Chapter 14 - The Last Letters-14
On the morning of Lily's twenty-first birthday, three official letters arrived at our estate in Maine from the Texas State Parole Board.
Richard, Elaine, and Vanessa had completed their mandatory prison terms and had been released into a state-supervised conditional probation program. Having lost their home, their wealth, their professional licenses, and their social standing, they were living in a modest communal housing unit in West Texas, working entry-level administrative jobs to pay off their court-ordered restitution fees.
Through their parole officer, they had submitted three written requests to send a birthday card to Lily.
Lily sat at the sunlit kitchen island, wearing a soft ivory sweater, a cup of warm coffee in her hand. Beside her sat the unopened white envelopes.
I stood by the window, watching her quietly, letting her make her own decision without interference.
Lily picked up the three letters. She didn't look angry. She didn't look curious. She looked at the names on the return address with the calm detachment of a lead auditor reviewing an empty, irrelevant file.
She walked over to the wood-burning fireplace near the dining table, opened the iron screen, and dropped all three unopened envelopes directly into the glowing embers.
We watched together as the paper caught fire, curling into black ash, rising up the chimney flue and dissolving into the cold winter sky above the pines.
"They took a vote nine years ago, Mom," Lily said softly, walking back to the counter and wrapping her arms around my waist, resting her head against my shoulder.
May you like
"Yes, they did, my bright star," I whispered, kissing her hair.
"And today," Lily smiled, looking up into my eyes with pure, radiant clarity, "we took ours."
