I promised my mom I’d come, and now that I’m here, I regret my decision more than ever. I walk towards him slowly, my footsteps echoing on the linoleum tiles of the jail’s reception office. It’s been over three years since I’ve seen my dad face to face, but he’s aged ten and has grown a full beard. Prison has taken its toll on him. The creases in his face are deeper and his scars more raw, as though a lifetime of wounds has been reopened. He smiles, though it’s no longer a warm gesture. Now the gleeful expression looks wrong, out of place. It is a bandaid on the cadaver that his life has become. This strange man walking towards me with open arms is not my father. He is a sad, pathetic excuse for a person, and he is no longer welcome in my life. I mirror him, both of us taking counted steps toward each other, but I pause before I come too close. He doesn’t get to touch me. I won’t let him ruin my life the way he ruined his. His sunken eyes plead with mine as he whispers my name. He is begging me to have him back. To forgive him. But as I look at him, this man who used to be my hero, I know that I can’t. He has ripped a hole in the fabric of my life that he can no longer fill. He owes me a father, and he  can’t give me that, not anymore. I look evenly at his face, now nearly level with mine. I don’t say anything, only nod then turn away. He’s not welcome home.