Chapter 18 - The Last Echo of Evelyn
On a rainy Tuesday afternoon in late autumn,
a small,
battered city bus pulled up to a rusty stop near the edge of the lower district.
The doors hissed open,
and an elderly woman stepped down onto the wet pavement,
clutching a cheap plastic umbrella.
It was Evelyn.
Her once-stylized hair was now streaked with untended grey roots,
her skin was deeply wrinkled,
and she wore a worn cloth coat purchased from a discount second-hand shop.
She walked slowly down the narrow alleyway,
her old shoes splashing through dirty puddles,
until she reached a dingy four-story apartment building.
She climbed the dark,
smelly stairwell to the third floor,
pulling a heavy iron key from her purse to unlock the door to Cell 3B.
The apartment was tiny,
scarcely larger than a master closet in my estate.
It contained a single twin bed,
a small plastic table,
a noisy mini-fridge,
and a portable television set.
This was all Evelyn could afford on her monthly government welfare check,
after the family trust had seized her remaining bank accounts to repay the embezzled funds.
She set her plastic grocery bag on the table,
pulling out a tin of cheap soup and a loaf of white bread.
She turned on the small television set,
hoping to drown out the sound of rain beating against the dirty glass window.
The local evening news channel flickered onto the screen.
The news anchor’s voice filled the quiet room:
"In local business news,"
"Dawson Capital has announced a fifty-million-dollar expansion into global markets."
"Founder and CEO Claire Dawson was awarded the Entrepreneur of the Year award at tonight's gala..."
The screen displayed a high-definition photograph of me standing beside city leaders,
looking radiant,
wealthy,
and universally respected.
Evelyn stared at the screen,
the tin of soup freezing in her trembling hands.
Tears began to leak from her aged eyes,
rolling down the deep creases of her cheeks.
She remembered how she used to mock me at family dinners.
She remembered how she had called me cold,
boring,
and unloving,
while praising Vanessa's beauty and charm.
She remembered sitting at my marble kitchen counter,
drinking expensive wine I had bought,
while secretly plotting with Eric to take my home.
Now,
her golden daughter was rotting in a federal prison cell in Dublin.
Her handsome son-in-law was scrubbing toilets in Lompoc.
And she was sitting alone in a dark,
smelly room,
eating cheap soup out of a tin can.
She reached out her hand,
touching the cold television screen,
whispering my name into the empty room.
"Claire..." she whimpered,
her voice breaking into a raspy sob.
"Claire... please... I'm your mother..."
But the television did not answer.
The high society she had craved had erased her.
Her bridge club had blocked her number.
Her old friends turned their faces away whenever they saw her on the street.
She was a living ghost,
haunted by the memory of the daughter she had traded away for cheap,
foolish greed.
She sat down on the narrow bed,
May you like
pulled the thin blanket over her shoulders,
and wept quietly as the rain continued to fall outside her window.
