Chapter 16 - The Diner Meeting
Two weeks after Ryan was transferred to the federal correctional institution in Terre Haute, Indiana, my mother called me from a prepaid cell phone.
She wanted to see me. Just once.
We met at a generic diner halfway between my townhouse and the small, one-bedroom apartment in Reynoldsburg where she and Harold had been forced to move after the bank seized their Dublin home.
Evelyn sat in a vinyl booth, nursing a cup of black coffee that had gone cold. Her designer clothes were gone, replaced by a simple knit sweater from a discount department store.
"You got what you wanted," she said, her voice dry and rasping as I sat down across from her. "Ryan is locked in a cage. Your father and I are living on canned soup and social security. Are you happy now, Claire?"
I looked at the woman who had given me life, and for the first time, I felt no anger. I felt no fear. I felt only a profound, liberating pity.
"Nobody is happy, Mother," I said calmly. "Ryan is in prison because he broke the law. You lost your house because you stole equity to hide his failures. I didn't do this to you. You did this to yourselves."
"He was your brother!" she hissed, a flicker of the old fire sparking in her eyes. "You protect your brother! That is what families do!"
"No, Mother," I said, leaning in. "Families protect the vulnerable. Families protect seven-year-old children from being abandoned in cold hallways. Families don't ruin their daughters’ lives to buy their sons German sports cars."
Evelyn’s lip trembled. She looked down at her coffee cup, unable to hold my gaze. "Can I see the kids? Just for an hour. For ice cream."
"Not yet," I replied. "The court-ordered psychologist says they need stability right now. They need to know that love isn't conditional on performance. When the therapist says they are ready, we will discuss supervised visits. Not a day before."
"You're so hard," she whispered, a tear finally escaping her eye. "You used to be so soft, Claire."
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"I was never soft, Mother," I said, sliding out of the booth and leaving a ten-dollar bill on the laminate table to cover the check. "I was just obedient. And that girl died on Christmas Eve."
***
