Chapter 9 - The Final Letter
Three years after the trial, a thick, official envelope arrived in my office mail.
It bore the return address of the Gatesville Unit, Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
It was a letter from my mother.
I sat at my desk for a long time, staring at the blue state stamp on the corner. I hadn't spoken to Diane or Vanessa since the day they were led out of the courtroom in handcuffs. I had refused all phone calls, returned all prison correspondence unopened, and kept our family entirely separate from their legal appeals.
I opened the envelope with my brass letter opener.
Inside was a single page of lined yellow notebook paper, written in my mother's shaky, aging handwriting.
Arthur,
I am writing this from the facility library. I have been denied parole for the second time. The board told me I have shown insufficient remorse for my crimes.
They are right.
For the first two years I spent in this place, I hated you. I spent every night staring at the concrete ceiling of my cell, cursing your name, cursing Emily, and blaming you for destroying my life, my reputation, and Vanessa's future.
I thought I was the victim. I truly believed that because I gave you life, I had the right to use your life to fuel my own.
Last month, I was assigned to work in the prison nursery, helping care for the babies born to incarcerated women. Last Tuesday, I watched a young mother hold her malnourished, sick baby girl, weeping because she didn't have enough food to give her.
And for the first time in three years... I saw Emily's face.
I saw what I did to your wife. I saw what I did to my grandson.
I realized that I was not a mother. I was a parasite.
I don't expect you to forgive me, Arthur. I don't deserve your forgiveness, and I will never ask for it. You owe me nothing. But I needed to write this so you would know... you were right to destroy my world. You saved your son from a monster.
Please... don't tell Tyler about me until he is an adult. Let him grow up knowing only love.
Goodbye, Arthur.
Diane.
I read the letter twice.
The words didn't bring me joy. They didn't bring me a sense of vengeful victory. But as I looked at the shaky handwriting of a woman who had finally been forced to face the mirror of her own soul, I felt a heavy, final curtain drop over the dark past.
I didn't keep the letter.
I walked out to the backyard patio where the outdoor stone fireplace was lit against the cool autumn evening. I held the yellow paper over the dancing flames, watching it catch fire, curl into black ash, and rise quietly into the night sky over the valley.
I walked back inside.
Emily was in the kitchen, teaching Tyler how to roll out dough for homemade pizza, while little Lily sat in her high chair, happily smearing tomato sauce across her tray.
"Daddy!" Tyler called out, waving his flour-covered hands. "Look! I made mine look like a building!"
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"That's a fine-looking building, engineer," I laughed, walking over to kiss Emily on the neck before scooping Lily out of her high chair to wipe her sticky face.
The ash of the past was gone, carried away by the Texas wind. All that remained was the warm light of the home I had bled to build.
