Chapter 8 - The Petersons Fall Apart
Within two months, the Peterson name was thoroughly erased from the social and financial fabric of Chicago.
Frank Peterson survived his stroke, but his spirit was utterly crushed. Stripped of his company, facing millions in personal civil liabilities, and evicted from the Lincoln Park brownstone, he was forced to liquidate his remaining personal assets—his vintage watch collection, his country club membership, his luxury sedans—just to settle his immediate tax penalties.
He and Carol were forced to relocate to a dreary, two-bedroom rental apartment in a rundown suburb thirty miles southwest of the city.
The social circle that Carol had worshipped turned their backs entirely. Phone calls went unreturned. Invitations vanished. Society matrons who had once kissed her cheeks at charity luncheons crossed the street when they saw her coming.
Carol spent her days sitting by a plastic-framed window, clutching scrapbooks of old society clippings, muttering bitterly about how an ungrateful girl from Ohio had stolen their destiny.
Megan took the plea deal.
To avoid prison, she signed away everything. With her design credentials incinerated and her felony battery plea appearing on every background check, the only employment she could find was stocking shelves at a suburban discount home-goods store for fifteen dollars an hour. The woman who had once refused to fly commercial now rode the public bus every morning in the freezing winter gray.
And Mark?
Mark rented a tiny, furnished studio apartment near the rail yards.
He had lost his vice-president title, his income, his home, and his self-respect. The few boutique firms that considered hiring him quickly rescinded their offers once they ran his name through a search engine.
Every other Saturday, Mark was permitted a ninety-minute supervised visit with Lily at a family counseling center in downtown Chicago.
I never attended those visits. Marcus or Elena escorted Lily to the building.
During their first visit in January, Mark sat across a small plastic table in a fluorescent-lit room, trying desperately to smile while Lily colored in a picture book.
“Do you like your new school, Lily-bug?” Mark asked, his voice trembling, his fingers nervously fidgeting with a paper coffee cup.
Lily didn't look up from her crayons. “My name is Lily. Mommy says only my friends can call me nicknames.”
Mark flinched as if struck. “I’m your daddy, Lily. Of course I’m your friend.”
Lily stopped coloring. She looked up at him with clear, untroubled blue eyes—eyes that held no anger, no hatred, but something far more devastating: absolute indifference.
“When Megan hit me,” Lily said simply, “you looked away. Mommy didn't.”
Mark’s chest caved in. He buried his face in his hands, weeping silently while the court-appointed monitor jotted down notes in a clipboard at the corner of the room.
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Lily didn't comfort him. She picked up a yellow crayon and went right back to coloring her sun.
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