THE DOOR OF THE CELL OPENED AGAIN, LIGHT FLOODED IN, AND MARCUS FOUGHT THE URGE TO WEEP. HE COULD ENDURE HIS OWN PHYSICAL PAIN. He could persevere through torture, starvation, and psychological torment. But he could not stand to watch helpless as another human being suffered at his father’s hands, and he knew that was what was coming: another of his father’s “lessons.”
Ackerman Sr. tossed a long black robe over to Marcus and said, “Put that on.”
Knowing that disobedience was futile, Marcus slipped the robe over his shoulders and cinched the belt around his waist. The material was soft and silky against his skin. It was the first pleasant sensation that his body had felt in months. His father led him to the adjacent cell as he had done previously. This time, however, no other victim sat at the metal table. Still, that fact didn’t fill him with any measure of hope; he knew better than to expect anything but malice from an interaction with his father.
Ackerman Sr. gestured toward Marcus’s usual chair but then surprised him by saying, “Dylan has been asking about you, and so I figured that now was as good a time as any for you to meet your son.”
“If you’ve hurt him, I’ll—”
“You’ll do what? Kill me? Please, let’s dispense with the drama. I created you and Dylan. You wouldn’t exist without me. I own you both, and I’ll do with either of you what I please. However, I haven’t harmed your son. Not yet, at least. I’m trying a different tactic with him. He’s not really old enough to have much of a will of his own to break, and so I’m going to mold his pliable young mind in my own image. He’s going to be my greatest apprentice. A true heir to our family’s legacy.”
“You don’t need him. You can let him go. You have me. I’ll be whatever you want me to be.”
His father laughed. “I’m going to break you of that self-sacrificial nature, but I have to say that it is rather amusing watching you play the martyr card time and time again.” Ackerman Sr. pulled out the chair at the opposite end of the table and continued, “I’m going to bring Dylan in now. He’s been told that you are very sick and that’s why you can’t be with him yet. He knows that his mother has been killed and thinks that the bad men who did the deed are also after him. He believes that he’s here for his own protection. If I have to hurt you in front of him, it would be very traumatic for the boy. Right now, he trusts me, and his current line of treatment hinges on that trust. If you try anything stupid, it may force me to re-evaluate the method of Dylan’s education. Do we understand each other?”
As with every other time he was with his father, Marcus’s mind searched for a solution, an escape, a plan of attack. And just like every other time, he could think of none, and so he simply replied, “Yes.”
His father led Dylan through the metal door of the cell and directed him toward the chair at the opposite end of the table. The boy seemed nervous and afraid. He refused to make eye contact. Marcus was also afraid, but more than that, he experienced a warmth that he had never felt before. The boy was a stranger, and yet he seemed familiar, as though Marcus was looking at an old friend who had changed and aged but was still the same person whom he loved and trusted. He had Marcus’s hair color, complexion, and eyes, but there were also undeniable traces of Claire. This was his son, a small human being who had come from him, who was part Marcus and part his mother and wholly his own person, a new creation. The joy Marcus felt was surreal, but he also felt ashamed and regretful. He hated the fact that his and Dylan’s first meeting was tainted by these horrible circumstances. He hated the fact that his son would see him for the first time in this condition. He mourned all the years and experiences that he had missed.
The air seemed to brim with tension and potential. Marcus realized that he had been holding his breath and blurted, “Hello, Dylan.”
“Hi,” the boy whispered, still not taking his eyes off the floor. Then, with what seemed like great effort, his young eyes slowly traveled up to meet his father’s. Dylan seemed to shrink away when their gazes met. Marcus hadn’t seen himself in a mirror for months, but he could imagine what he looked like. “Grandpa says that you’re sick.”
Marcus couldn’t resist a quick glance of hatred at his father, but he quickly recovered by saying, “That’s right, but hopefully I’ll be better soon.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
Marcus wasn’t sure how to respond, and so he said the first thing that popped into his head. “It’s my heart. There’s a dead spot inside it.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Sometimes.”
“Grandpa says that you’re my real dad.”
“I’m your biological father, Dylan.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that your mother and I came together and each gave a piece of ourselves to make you. But your real dad is the man who’s there for you. Who loves you and takes care of you and protects you. The one who teaches you to be a good person and how to be a man. Your grandfather here is my biological father, but my real dad was a man named John Williams. He raised me. Everything that’s good about me came from him.”
“So why didn’t you want to be my real dad?”
Tears rolled down Marcus’s cheeks. He reached across the metal table and placed his hand over his son’s. “I wish I had been there for you. I wish that I was your real dad. And someday soon, we’re going to get out of all this, and I’m going to make it up to you.”
But even as he spoke the words, Marcus couldn’t help but feel that he was making promises he could never keep and that neither one of them would ever see the light of day again.