Chapter 7 - The Visit
A year to the day after the trial, I drove to the federal correctional institution in the middle of the state—the maximum-security prison where my father was serving his thirty-five-year sentence.
I had not spoken to any of them since the night I had walked out of Le Château. I had not answered their letters, had not accepted their collect calls, had not wanted anything to do with them. But something had been pulling at me lately, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Grandmother’s, telling me I needed to do this before I could truly move on.
The visiting room was cold and fluorescent-lit, filled with plastic chairs and Formica tables, separated by thick glass. Inmates in orange jumpsuits sat across from their families, talking through phones, some crying, some laughing, some just staring at each other in silence.
My father was led in ten minutes later, his hands and feet in shackles, his once-perfect hair now gray and thin, his expensive suits replaced by the baggy orange uniform. He looked smaller somehow, older, defeated. The arrogance was gone, replaced by a hollow, broken look I had never seen on him before.
He sat down across from me, picked up the phone, and stared at me through the glass.
“You came,” he said. His voice was rough, like he hadn’t spoken to anyone in days. “I didn’t think you would.”
“I almost didn’t,” I said, picking up my own phone. “Why did you ask to see me, Richard?”
He flinched at the use of his first name. For a minute, he just sat there, looking at his hands. Then he looked up at me, and his eyes were wet.
“I want to apologize,” he said. “For everything. For stealing from Mom. For trying to kill her. For what I did to you. For all of it. I know it doesn’t mean anything now. I know nothing I can say will ever make it right. But I needed you to hear it anyway. I’m sorry, Evelyn. I’m so, so sorry.”
I said nothing. I just waited.
“I was weak,” he continued, his voice cracking. “My business failed, and I was ashamed. I didn’t want anyone to know I was a failure. Especially not Mom. She had always been so successful, so perfect. I just… borrowed a little money at first. Told myself I would pay it back. But then I needed more, and more, and suddenly it was too late to stop. Linda encouraged me. Said Mom would never miss it, said she had more money than she could ever spend. And Vanessa… she just kept asking for more things. More clothes, more trips, a bigger house. I couldn’t say no. I wanted them to be proud of me. I wanted to be the husband and father they deserved. And somewhere along the way, I lost myself. I became a monster.”
He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
“I think about Mom every night,” he said. “I lie in this cell and I remember what she was like when I was little—how she would read to me, how she would cheer at my Little League games, how she was always, always in my corner no matter what I did. And then I remember what I did to her. I tortured her. I killed her. My own mother. I don’t know how I became that person. I don’t even recognize myself anymore.”
He paused, taking a shaky breath.
“Walker told me if I just stayed quiet, he could get me out,” he said. “Said he had enough dirt on the judge to get the verdict thrown out. But after he got life, there was no one left to help me. I’m going to die in here, Evelyn. I know that. I’m seventy-two years old. Thirty-five years means I’ll never leave this place alive. And I deserve it. Every single day of it.”
He looked at me again, his eyes pleading.
“I just have one question. And if you never answer another thing I ask for the rest of my life, just answer this one. Did Mom… did she ever forgive me? At the end? Did she ever say anything about me?”
I sat there for a long time, holding the phone, looking at the broken old man on the other side of the glass. Part of me wanted to lie. To tell him Grandmother had forgiven him, that she had loved him until the end, that she understood. Part of me wanted to be the bigger person, to give him that small comfort before he died.
But then I remembered the recordings. I remembered his voice, cold and cruel, saying he would increase her medication until she died. I remembered Grandmother’s diary, the years of fear and loneliness he had caused her. I remembered her dying in my arms, confused and in pain, because of him.
I leaned closer to the glass.
“No,” I said, my voice clear and steady. “She never forgave you. She spent the last ten years of her life terrified of you. She hated what you had become. She told me, in her letter, that you were dead to her long before her heart stopped beating. The only reason she didn’t turn you in herself was because she was ashamed she had raised someone so evil. She didn’t love you at the end, Richard. She pitied you. And then she stopped even doing that.”
His face crumpled. The phone slipped a little in his hand. For a second, I thought he would break down completely. But then he nodded slowly, like he had known the answer all along, like he had just been waiting for me to say it out loud.
“I deserved that,” he whispered. “Thank you for being honest. I would have hated you if you had lied to make me feel better.”
He sat there for another minute, silent, staring at his hands. Then he looked up one last time.
“You’re a good person, Evelyn,” he said. “Better than any of us. Better than me. Better than Linda. Better than Vanessa. Don’t ever let what we did to you make you hard. Don’t let our poison ruin your life. Be happy. Live the life Mom wanted for you. The life we tried to take from both of you.”
He put the phone down, stood up, and let the guards lead him away. He didn’t look back.
I sat there for a long time after he was gone, the phone still in my hand.
I had expected to feel something after that—closure, maybe, or anger, or even sadness. But I felt nothing. Just… nothing. The apology meant nothing. His regret meant nothing. His tears meant nothing. It was too little, too late, from a man who had destroyed too many lives to ever be redeemed.
I got up and walked out of the visiting room, out into the fresh air and the sunshine, and I never went back.
I visited Vanessa a week later, at the medium-security prison two hours away. She was twenty-six now, with four years still left on her sentence. The years inside had not been kind to her. Her blonde hair was dull and stringy, pulled back in a harsh ponytail. Her designer clothes were gone, replaced by the same orange uniform everyone else wore. The perfect makeup and the fake smile were gone too, leaving behind a plain, scared girl who looked much younger than her years.
She picked up the phone with trembling hands.
“Evelyn,” she said, her voice small. “You came. I didn’t think… no one comes to see me anymore. Mom refuses to talk to me. Dad says I ruined everything. All my friends forgot I existed. I’m all alone in here.”
I said nothing.
“I know you hate me,” she continued, tears spilling down her cheeks. “And I don’t blame you. I was awful to you. I laughed at you. I called you names. I spent Grandma’s money like it was mine and never even thought about where it came from. I knew something was wrong. I knew Dad and Mom were doing things they shouldn’t. But I didn’t care. As long as I got my cars and my clothes and my trips, I looked the other way. I let them hurt Grandma. I let them hurt you. And I will hate myself for that for the rest of my life.”
She wiped her face with her free hand, smearing the tears across her cheeks.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” she said. “I know I don’t deserve that. But I’m trying to be better. I got my GED in here. I’m taking college classes. I volunteer at the prison library, teaching the other women to read. I know it doesn’t make up for anything. But it’s the only thing I can do. When I get out, I want to work with at-risk kids. Kids who are like I was—spoiled, selfish, who think the world owes them something. I want to tell them my story. I want to make sure no one else makes the same mistakes I did.”
She paused, looking at me hopefully.
“Would you… would you ever be willing to give me a second chance? When I get out? Not as a sister, maybe. Not right away. Just… as someone who knows what I did, and is still willing to let me try to make it right?”
I looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time in years. I saw the regret in her eyes, the genuine desire to change, the fear that she would spend the rest of her life paying for the mistakes of her youth. She was not my father. She was not a monster. She was just a weak, foolish girl who had been raised by monsters, who had learned too late the difference between right and wrong.
Grandmother’s voice was in my head again. Don’t become like them, Evelyn. Don’t let their cruelty make you cruel.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I don’t know if I can ever be your sister. I don’t know if I can ever forget the things you said and did. But I’m willing to write to you. While you’re in here. If you keep trying to be better, keep studying, keep doing the work, I’ll write. We’ll see what happens when you get out. No promises. But it’s a start.”
Her face lit up like I had given her the world.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you, Evelyn. You won’t regret this. I promise. I’ll make you proud. Just like Grandma would have wanted.”
She talked for another ten minutes, telling me about her classes, about the women she worked with in the library, about her hopes for the future. I listened, not saying much, just nodding. When the visit was over, she stood up and pressed her hand to the glass. I hesitated for a second, then pressed mine back.
She smiled—a real, genuine smile, the first I had ever seen from her that didn’t involve getting something she wanted.
I walked out of that prison feeling lighter than I had in years. Not because I had forgiven her, exactly. But because I had chosen not to hate her anymore. Hate was a heavy thing to carry around, and I was tired of carrying it.
I never visited my mother.
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She sent me letter after letter, alternating between begging for forgiveness and screaming that I had ruined her life, that I was a terrible daughter, that I would burn in hell for what I had done. I never opened them. I never would. Some people never change. Some people never feel real remorse. And my mother was one of them.
She could rot in her cell for all I cared.
