Page 109 of Tiger Queen
He came forward and stopped in front of David, Jake, and Anthony. There were tears in his eyes. “Boys. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life. I wasn’t the best father. Hell, I was damn-near close to the worst. I can see that now. Prison has given me a lot of time to realize the mistakes I’ve made, and how I can go about fixing them.” He stood up a little straighter. “I hope you’ll give me the chance to make things right when I get out in five years.”
To my surprise, Jake hugged him without hesitation. “I don’t forgive you, dad. But when you get out, I’ll give you the chance to change my mind.”
“That’s all I want,” Carl replied. “That’s all I want.”
David and Anthony embraced him next. Jake came back and stood next to me with tears in his eyes. I put a hand on his back to comfort him.
“Alright,” Carl said in an emotional voice. “I didn’t mean to come here and crash the party. Go on and cut the ribbon.”
I held out the scissors. “You should cut it!”
He hesitated. “Uh, I ain’t allowed to touch sharp objects or anything that can be used as a weapon…”
The policeman who was his escort walked over to the edge of Big Caesar’s enclosure. “I’m going to admire this beautiful tiger for precisely twenty seconds. If I don’t see anything, then I can’t report anything.”
He pointedly turned his back to us while watching Caesar.
Carl grabbed the scissors from me, then held them open against the ribbon. He grinned at the crowd then snipped the scissors. The two ends of the ribbon drifted to the ground, and the visitors all clapped. Me most of all.
“The Haines Wildlife Park is officially open!” I announced.
Anthony and Jake jogged over to the other side of Caesar’s enclosure, where the two female Bengals watched with curiosity. The fencing of the new park was built along the edge of their enclosure, so all Jake and Anthony had to do was pull open the new gate connecting the two.
The pair of tigers stalked toward the gate cautiously, as if it was a trap. One passed through the gate, then the other. They sniffed the ground and looked around. Then they snapped at each other and began playing. One of them ran off into the open field, and the other gave chase.
“They look like they’re frolicking!” mom said excitedly.
Another cheer went up among the group.
“Thanks for coming out, everyone!” David announced to the group. “I’m sorry we don’t have much to show you.”
“Those are the only two being released?” mom asked with confusion.
“We can’t just set everyone loose all at once,” I explained. “The animals need time to acclimate. We’re releasing them in waves to make sure none of them fight or get too territorial.”
“Glad to see you learned something with that education we paid for!” dad joked. “I would have turned them all loose. It would have been chaos.”
We said goodbye to most of the visitors, including Carl. That goodbye was as emotional as his arrival had been. Many tears were shed, especially from me. Seeing my three men reconnecting with their father, even just for a few minutes, made my heart swell with happiness.
Then we invited my parents back to the house for dinner. Anthony cooked lasagna, and the six of us gathered around the dining room table.
“I’m on a low-carb diet,” David explained when someone asked why he was eating a portion without pasta. “It’s called the ketogenic diet.”
“Keto!” dad said excitedly. “I have been considering that for weight loss. I’d love to pick your brain about it.”
“Any time. I’ll give you my phone number.”
“Didn’t you all have jobs before you came back here?” my mom asked. “What happened with that?”
“I owned two Crossfit gyms up in Richmond,” David replied. “They needed an owner who was there in-person, so I sold them a few months ago.”
“I bet you made quite the profit,” dad said. “Richmond is growing like crazy.”
David grinned. “I did alright.”
“I used to be a computer programmer,” Anthony chimed in. “I mean, I still am sort of. But I used to be, too. I’m only part time now. Twenty hours a week. So, yeah. That’s what I do when I’m not the park’s IT guy.”
“What about you?” mom asked Jake. “I bet a stud-muffin like you had a fun job.”