Chapter 7 - The Confrontation
A week after the attack, Eleanor’s attorney requested an emergency preliminary plea meeting at the county jail. Against Daniel’s wishes, I insisted on attending. I needed to look my mother in the eye on equal terms.
I rode into the visitor room in my wheelchair, escorted by Detective Vance and Maya. Across the thick glass partition sat Eleanor. Her perfect hair was unwashed and pulled back into a messy bun; her designer clothes replaced by an orange inmate jumpsuit.
She picked up the plastic telephone receiver. I picked up mine.
"Look at what you’ve done to your own mother," Eleanor began, her voice dripping with venom through the speaker. "You have me locked up in a cage with criminals! Is this how you repay me for raising you?"
"You didn't raise me, Eleanor," I replied quietly. "You harvested me. You treated me like an insurance policy you could cash in whenever your debts caught up with you."
"I took care of you after your father died!" she raised her voice, banging her hand on the metal counter. "I gave you a roof over your head! That money was mine! He was my husband!"
"He left that money to me because he knew who you were," I said. "He knew you were a gambler and a fraud. He tried to protect me from you, even from beyond the grave."
Eleanor sneered. "You think you're so smart with your forensic accountants and your fancy lawyer. You think Daniel loves you? Once he sees how broken you are, how deeply tied your name is to my debts, he’ll leave you. You’re just like me, Clara."
I looked at her—at the desperate, hollow woman who had traded her daughter’s life for forty pieces of silver—and felt no anger left. Only pity.
"I am nothing like you," I said calmly. "You thought the donation box had fifty thousand dollars in cash that day. You threw an iron bar at your unborn grandson for piece of paper. But the real trap wasn't the box, Eleanor. The real trap was letting you believe I was still afraid of you."
I leaned closer to the glass. "You will never see Arthur. You will never hold him. You will spend the rest of your life inside a cell, reading court transcripts of your own ruin."
May you like
I hung up the phone.
Behind the glass, Eleanor began screaming, slamming the plastic receiver against the counter until two guards seized her arms and dragged her back toward the cell block.
