Just one question

By: Kimbriell KellyOn a rainy winter morning, Nicole sat across the table from her father in the living room of his Englewood apartment. Sitting upright in a chair with her legs crossed at the ankles as if she had attended charm school, Nicole positioned herself parallel to her father and avoided eye contact. It has been nearly three years since they first began rebuilding their relationship.

She pulled out a tissue and hid it between her clasped hands as tears formed in her round, hazel eyes. Then she sighed. "I guess I would want to know why? Why wasn't he there?" she said, speaking in a slow and deliberate childlike tone-one so soft that it wouldn't intimidate even a small child.

An electrical and computer engineering major at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Nicole, 27, has lived her life hoping for a father to take her on trips to Lake Geneva and out to dinner for no reason, and to cheer her on at graduation.

Throughout her childhood, Nicole watched a close uncle dote on his children, and she wished for the same. "I could see a man in a kid's life. And I saw how it was supposed to go," Nicole said. "Just having him around and seeing how he treated his kids let me know how I should've been treated."

Nicole also watched the parents of her peers escort their children on report card day, but she was alone. "I didn't have anybody," said Nicole. Her father was in prison. Her mother was in the hospital with complications from lupus.

"Why wasn't he there?" Nicole asked. "People make mistakes. I'm not perfect. I thought he would have learned after a few times."

But for her father, Andrew "B.J." Atchison, crime was ingrained in his upbringing. His mother boosted stolen goods. His stepfather was a drug dealer.

His mother eventually went to prison, writing the script for her son to follow. Atchison spent most of his early adult life in and out of jail. He spent all of Nicole's teen years in prison. In all, Atchison was incarcerated five times before he walked out of prison in 2004, at the age of 44.

Shortly afterwards, he reconnected with Nicole, and he hasn't been back to prison since.

"I feel so stupid knowing I had a great daughter,who didn't want nothing but the best, and still not be there for her," Atchison said."My father wasn't there for me. But I thought I had hardened myself to that. That was the last thing I ever wanted to do was to be like him."

While Nicole and her father corresponded by letter off-and-on when he was in prison, there was just one visit when she was 10 years old. Nicole remembers little of that day. But Atchison has never forgotten it. With a wide grin, he sprang from his chair. He ran over to her in his brown cowboy boots and rapidly snapped his fingers in hopes of jogging her memory. "Remember, you had a jacket!

It had blue right here, and white right here," as he smoothed his hand from his ribs to his waist. Atchison remembers the day vividly because it was their only visit and she was there willingly. "Even though she knew I wasn't in her life, she didn't hold it against me. She wanted her dad in her life," Atchison said. "She could've come and been nonchalant about it. … It wasn't that. She wanted to come."

Atchison was in and out of Nicole's life up until she was 11. But Atchison said his "pride" and "selfishness" kept him away from his daughter. He also had sporadic contact with his son, Keith Harrington. Once during a chance meeting, Atchison didn't recognize a 7- year-old Harrington. "It made me feel like nothing," Atchison said. "I had gotten out of touch with him, of his size, his look, him as a little boy."

By the time Nicole was an adult, she had given up hope for a meaningful relationship with her father. "Come on, I hadn't seen him for so many years," she said.

Meanwhile, Atchison began to understand the implications his lifestyle was having on his children when he learned that Harrington had been arrested and sent to the very same prison.

Harrington had started hanging around a cousin who was selling drugs.

"Is this what I've taught my son to be about?"Atchison remembered thinking.

In the evenings, they'd walk and talk in the yard as other inmates toiled on weight equipment. "He wanted to know what was wrong with [him]," Atchison said. "He needed to be reassured he had nothing to do with it."

While Harrington struggled for answers, Atchison struggled with the guilt and shame of introducing his son to others in prison."What do you say? This is my son? I didn't want to hear me say it out of my mouth,"Atchison said. "You say you don't care what people think.

But something like that, you do." But Atchison said the worst part was knowing that his lifestyle had contributed to his son's incarceration.

Nicole and Atchison believe that children with incarcerated parents need more support. As an inmate at the Sheridan Correctional Center, Atchison said he had services available to him, such as support groups and therapy. He said had those services been available to his children, they might not have spent their lives blaming themselves for his actions, and questioning his love.

"The main thing I want you to know is: It ain't your fault," Atchison told Nicole, looking into his daughter's eyes. "I'm the father. I was selfish for not being there." Atchison left prison in October 2004.

He didn't return to his old neighborhood. Instead, he moved into a halfway house to get away from old habits. He started a remodeling business and opened a barbershop. He has gotten married and rekindled relationships with both of his children. His son now calls him "pops" instead of "man." And his daughter said she can rely on him when she needs a ride home from class.

As Atchison sat in his living room, Nicole's eyes became bright. She smiled at her father as she learned of many things they have in common; and other things about her father that she never knew at all-like his four tattoos.

On Atchison's right arm is the tattoo of an ex-wife's name. On his left arm is the name of his deceased mother. The last is across his heart: Nicole's name. The fancy script loops across his breast and swivels at the end into two dangling hearts pointing toward the birthmark over his heart- the same one he shares with Nicole.

"It lets me know he really adores me and loves me a lot," Nicole said. "I wasn't sure."