Chapter 8 - THE GLASS DIVIDE
Ethan insisted on going alone, but I refused to let him.
"I don't need to speak to her," I told him in the parking lot of the county correctional facility. "I just need to be in the room. I need to see her know that she lost."
Ethan took my hand, his fingers intertwining with mine. "You don't owe her your presence, Clara."
"I know," I said. "This isn't for her. It's for me."
The visitor room of the maximum-security wing was partitioned by thick, scratched Plexiglas panels. The air smelled of industrial bleach and institutional despair. We sat down on the bolted metal stools on the visitor side.
A heavy steel door buzzed open on the other side of the glass, and Diane was led in by a female correction officer.
The transformation was shocking.
Stripped of her designer knitwear, her blow-dried hair, and her expensive jewelry, Diane looked twenty years older. She was dressed in an ill-fitting orange jumpsuit. Her silver roots had grown out, her skin was sallow and papery under the harsh fluorescent lights, and her hands were bound in front of her with a waist-chain system.
She shuffled to the stool opposite Ethan, picked up the plastic telephone receiver with trembling fingers, and brought it to her ear.
Ethan picked up his receiver. I sat close enough to hear her voice crackling through the earpiece.
"Ethan," Diane whispered, trying to summon that familiar, trembling maternal tone that had manipulated him for thirty years. "You came. I knew you would. You're my boy. You couldn't let them keep your mother in this horrific place."
"I didn't come to get you out, Diane," Ethan said. His voice was completely steady. No anger. No sorrow. Just the cold finality of an iron gate closing. "I came to tell you that this is the last time you will ever see my face."
Diane blinked, the synthetic pity in her eyes instantly curdling. "How can you say that to me? I am your mother! I gave up my life for you!"
"You stole my grandfather’s trust," Ethan said, counting off the facts with absolute precision. "You opened credit cards in my name when I was nineteen. You forged deeds to my wife’s home. And then you walked into our house with power tools and beat the woman I love until she bled."
"Vanessa lied!" Diane hissed, leaning against the glass, her breath fogging the clear barrier. "Vanessa is a jealous, pathetic little wretch who would sell her own soul to save her skin! She planned the whole thing! I only went to protect you from Clara! Clara has poisoned your mind, Ethan! She’s an arrogant, selfish little orphan who thinks she’s better than us because her daddy had a few million dollars!"
"My father worked forty years with honor," I said, leaning toward Ethan’s receiver so she could hear me loud and clear. "He never stole a dime. He never laid a hand on anyone. He left me his legacy because he loved me. You tried to steal it because you're empty inside, Diane. You're a thief, a fraud, and a bully."
Diane slammed her cuffed hands against the Plexiglas. The loud *THUD* echoed through the visitation room, causing the correction officer to immediately step forward with a hand resting on her baton.
"You shut your mouth!" Diane shrieked, her face turning crimson, her veins bulging along her neck. The mask was completely gone now; the monster was bare for the world to see. "You're a parasite! You took my son away from me! You stole my place! I hope you rot! I hope you both burn in hell!"
Ethan didn't flinch. He didn't blink. He looked at the screaming, venomous woman behind the glass with nothing more than clinical detachment.
"Goodbye, Diane," Ethan said quietly.
He placed the plastic receiver back onto its metal cradle.
Diane was still screaming, her mouth contorted in fury, banging her chained fists against the glass, but the sound was completely trapped on the other side. She was nothing more than a silent, thrashing ghost trapped in a cage of her own making.
May you like
Ethan stood up, took my coat from the back of the chair, and gently draped it over my shoulders. He wrapped his arm around my waist, turned his back on the glass, and walked with me through the heavy double doors into the clean, crisp autumn sunlight.
***
