Chapter 9 - The Prison Cell
Six weeks later, sentencing day arrived.
Judge Carter didn't show an ounce of mercy.
For the charges of violent residential burglary, assault, grand theft, and felony child endangerment, Corrine Sterling was sentenced to twenty-two years at the California Institution for Women in Corona, with no possibility of parole for fifteen years.
Sloan Sterling, owing to her active role in using the sledgehammer and her complete lack of remorse until the verdict, received fourteen years at the same maximum-security facility.
Two days after their transfer, I drove out to Corona alone.
I didn't go to seek closure. I didn't go to offer forgiveness. I went to execute the final, absolute closure of their existence from my life.
The visiting room at the maximum-security facility was bleak, cold, and smelled of industrial floor wax and cheap detergent. Thick, reinforced glass separated the visitor cubicles, with black plastic telephone receivers mounted on the cinderblock walls.
I sat down on the metal stool, resting my hands on my knees.
A heavy steel door opened, and Corrine was led out by two armed corrections officers.
She was dressed in the faded denim shirt and dark blue pants of a state prisoner. Her hands were cuffed to a leather waist belt, her posture completely broken. She shuffled across the linoleum, dropping heavily onto the stool across from me.
She picked up the plastic receiver with shaking, bruised hands.
I picked up mine.
“Thane...” Corrine wept, her forehead pressing against the cold glass separating us. “Thane, my son... please... please talk to the governor. You have connections... you have power... get us transferred to a private facility... they’re hurting us in here, Thane! The other women... they saw the video... they treat us like monsters...”
I looked at her through the glass. Her face was haggard, her skin yellowed under the harsh lights, her spirit completely crushed into dust.
“You are monsters,” I said softly into the receiver.
Corrine sobbed, her body shaking violently against the counter. “I’m your mother, Thane! I gave you life! How can you be so cold?! How can a son look at his own mother sitting in prison chains and feel nothing?!”
“A son doesn't feel nothing,” I replied, my voice calm, flat, and chillingly serene. “A son feels relief.”
I pulled a crisp, single sheet of white legal paper from my breast pocket and pressed it flat against the glass window.
Corrine blinked through her tears, trying to read the black print across the top of the page.
CERTIFICATE OF FORMAL NAME CHANGE & DISINHERITANCE DECLARATION.
“This document,” I explained quietly, “officially legally strips you and Sloan of any association with the Sterling family trust, my estate, or my corporate holdings. Furthermore, I have legally changed my middle name, my wife’s legal records, and my unborn child’s trust registration to erase every trace of your bloodline’s influence.”
“No...” Corrine whispered, shaking her head frantically against the glass. “No, Thane... you can’t wipe us out... we are your family!”
“My family,” I said, looking her dead in the eye, “is at home, resting comfortably in a house that you will never see again.”
I set the receiver back down onto its cradle.
May you like
Corrine screamed into her receiver, slamming her shackled fists frantically against the reinforced glass, her mouth opening and closing in pathetic, silent contortions as she begged me to pick the phone back up.
I didn't hesitation. I stood up, turned my back on the glass wall, and walked through the heavy steel security doors into the blinding, warm California sunlight outside.
