“Figure I oughta follow you then.”
The guard took Henry to the visiting area where he sat down and picked up the phone handset while Franklin did the same thing from the other side of the glass. They both looked at each other for a minute, neither saying anything.
“Do I know you kid?” Henry asked.
“Yeah…but it’s been a while. I don’t look familiar?”
“Maybe you do…wait a minute…you aren’t…” Henry’s voice trailed off as recognition hit him.
“Franklin…that you son?”
“Dad…yeah…” The tears began to flow as Franklin tried to gain his composure.
“Well, didn’t reckon I’d see you today. Lord knows I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again. Don’t rightly deserve to.”
“I’ve been mad at you, awful mad.”
“I guess I got that coming. What brought you up here today?”
Franklin nodded toward Kendra, who smiled at Henry.
“Well son, that your girlfriend?”
“I…I don’t know.”
Kendra nodded her head and smiled, eliciting a smile from Henry.
“Well boy, you’re punching way above your weight class there. You take care of her. What you been up to? You finish school by now, I figure.”
“Well…not exactly. Just took my GED test.”
“I guess that’s better than nothing, but I don’t want you following me, you know what I mean?”
“I think so. I…I guess you want to know what I’ve been up to. Not been good, most of it.”
“Nothing like I did, I hope?”
“No, no drugs or anything, but I saw plenty of that.”
“Last I heard, you had a good foster home.”
“I didn’t stick around.”
“Oh…streets are tougher than you imagined, right?”
“You could say that.”
“You can’t be on the streets now, not having a pretty thing like that hanging around.”
“I’m staying with Walter.”
“Walter…the super guy?”
“Yeah, he’s a cool dude.”
“Seems like it, what I see on TV. How’d that happen?”
“I saw him using his powers, before he knew how. I kind of tagged along.”
“Well son, I’m happy for that. I’m happy you aren’t turning out like me. You don’t want to spend your days in a place like this.”
“How do you deal with that?”
“Son, I’m here because I deserve to be. I can’t blame anyone else for it, just me. I done things no man should do, and I’ll never forget it. I still see his face…every time I close my eyes. I see his face, and the look on it when I pulled the trigger. Son, you don’t want to deal with that. I see that, and sometimes I think of you and hope you’re better off and that you never go down that path.”
“Yeah, Dad…I been hating you for years, blamed you for what happened to Mom…”
“And you’d be right. She made her own choices, but where was I to stop her? Where was I to set her on a better path? Hell, I walked the same path with her. You listen to me boy. You treat that girl like I treated your mom and I’ll break out of here just to kick your ass, you got it?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“I hope so. One bitter old man is enough for this family. You got a future ahead of you. Don’t waste it.”
“Sounds like you changed in here.”
“You get a lot of time to think, stuck in a place like this, lot of time to pray too. I done a lot of praying and thinking. Good thing the Lord forgives, even though I don’t deserve it.”
“I’m not so good at it.”
“Not so good at what?”
“The forgiving thing. I’ve been so mad at you…now…I don’t know. Kendra says things…says you deserve a second chance. You want a second chance to be my dad?”
“Oh Franklin…” Henry wiped the tear from his eye and tried to continue.
“Son…I don’t deserve it. I know the Lord done forgiven me, but he’s the Lord. That’s what he’s good at. I failed you. I ain’t never been much of a dad to you.”
“You’re being one now.”
“Look at me boy, I’m here because I took some other boy’s dad away from him, and I was never a father to you, or a husband to your mother. I don’t deserve another chance. I’m getting what I deserve, right here.”
Franklin put his hand up against the glass, tears streaming down his cheeks.
Henry hesitated, but put his hand up in the same place.
“Dad, I don’t wanna hate no more. It’s no good. Kendra’s taught me that a person isn’t his past. We all got a future and we can move on. You’re not your past. I see that. You ain’t all that crap you did back then. Yeah, you got to pay the price, but you’re still my dad. You think you can be a better dad now than back then?”
“Oh Lord…Son…you can…forgive me?”
“I didn’t think I could this morning…but…Dad…I…forgive you.”
Henry kept his hand on the glass and bowed his head slightly, not able to do anything but weep. Finally after what seemed like an eternity but was in reality only a minute or two, Henry composed himself. “Franklin, you done me a world of good today, you know that? You took a big burden off my heart.”
“Off mine too.”
“Visiting time’s almost over, Mr. Jones,” the guard said.
“That’s my boy there. That was my son, come to visit me,” Henry said to the guard, “Brought his girlfriend too. Ain’t she fine?”
“See you later, Son,” Henry said.
“See you later, Dad. Love you,” Franklin said hanging up the handset.
18
Walter and Mike had breakfast and found a secluded spot for training, in the Mojave desert.
“Why did you have to bring me all the way out here?” Walter asked.
“The likelihood of us running into anyone else is rather slim.”
“You got that right. Second question. You had to hang on while I flew us both here. You can give these powers out and you don’t have any yourself? What gives?”
“Yeah, about that. That's not tech my people exactly have access to.”
“Come again?”
“The other one I fear might be here…it’s his people who developed it. He can probably make more of you than I can, and he probably has similar abilities himself.”
“Then how did you manage to do
