Chapter 13 - The Glass Between Two Worlds
The Federal Correctional Institution in Butner,
North Carolina,
rose out of the flat,
pine-covered landscape like a monument to human failure.
Rows of razor-wire fences glinted under the harsh midday sun,
surrounding heavy concrete buildings stripped of any architectural warmth or dignity.
I sat on a hard metal stool in the non-contact visitation room,
separated from the inmate cubicle by a thick sheet of scratched,
bulletproof plexiglass.
The room smelled of floor wax,
bleach,
and the stale,
nervous sweat of dozens of broken families who had passed through these booths before me.
A heavy steel door on the opposite side buzzed loudly,
clicking open with the sharp sound of an electronic latch.
An inmate in drab olive-brown prison fatigues shuffled into the booth,
his wrists shackled to a chain looped around his waist.
It took my brain several seconds to recognize the man who had slept beside me for eight years.
Evan had aged a decade in six months.
His dark hair,
once expensively styled and scented with pomade,
had been cropped short by a prison barber,
streaked with thick shocks of gray at the temples.
His skin had the sickly,
yellowish pallor of someone who lived under fluorescent tubes,
his face gaunt,
his once-broad shoulders slumped in a posture of permanent defeat.
He sat down on the metal stool,
the chains clanking against the frame,
and looked up.
When his eyes met mine,
a bizarre,
flickering mixture of emotions crossed his face:
shock,
a pathetic spark of hope,
and then a desperate,
hungry attempt at charm that made my stomach turn.
He picked up the heavy black plastic receiver mounted on the wall.
I hesitated for a second,
then lifted the matching receiver to my ear.
“Claire,”
his voice came through the earpiece,
muffled by the static of the prison intercom,
raspy and hollow.
“You came.
I couldn’t believe it when the guard called my registration number.
I knew you would come.
I knew you couldn’t just throw away eight years without looking at me one more time.”
I didn’t answer immediately.
I looked at the scratches on the glass between us,
marveling at how thoroughly this man still lived inside the fantasy of his own importance.
“I did not come to reminisce,
Evan,”
I said,
my voice completely devoid of inflection.
“I came to bring you legal documents that require your formal acknowledgement before the federal magistrate.”
The tiny spark of hope in his eyes died instantly,
flickering out like a match dropped into cold water.
He gripped the receiver tighter,
his knuckles raw and red.
“Always the lawyers,”
he bittered,
a flash of his old,
arrogant spite curling his lip.
“You took everything,
Claire.
You took my house,
you took my savings,
you took my career,
and you put me in this cage.
Haven't you had enough revenge?
When does your pound of flesh get satisfied?”
“Revenge requires passion,
Evan,”
I replied,
looking him dead in the eye without blinking.
“Revenge means I still care enough about you to want you to hurt.
What I feel for you is the same thing I feel when I see a pile of rotting debris on the side of the road:
I simply want it removed so it doesn't poison the ground.”
He flinched,
pulling back from the glass as if I had physically struck him across the face.
“We found the mountain vault in Asheville,
Evan,”
I said.
The color drained from his face with terrifying speed,
leaving his skin looking like wet plaster.
His mouth opened slightly,
his breath hitching in his chest.
“No,”
he whispered into the phone,
his eyes darting around the visitation room as if looking for an escape route.
“That was...
that was private.
You had no right to touch that.”
“Locker 412 at Blue Ridge Safe Storage,”
I continued relentlessly,
reading the inventory from memory.
“Three hundred and eighty thousand dollars in cashier’s checks.
Ninety-five thousand in foreign currency.
Two gold bars.
And the fraudulent mortgage deed to your mother’s farm.”
Evan buried his forehead against the cool plexiglass,
a long,
choked groan vibrating through the plastic receiver.
“Paige,”
he hissed through his teeth,
his voice trembling with venomous rage.
“That treacherous,
miserable little bitch told you.
She promised me she wouldn't say a word.”
“Paige didn’t tell me out of loyalty to you,
Evan,”
I said calmly.
“She told me because she was starving,
because you used her just like you used me,
and because in the end,
the monsters you create always turn around and devour you first.”
He lifted his head,
tears streaming down his hollow cheeks,
his hands pressing against the glass,
smudging the plastic with damp prints.
“Claire,
listen to me,”
he pleaded,
his voice rising into a cracked,
desperate whine.
“The money on the farm was for a commercial deal.
I was going to pay it back before she ever knew!
I swear to God,
I was going to save her!
I did it to set up our future!”
“Stop lying,
Evan,”
I cut him off,
my tone hitting like a steel hammer.
“Your mother knows everything.
She sat in Sophia’s office yesterday morning and signed the papers authorizing the seizure of your hidden mountain vault to pay off the bank.
She watched the video of you forging her signature on the deed.”
Evan froze,
his entire body trembling under the olive-brown uniform.
“What did she say?”
he croaked,
barely able to get the words past his throat.
“She didn't cry,”
I told him.
“She simply asked the federal prosecutor if there was any way she could legally remove your father’s last name from your birth certificate,
so that his memory wouldn't be dragged through the prison mud with you.”
Evan broke entirely.
He slumped forward against the counter,
the metal chains rattling violently against his chest,
sobbing with the raw,
ugly grief of a man who had finally realized that his universe had contracted to an eight-by-ten cell,
and that not a single soul on the outside remained to mourn him.
I placed a legal form against the glass,
pointing to the line where his signature was already rendered obsolete by court order.
“The superseding indictment was filed two hours ago,”
I said,
standing up from the metal stool.
“You are looking at another seven years,
Evan.
By the time you walk through those gates,
you will be nearly fifty years old.
Your youth is gone.
Your wealth is gone.
Your family is gone.”
He looked up at me through the glass,
his face smeared with tears and snot,
his eyes wide with a horrifying,
permanent despair.
“Claire...
please,”
he whimpered into the receiver.
“Don’t leave me here alone.”
I looked at him one last time,
feeling the final,
infinitesimal thread of our eight-year past dissolve into the sterilized air of the prison.
“You were always alone,
Evan,”
I said softly into the plastic earpiece.
“You were just too arrogant to realize it.”
I hung up the receiver,
turning my back on the glass,
May you like
and walked through the heavy steel door into the blinding sunlight,
leaving the ghost of my past locked firmly inside his cage.
