Chapter 15 - The Glass Partition
The visitor room in the county jail smelled of industrial bleach, floor wax, and misery.
I sat on a metal stool behind a thick pane of scratched Plexiglas. A black plastic telephone receiver hung on the wall to my right.
A heavy steel door opened on the other side of the glass, and Diane was led in by two female correctional officers.
She was wearing a faded orange two-piece jumpsuit that hung loosely on her thin frame. Her silver-streaked hair, which had been perfectly coiffed every single day of my life, was greasy, tangled, and falling into her face. Her makeup was gone, revealing the deep, bitter wrinkles around her mouth and eyes.
She sat down on the stool with a slow, jerky motion, her cuffed hands resting on the metal counter.
She didn't pick up the phone immediately. She just stared at me through the glass.
I was wearing a clean civilian sweater and jeans that Martha Greer had bought for me that morning, but my back was straight, my shoulders relaxed, and my eyes steady.
Diane slowly lifted the receiver to her ear.
I picked up mine.
“Are you proud of yourself?” Diane whispered, her voice crackling through the cheap speaker like static on a dead radio.
“Are you proud of yourself, Mother?” I answered, my tone completely devoid of anger.
“You destroyed this family,” she hissed, her fingers curling around the receiver until her knuckles turned yellow. “Your father is going to prison. Your sister is going to prison. The hardware store is being liquidated by the bank. Our home... our beautiful home is going to be auctioned off on the courthouse steps.”
“You did that, Diane,” I said, using her first name for the first time in my life. “You did every single bit of it. Chloe made a terrible mistake on Route 9, but you were the one who turned it into a catastrophe. You chose to ruin three lives just to keep your social standing at First Presbyterian.”
Diane let out a harsh, barking laugh that ended in a cough. “Social standing? You think I cared about those hypocrites? I cared about order! I built a respectable life out of nothing! Your father was a weak, pathetic failure who couldn't even manage a balance sheet! I was the one who held everything together!”
“By stealing Grandma’s money?” I asked.
Diane’s eyes flashed with venom. “That money should have been mine! I took care of Evelyn while she was dying! She had no right to leave it to an ungrateful, rebellious brat who wouldn't do what she was told!”
“Grandma knew who you were,” I told her. “That’s why she put the trust in my name. She knew you would devour everything in that house if she didn't lock it down.”
Diane leaned forward, pressing her forehead against the scratched glass until her breath fogged the surface.
“You think you won, Emily?” she spat, her eyes bulging with madness. “You think because you wore that stupid green suit and brought a camera to my lawn that you’re a hero? You’re nothing. You’ll always be the girl who ran away. When people look at you, they won't see a sergeant. They’ll just see the daughter of a criminal.”
I looked at the woman who had terrorized my childhood, the woman who had made me believe I was born wrong, born ugly, born disposable.
And for the first time in my life, I felt absolutely nothing.
No fear. No heartache. Not even pity.
She was just a small, miserable parasite who had finally run out of hosts to bleed.
“When people look at me, Diane,” I said, my voice calm, clear, and ringing with absolute finality, “they see a woman who survived you.”
I hung up the plastic receiver.
I stood up from the stool, turned my back on the glass, and walked toward the heavy steel door.
May you like
Behind me, through the speaker vents in the wall, I could hear Diane screaming, pounding her cuffed fists against the Plexiglas, calling my name, cursing me, until the guards seized her by the arms and dragged her back into the darkness of the cellblock.
***
