I tried to leave the jail without berating him about his guilty plea, but in the end I couldn’t. All I said was, “You know, if you were religious, I might be able to understand this self-flagellation, at least a little. But you’re not. Not at all.” He smiled then—to himself, not me—and said, “I don’t believe in God, it’s true. But I guess I do believe in atonement.”

Atonement.

I told him I thought there were less dangerous ways to pay for transgressions than locking himself up with a bunch of killers and gangbangers.

“Maybe,” he allowed. “But I don’t think so. When Judge Elder turned to that jury to send them back to deliberate, I knew they were going to set me free. Four jurors looked right at me and told me that with their eyes. And I was terrified. I knew then that if I let that happen, I would never pay for what I had done. Never balance the scales. So I took away that option.”

“Oh, you left human nature behind today. You got on the Jesus train, whether you intended to or not.”

“No, Penn. I followed my conscience, that’s all.”

“And you do realize where it’s led you? What will you do in Parchman when Snake Knox sends some skinhead with a shank to kill you?”

Dad considered this, then shrugged. “Maybe I’ll get lucky. Maybe one of the black gangs will look out for me.”

“Get real.”

He looked at me the way missionaries look at nonbelievers. “Who knows what I’ll find in there? Maybe I can use my medical skills to help some people. People who really need help. Whatever happens . . . I’m resigned to it. Ready for it, even.”

When he said that, I dropped all pretense of normalcy. “You don’t have to do this. I know why you’re doing it. Because of Caitlin, and Walt, and Henry, and all the others. You feel responsible for their deaths. And you are, at least in part.” At that point I stuck my fingers through the screen and touched the papery skin of his hand. “But not one of them would want you to do this. It would break their hearts to see this.”

Dad had no answer for that, at least not one he would share with me.