Chapter 6 - Cracks in the Ice
Eighteen months into my sentence, due to clean conduct, voluntary educational tutoring for other inmates, and total cooperation with federal liquidators, my legal team managed to secure an early parole hearing.
I was released on a crisp, bright morning in late September.
I walked through the heavy gates of Otisville wearing a simple pair of jeans, a grey flannel shirt, and carrying a single duffel bag containing my clothes and three filled notebooks of letters to Noah.
Arthur Vance was waiting by his car. He drove me to a small one-bedroom apartment in Stamford, Connecticut, which he had helped me secure using a small stipend I earned from tutoring programs.
"What now, Nathan?" Arthur asked as he set my bag down on the wooden floor.
"I get a job," I said. "A real one."
For the next four months, no corporate firm would hire a convicted felon. My name was still a curse word in the financial world.
So I took a job at a local construction site, working sixty hours a week as a carpenter's assistant. I carried drywall, pulled nails, swept sawdust, and framing houses in the freezing rain. My body burned with exhaustion every night, but every paycheck I received was honest.
Every Friday, I sent half of my earnings to Mara's attorney for child support. I never included a letter. I never demanded visitation. I simply sent the money and worked harder.
In early December, a letter arrived at my apartment.
It wasn't from a court or an attorney. It was a simple cream envelope with my address written in Mara's elegant, steady handwriting.
My heart thundered against my ribs as I tore it open.
"Nathan, Your child support checks arrive every Friday like clockwork. Arthur told me you are working in construction. I didn't believe him until I saw the address on the money orders.
Noah keeps pointing at a photograph of you from when he was six months old. He asks who the man holding him is.
If you are truly clean, and if you truly want to be his father, come to the public library in Hudson, New York, on Saturday at 2:00 PM. No lawyers. Just you.
May you like
Mara."
I pressed the letter against my face, breathing in the faint, clean scent of paper and lavender. I fell to my knees in my tiny apartment and wept tears of pure, unadulterated gratitude.
