Chapter 8
We got a letter in the mail the year Henry turned twelve.
From the Tennessee Department of Corrections.
Margaret had applied for compassionate release.
She had stage four lung cancer.
Six months, maybe a year, to live.
They were considering letting her out to die in a nursing home.
They wanted a victim impact statement from us.
To help them decide.
I put the letter on the kitchen counter.
Emma read it over my shoulder.
We didn’t speak for a long time.
Henry and Lila were outside in the yard, chasing the dog.
Their laughter drifted in through the open window.
“What do you want to do?” Emma said finally.
I thought about it.
For a long time.
I thought about the kick.
The split lip.
The fear in Emma’s eyes.
The stolen money.
The years of lies.
I thought about a woman dying alone in a prison cell.
Scared.
In pain.
No one to hold her hand.
“I don’t want her near us,” I said. “Ever. Not even a mile. But —” I paused. “I don’t think I need her to die in prison to feel like justice was done. She lost everything. Her freedom. Her family. Her relationship with her sons. She’s already been punished more than enough for one lifetime. I won’t object to her release. But only on the condition that the permanent restraining order stays in full force. If she gets within five hundred yards of any of us, she goes straight back. No exceptions.”
Emma nodded slowly.
“I feel the same,” she said. “I don’t hate her anymore. I don’t think I’ve hated her for a long time. I just — I feel nothing. She’s a stranger who hurt me a very long time ago. I don’t wish her pain. But I don’t wish her peace either. She made her choices. She has to live — and die — with them. I won’t stand in her way of dying outside. But she will never be part of our lives. Never.”
We wrote our statements exactly that way.
Sent them in.
Two weeks later, the letter came back.
Compassionate release granted.
Restraining order remains permanent.
She was moved to a nursing home in western Kentucky.
Near the rest of what was left of her family.
We never heard from her.
She never tried to call.
Never wrote.
Never tried to see us.
She died eight months later.
Alone.
I didn’t go to the funeral.
Tyler went.
Sent me a single text afterwards.
She asked for you at the end. Said she was sorry. I’m sorry too, Ethan. For all of it. I hope you and your family have a good life.
I stared at the text for a long time.
Then I deleted it.
Blocked his number.
And went outside to push Lila on the swing.
May you like
It was over.
Really over.
