Chapter 8 - The Confrontation in Lockup
Two days later, I made one final visit before the formal trials began.
The visiting room at the Richmond City Jail was cold, gray, and smelled of industrial floor wax and old copper. A thick pane of bulletproof plexiglass separated the two rows of metal stools, equipped with cheap plastic telephones.
I sat down on the stool, wearing a simple beige trench coat, waiting silently.
The heavy steel door on the opposite side opened, and my mother was led inside by a female guard.
Diane Bennett looked entirely unrecognizable.
She wore a faded orange jail jumpsuit. Her signature golden hair was graying at the roots and pulled back into a messy rubber band. Her skin was sallow, framed by deep wrinkles she had spent thousands of dollars hiding with cosmetic treatments. Her hands trembled violently as she picked up the plastic telephone receiver.
I picked up my receiver and held it to my ear.
“Claire...” my mother whispered, her voice hollow and broken through the small speaker. “Claire, my darling... please. You have to help us.”
I sat in absolute silence, watching her.
“The judge set my bail at five hundred thousand dollars,” Diane wept, pressing her trembling forehead against the plexiglass. “Your father is in maximum security because he tried to contact a witness! They won't let me have my heart medication! The women in here... they’re terrible, Claire! They know who I am! They laugh at me!”
“You generated four hundred thousand dollars in revenue for this city’s private prison system through your charity galas, Diane,” I said softly. “I thought you loved local institutions.”
“How can you be so cruel?!” she sobbed, her eyes flashing with a brief spark of her old, vicious temper. “I am your mother! I gave you life! Everything I did—everything Charles and I did—was to protect this family’s name! If people found out you were an unmarried mother at twenty-two, it would have destroyed your father’s career!”
“You didn't do it to protect the family name, Diane,” I corrected her, my voice calm, flat, and unyielding. “You did it because Grandmother left fourteen million dollars to me instead of you. You did it because you couldn't stand the thought of your unwanted, brilliant daughter having more power and wealth than you ever possessed.”
Diane flinched as if I had thrown cold water in her face.
“I offered to let you be a grandmother to Lily,” I continued, my eyes locked onto hers. “Seven years ago, before I escaped, I wrote you a letter. I told you I didn't care about the money. I told you I just wanted a family who loved my baby. Do you remember what you did with that letter?”
Diane swallowed hard, unable to speak.
“You burned it in the fireplace in front of me,” I said. “And then you signed the commitment papers.”
Silence stretched between us, heavy as a tombstone.
“Please, Claire...” Diane whimpered, her hands smudging the glass. “Just drop the felony charges. We’ll give back the money... we’ll give you the estate... just don't send your father and me to prison. We won't survive it.”
I stood up from my stool, smoothing the front of my trench coat.
“My daughter drew a picture of you the night of Dad’s birthday,” I said, looking down at her through the glass. “She drew a monster with diamond rings.”
May you like
I hung up the plastic telephone receiver, placed it neatly on its metal cradle, and turned my back on my mother forever.
As I walked out through the heavy security doors, I could hear her screams echoing faintly through the concrete walls—screams that nobody in the world was ever going to answer.
