Chapter 14
The visiting room at the maximum-security correctional facility was stark, smelling of antiseptic and polished linoleum. A thick sheet of reinforced Plexiglas separated the visitor booths, dividing the inmate side from the free world.
Eleanor Sterling sat on the metal stool on the other side of the glass. She wore a standard charcoal prison jumpsuit, her gray hair pulled back into a simple, unadorned braid. Her pearl earrings and black fur coat were long gone, locked away in an evidence locker downtown. Yet, even here, sitting in a room devoid of luxury, she maintained an unbroken, rigid posture.
Julian walked up to the booth on the visitor side and sat down on the steel stool. He picked up the heavy plastic telephone receiver. Eleanor mirrored his movement, lifting her receiver with deliberate slowness. Neither of them spoke for a long moment, simply studying each other through the thick glass barrier.
“You look well, Julian,” Eleanor said, her voice tinny and distorted through the intercom speaker. “The foundation reorganization made the morning papers. The board elected an outsider as president.”
“It’s what should have happened thirty years ago, Mother,” Julian replied calmly, his expression restrained and devoid of malice or triumph. “The community trust is fully operational. The clinics are opening next month.”
Eleanor’s eyes flicked over his face, searching for any sign of weakness or regret, finding only a quiet, resolute peace. “You threw it all away for a archivist and a rebellious girl.”
“I didn't throw anything away, Mother. I saved what mattered,” Julian said softly. “Maya is healthy, the foundation is clean, and the people you harmed are being compensated.”
Eleanor stared at him for a long, heavy beat, a flicker of something resembling human emotion crossing her hardened features before she ruthlessly suppressed it. “You always were too sentimental, Julian. Your father was the same way. It’s a fatal flaw in this business.”
May you like
“No, Mother,” Julian answered, standing up and placing the receiver back on its cradle. He looked through the glass one last time, seeing not a terrifying matriarch, but a lonely woman trapped by her own design. “It’s the only thing that keeps us human.”
He turned away without waiting for her reply and walked out of the visiting room into the bright afternoon sunlight, leaving the ghosts of the past behind him for good.
