Aaron felt weird sitting in the food court by himself. It wasn’t the food court itself that made him feel uneasy. He’d been there pretty much every time he went to the mall for his entire life. What made this time weird was he was going meet his dad for the first time that he could remember. He knew that his father had been sent to prison twelve years before, when Aaron was two years old and as hard as he had tried, he had not a single memory of the guy.
Ever since the court ordered his mom to permit the visitation, she had been obsessed with where and when. She told Aaron that his dad had been cooperative and that the food court was his dad’s idea. It gave Aaron some comfort that he knew his mom was somewhere nearby even though he didn’t know exactly where. It occurred to him that part of his discomfort might have been the fact that his mom was at that very moment surreptitiously watching him.
Aaron tried to nonchalantly scan the huge space to see if he could recognize his dad as he approached. He had only ever seen one photo of the man that was now more than twelve years old. Just as he felt he might have a panic attack coming on, he heard a voice. “Aaron?”
He turned to see a man with tattoos all over his face. He was skinny and mean looking. His arms and neck were tatted too, but the boy had seen plenty of those, and they weren’t as menacing as the ones on the face. Aaron was scared. He had never seen anyone who looked as scary as this man. Reluctantly, he said, “yeah”.
The man leaned in and hugged the boy awkwardly. Aaron felt like pulling away and running out of the mall.
As the man backed away and sat across from Aaron, he put a square cardboard box on the table in front of the boy. “I brought you something.”
Aaron looked at the box for a second, but as hard as he tried, he could not take his eyes off of the man’s tatted face.
After an awkward moment, the man said, “Go ahead. Open it. I know it’s something you love.” He grinned like someone with inside information.
Aaron slowly opened the box, simultaneously curious and frightened of what it might contain. Inside was a single slice of chocolate cake. He just stared at it for a moment. Then looked up at the man, who was still grinning.
“See, I love chocolate cake myself. Since you’re my son, you inherited that from me. When you were little, before I went away for a while, I used to eat a piece every single day. And when you finally got off your mom’s booby, you used to eat it with me. You loved it then, and you must still. You being my son, and all.”
Aaron just stared, trying not to betray his desire to eat the cake right there. He realized that with the nerves he'd been battling all day, he had not yet eaten anything.
“You don’t have to eat it right now. You can eat it later. I hear it’s good. I asked my friends in the joint where the best place to get chocolate cake is, and one of them raved about this bakery downtown. I didn’t have enough money to get me a piece too, so I hope they weren’t bullshitting me… I mean kidding with me. Sorry.”
Aaron smiled at the man’s curse word. At fourteen, he still thought any cursing was cool.
“Your mom made me promise that if I met you that I would clean up my mouth.”
Aaron laughed awkwardly, which made the man laugh too.
“Well, I’ve now gotten through about ten sentences without dropping the F-bomb, which I believe is a personal record.”
That made Aaron laugh a little harder. He was starting to relax a little, but the tats still kept him unnerved. The man got serious for a second. “Aaron, I’m glad you came. I know this is very weird for you. I know you have no idea who I am and you’ve probably assumed a lot about me over the years, most of which is probably close to the truth. I have done some bad things in my life, made some bad decisions, but I am not a bad guy. I am your father and I want to be in your life. It’ll probably be hard at first, but hopefully we can build something. I’m a free man now and I’m going to do my best to do right by you.”
Aaron didn’t know what to say, so he just nodded his head gently.
“Well, your mom asked me to keep this first meeting short so you would not be overwhelmed, and I agreed. So, I guess I better go. I hope we can do it again.”
Aaron spoke for the first time, “I think I have to. The judge said so.” He could see that the remark hurt the man and he instantly regretted it. Before he could explain what he meant, the man gave a forced smile, rose and stuck out his hand for Aaron to shake. Aaron awkwardly shook the man’s hand. The man turned and hurriedly walked away. Aaron could not see the tears on the man’s face.
It only seemed like seconds when his mom appeared and sat across from him. She wanted every detail of the conversation. Aaron reluctantly shared some of it, but he felt he was doing something wrong by sharing the things his dad said to him. He thought he and his dad were entitled to have a relationship without his mom being the boss of it, if that was possible. She started talking about the man’s tattoos and droned on for a while about it, but Aaron tuned her out. He was trying to imagine what it must’ve been like sharing some cake with his dad before he went to prison.
Over the next few days, he had a few phone conversations with his dad. They were decreasingly awkward, and they always seemed to get around to talking about chocolate cake. Aaron got the feeling that it was important to his dad because it was a connection to some fond memories for him. He also liked that he was also beginning to feel it was a connection between them. He didn’t look forward to seeing the tats again, but he found himself wanting to see his dad again.
The following week, on the day before his next meeting with his dad was scheduled, his best friend sent him a text with a link to a newspaper article. He opened it. At first, he didn’t understand why his friend had sent it to him, but at the bottom of the article, there were mug shots of the men who had been killed during the home invasion. One of the pictures looked like a younger version of his dad… but the tats were unmistakable.
As some unexpected tears were welling up in his eyes, he heard the doorbell ring. A couple of minutes later, his mom called him to come downstairs. He didn’t want to, but he knew he better.
As he got to the bottom of the steps, he saw his mom opening a larger cardboard box. He intuitively knew what it was.
His mom was giddy as she saw what was in the box. “Oh, look honey, your dad sent you a whole chocolate cake!”
The tears started flowing freely.
Over the following couple of weeks, Aaron would eat increasingly smaller slices of the cake in an attempt to keep some of it around as long as possible.
The final bite was the hardest of all.
About the Creator
David Flowers
I am a recovering attorney who writes nonfiction books and stories about my career.
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