the Feds or the rats in your crew. It was loneliness. You made an art of it, Dad. You infected every room with it until there was nothing left to love. Not even yourself.”

“Am I supposed to thank you for the lesson?” he spits.

I glance around the room, the other inmates and their half-alive relatives, the guards staring into space. “No. There’s nothing left for you to learn. All that’s left is rot.”

He watches me, silent. In another time, he might have said something tender, or at least convincing. Now the tank is empty; the performance is over. He’s just a dying man in a loud suit, clinging to the shrapnel of his legend.

“I know what you’re terrified of,” I say. “It’s not death. It’s oblivion. You wasted your life trying to make yourself immortal. But you’ll be forgotten, just like the rest. The only difference is, I’ll never say your name again.”

He blanches. For a razor-slice moment, he’s vulnerable. A man looking for one more miracle.

His hand trembles on the receiver. “Laura,” he says, almost a whisper, “I never wanted?—”

“That’s right,” I say. “You never wanted. Only took. Only broke.”

I stand, leaving the phone dangling against the glass. “You won’t see me again. Buon Natale, Dominic.”

The guards don’t react as I walk away. Maybe they, too, have seen this play a thousand times. I push through the door, past the strip search and the metal detectors, into the morning sun— shielding my eyes like a vampire.

As I reach the lot, my breath clouds in the cold and vanishes. I glance once, briefly, at the gray perimeter, and allow myself a single, private laugh. I can already feel the world cleansing itself of him. I am done. We’re both finally free.

There are prisons, and there are prisons. Some you carry forever, and some you just visit once to pay respects to the dead.

After that, you go home.

But in the car, with the engine humming and the radio silent, I touch my own face and find it wet. Pierce lifts my hand to his lips and once again soothes my soul. “Are you okay, sweetheart?”

“Yes. I’m finally okay.”

“Merry Christmas, my love.” He wipes the lone tear cascading down my cheek.

I smile and lean into his embrace. “Merry Christmas.”