Chapter 6 - THE CONFESSION
Three days later, I sat in a small, sterile visitation room at the West Valley Detention Center.
I hadn't wanted to come, but Marcus Vance had advised it. Brandon’s criminal defense team had reached out, desperately seeking a meeting to discuss a civil settlement and a potential plea deal that might reduce his pending prison sentence.
A heavy steel door clicked open, and a corrections officer led Brandon into the room.
He looked unrecognizable. He wore a baggy orange jumpsuit, his hands restrained at his waist by a belly chain. The sleek, manicured man who had spent hours in front of the mirror before every social gathering had been replaced by a hollow, broken shell. He dropped heavily into the chair across from me, separated by a thick pane of plexiglass.
He picked up the phone. I picked up mine.
"Char," his voice came through the receiver, raspy, thin, and desperate. "Thank God you came. Please... you have to help me get out of here. The public defender says I’m facing five to eight years in state prison."
I sat back in my chair, looking at him with clinical detachment. "You committed felony mortgage fraud, identity theft, and grand larceny, Brandon. What did you expect?"
"It was Caroline!" Brandon blurted out, tears welling in his red-rimmed eyes. "She set the whole thing up! She told me you were going to leave me anyway! She said you were emotionally detached, that you were focusing all your energy on work and Skylar and leaving me behind!"
"I worked eighty hours a week to pay for your lifestyle, Brandon," I said, my voice cutting through his panic like a scalpel. "I paid off your thirty-thousand-dollar credit card debt when we got married. I paid for your mother’s dental work. I paid for Hailey’s rent. And while I was working myself into the ground, you were spending my money taking Caroline to luxury resorts in Palm Springs."
Brandon flinched as if I had struck him. "You... you know about Palm Springs?"
"I know about everything," I said. "I know about the offshore account in the Cayman Islands you tried to set up under B&G Holdings. I know about the photographs you took of my bank tokens while I was in the shower. And I know what your mother said to my daughter in my kitchen."
Brandon buried his face against the glass, sobbing quietly. "I was stupid, Char. I felt small around you. You were so smart, so successful... everyone looked at you as the provider, and they looked at me like I was just hanging on your apron strings. My mother kept telling me I needed to 'take control' of the assets so I wouldn't be left with nothing if you divorced me."
"So your solution to feeling small was to starve your daughter and steal my home?"
"I didn't know Mom gave Skylar instant noodles!" Brandon pleaded, looking up frantically. "I swear to God, Char! I thought Skylar had already eaten dinner at her friend's house! Mom told me Skylar didn't want seafood!"
"You were sitting twelve feet away in the living room, Brandon," I said, leaning closer to the glass. "You heard your daughter crying. You saw her sitting on that stool. You just didn't care—because as long as your plate was full of crab, nobody else mattered to you."
Brandon slumped back, completely silent, unable to meet my eyes.
"I’m filing for divorce tomorrow," I said, my voice flat and final. "Marcus is submitting a motion for full termination of your parental rights based on the criminal child endangerment findings. You will never see Skylar again until she is an adult—and only if she chooses to see you."
"Char, no! Please!" Brandon begged, slamming his chained hands against the shelf below the glass. "Don't take my daughter away! I'm her father!"
"A father protects his child, Brandon," I said, standing up from my chair and hanging up the phone receiver. "You were just a parasite."
May you like
I turned my back on him and walked out of the visitation room, ignoring the desperate tapping on the glass behind me.
As I walked out into the warm California sunlight, I took a deep breath of fresh air. The final knot of guilt, hesitation, and regret dissolved entirely into the blue sky.
