Chapter 16 - The Visit
In July, a certified letter arrived at my office from the state correctional facility in Chillicothe.
It was an inmate visitation request.
*Inmate: Mercer, Grant #A782-901.*
I stared at the slip of paper for an entire morning. I didn't owe Grant anything. I didn't need his apology, and I certainly didn't need his excuses. But something inside me wanted to close the final chapter with my own eyes.
Two days later, I sat in the visiting room of the medium-security prison.
The room smelled of floor wax and institutional soap. A heavy plexiglass partition separated the rows of metal tables.
The heavy steel door buzzed. Grant was led in by a correctional officer.
He had lost forty pounds. His prison greens hung loosely on his frame. His hair was shaved down to the scalp, revealing a jagged scar near his ear from a scuffle in the yard. When he sat down and picked up the heavy plastic telephone receiver, his hand shook.
I picked up mine.
“You came,” Grant said, his voice flat, stripped of every trace of the golden boy who had laughed at me fifteen years ago.
“I came,” I said.
Grant looked at his hands, then up through the scratched glass. “Dale had a stroke last month. Did they tell you?”
“Warren informed me. He’s in the prison infirmary in London.”
Grant nodded slowly. “He still curses your name. Every time Mom visits, all they talk about is how you ruined us. They still think they did nothing wrong.”
“And you, Grant? What do you think?”
Grant leaned his forehead against the partition. A long, shuddering breath escaped his chest.
“I was drunk, Luke,” he whispered, tears finally pooling in his hollow eyes. “I was so drunk I didn't even remember hitting Trevor until Dad woke me up with the bumper smashed in the driveway. And when Dad said you’d take the fall... I was relieved. God help me, I was glad it was you and not me.”
He looked at me, his face a portrait of utter ruin.
“I was a coward. I let them put that sign on you. I took that picture because if I made it a joke, I didn't have to admit what a piece of trash I really was.”
I listened to every word. I didn't interrupt. I didn't gloat.
“I’m serving eight years, Luke,” Grant said, his voice breaking. “My law degree is gone. My career is gone. When I get out, I’ll be forty-three with a felony record and fifty dollars to my name. I deserve it. I know that now.”
I looked at my brother through the glass. For the first time in my life, I didn't see an oppressor. I saw a broken man paying the exact legal price for his choices.
“You have eight years to figure out who you are without Dale and Carol telling you you’re special,” I said calmly.
“Do you forgive me?” Grant asked, his eyes searching mine with pathetic desperation.
I paused. The clock on the prison wall ticked forward.
“Forgiveness is between you and Trevor Nash, Grant,” I said. “I’m not angry with you anymore. But we will never be brothers again. When you get out, do not look for me. Do not come to Oak Ridge.”
I hung up the telephone receiver.
May you like
Grant sat frozen, watching through the glass as I stood up, turned my back on him for the final time, and walked out the heavy security doors into the open summer air.
***
