Chapter 21 - The Voice from the Cell
The heavy, static-laced breathing crackled through the speaker of Ernest’s phone, slicing cleanly through the gentle hum of the summer evening and the flickering dance of the fireflies in the yard. Ernest did not speak. He kept his posture relaxed, leaning back against the newly stained cedar wood of his back deck, his hand wrapped firmly around the cold glass of lemonade. He let the silence stretch, knowing full well that time was no longer something he needed to rush or surrender to anyone else.
"Dad?"
The voice was thin, ragged, and stripped of the arrogant lacquer that had once defined every arrogant demand Marcus had ever barked across a dinner table. It sounded hollow, like paper rattling inside an empty tin can.
"Marcus," Ernest said, his tone entirely devoid of anger, pity, or surprise. It was simply a statement of fact, as calm as the evening breeze rustling through the oak leaves. "You’ve reached the wrong number if you are looking for someone to fund your commissary account or sign your legal briefs. My attorneys made it quite clear that our financial and familial association was dissolved by a judge's decree twelve months ago."
"Please, Dad—Ernest, please," Marcus stammered, a pathetic choke catching in his throat on the other end of the line. "You don't understand how it is in here. The guards... the concrete, the noise, the cold. It’s freezing every single night, and the food... God, Dad, they serve us things that aren't even fit for stray animals. It smells like rot. It feels like every single day is a year long."
Ernest took a slow, deliberate sip of his lemonade, feeling the tart chill wash over his tongue before he answered. "Is that so? How interesting. Because if I recall correctly, Marcus, you seemed remarkably unconcerned with what was fit for consumption when you served your own father a bowl of expired dog food at his seventieth birthday dinner while laughing with Brenda about how much longer I had left to live."
A sharp, desperate intake of breath hissed through the receiver. "That... that was a mistake! Brenda put me up to it, she manipulated me, she told me—"
"Brenda is currently serving a concurrent sentence in the women’s correctional facility three counties over for wire fraud and conspiracy," Ernest interrupted smoothly, his voice unwavering. "She doesn't have the time or the inclination to listen to your excuses, and neither do I. You made your ledger entries, Marcus. You chose to liquidate my life savings, evict me from my own property, and cast me out onto the pavement with nothing more than the clothes on my back. Now, you are simply living under the terms of the contract you drafted."
"I’m your son!" Marcus sobbed, the last vestiges of his desperate pride completely fracturing. "Don't you have any mercy left? Aren't you going to help me get out?"
"Mercy," Ernest repeated softly, looking out across the impeccably landscaped lawn that Arthur and the neighborhood volunteers had helped him restore. "Mercy is something you ask for when you make a mistake. What you did was a deliberate calculation, executed with malice and arrogance. I survived your mercy, Marcus. Now, you must survive the consequences of your own design. Goodbye."
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Before Marcus could scream another plea, Ernest pressed the red end call button, placing the phone face down on the wooden table. He exhaled a long, steady breath, feeling a final, invisible weight lift completely from his shoulders. The past was locked away behind thick steel bars where it belonged. The future, bright and golden, stretched out endlessly before him.
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