The Voting Machine

The Prisoner

The federal prison in Victorville was nothing like the Twin Towers. There were no gates, walls, or barbed-wire fences as you drove into the campus of white, low-slung buildings. I figured this was one of the "Club Fed" facilities where they sent people like Martha Stewart.

We visited Marcus in an outdoor courtyard behind the main building. It had a garden and view of the mountains behind us. Marcus looked thinner and older than the last time I'd seen him. He was in his late fifties, reaching that point where the laws of nature start to catch up with even the most vigorous, dynamic people.

Despite his physical aging, his smile was energetic and confident, which was pretty amazing considering everything he'd been through. A year earlier, he was a celebrated billionaire CEO, worshipped like a god by his employees, shareholders, and the public.

During the past year, his company and freedom had been stripped away in disgrace. But in spite of everything he'd lost, he  regained a relationship with his daughter. I figured it must be the love and support of Annabelle that was sustaining him.

Marcus took Annabelle aside for a private conversation. When they were finished, Annabelle left me alone with her father. He asked me to take a walk with him through a garden at the edge of the courtyard.

"I am glad you're back in our lives, Temo. You're going to help a lot with what my daughter's trying to do."

"She's really turned her life around."

"She's a wonderful woman," Marcus said. "Once I win my appeal, I'll be able to work with her every day. There's so much lost time to make up for. I didn't see her for nine years. I didn't know if she was dead or alive. You can't imagine what that's like. That  time of her life when she was coming of age, that whole window into adulthood was shattered for her."

Marcus walked behind a tree, a place where he was sure his daughter wouldn't be able to spot him in the distance. The tears began to stream down his face. It was the first time I'd ever seen him cry.

"She was a sweet, happy child, Temo. After that, I don't know what happened. She was such a talented girl, a great ballet dancer, an award-winning equestrian. I gave her the best of everything. I sent her to Our Sacred Lady of the Roses, the best girls' school in Los Angeles. Then something changed. Something happened to her on the way and I missed it. And she'll never forgive me for it, even if she tries."

"What do you mean something happened? Do you know what it is?"

"I don't know. She wouldn't tell me anything back then. She wouldn't let me in. Then she blamed me that I didn't know what was happening to her. She said it was because I was a CEO or because things didn't work out between me and her mom. I think it was something else, though. I am not sure Annabelle even knows what it was. But something happened to that happy child once she hit those teen years. Some part of her was stolen. Now she's trying to get it back. And I am going to help her get it back if it's the last thing I ever do. It's the only thing that matters to me now."

Marcus wiped the tears from his face with the sleeve of his prison jumpsuit. Then we continued walking around the edge of the courtyard, circling back through the garden toward the main building.

"Annabelle told me you are going through some hard times with your own family," Marcus said.

"That's right. My wife thinks we should separate for a while. I went into a kind of spiral. She thinks I failed her and my daughter. And she's right."

"I hope that changes," he said. "I hope you can redeem yourself through the work you're doing with Annabelle."

"I hope so too. Annabelle is giving me an opportunity to start over and I am very grateful. But it's also going to be hard. I'll be away from my daughter, Marcus. You know what that's like."

"Spend every day apart doing something that would make her proud. Someday she'll want to look back on your life. She'll try to understand why you did what you did."

"I hope so," I said. "I worry about how I am spending my time. Now that I have a family, everything I do affects them. Every mistake I make affects their future."

"Every man with a family has the challenge. There's your time and their time. The time you spend for yourself, that's your chance to make a mark in this world. But the time you spend with your family stays with them forever. So how are you going to spend your time? You have to choose and there's no right answer. And then before you know it's too late, you're old and all that time is gone forever."

"Right now my wife doesn't want me spending time with them. So I really have no choice."

By the time Annabelle and I left her father, the sun had already set. We stopped for food at a gas station in Victorville. I knew Annabelle's tank was below the halfway mark. I thought it would be a nice gesture to use some of my own cash to fill it up. After all, she was doing so much for me and I'd done nothing in return.

I paid for our food and told the cashier to put forty dollars toward the tank.

"What are you doing?" Annabelle said. "I told you we don't need to fill the tank."

"Come on," I said. "Let me pay for something."

"No!" She insisted, snatching the forty off the counter and handing it back to me. "Let's go. We're wasting time."