Chapter 13 - The Visit
Ethan asked what I thought.
I gave him the answer he needed.
“This decision belongs to you.”
He went.
Not alone.
His attorney accompanied him.
Linda sat behind thick glass at the county detention facility.
According to Ethan, she looked smaller.
Older.
But she began exactly as she always had.
“I was protecting you.”
Ethan didn't argue.
He simply asked, “From what?”
“Her.”
“Claire is my wife.”
“She took you away.”
“No, Mom.”
Linda stopped.
Ethan leaned closer to the glass.
“I grew up.”
Those three words broke something.
Linda started crying.
She said Claire had changed him.
Ethan agreed.
“She taught me that love doesn't require obedience.”
Linda stared at him.
Then Ethan asked about Rebecca.
His mother looked away.
“Why did you hide her?”
Linda finally admitted the truth.
Rebecca reminded her of Howard.
Ethan did too.
But Ethan had been the child she was allowed to keep.
So she constructed a different story around him.
Robert Whitmore became his father.
Howard disappeared.
Rebecca disappeared.
Anything threatening Linda's version of her family disappeared.
Until Claire arrived.
A woman Linda couldn't erase.
Before Ethan left, Linda said one final thing.
“I lost everything because of her.”
Ethan stood.
May you like
“No. You lost everything because you kicked my pregnant wife.”
Then he walked away.
