Chapter 16 - The End of an Era
Five years passed with the quiet, steady rhythm of a metronome.
The seasons changed, the city of Chicago evolved, and the memories of the Whitmore Hotel slowly faded into a distant nightmare.
I had built a fortress of love and stability for Sophie and myself.
However, the federal prison system operates on a very strict timeline.
On a bleak Tuesday morning in November, my parents' five-year sentences officially came to an end.
They were released from the minimum-security facility with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a meager check from the prison commissary.
Their sprawling estate had been auctioned off years ago to pay restitution to Preston’s victims.
Their country club friends had long since erased their numbers from their expensive smartphones.
I knew they were being released, as the victim notification system had sent me an automated email the night before.
I felt absolutely nothing as I read the stark black text on my computer screen.
I did not feel fear, and I certainly did not feel pity.
I went to my job at the marketing firm, poured myself a hot cup of coffee, and tackled my morning meetings with perfect focus.
It was around noon when the receptionist buzzed my office line.
She sounded slightly nervous as she informed me that two elderly people were demanding to see me in the lobby.
I took a deep breath, smoothing the wrinkles from my professional skirt, and walked out to the reception area.
My parents were standing by the glass doors, looking utterly unrecognizable.
My father, once a commanding presence in tailored suits, looked frail and hunched in a cheap, ill-fitting coat.
My mother's perfectly dyed blonde hair was now completely gray, her face heavily lined with years of bitter resentment.
They looked like two ghosts who had lost their way in the modern world.
My mother took a step forward, her eyes instantly welling with desperate, calculated tears.
"Evelyn, please, we have nowhere else to go."
"The state seized everything we owned."
"We are your parents, and we need your help to get back on our feet."
I stood perfectly still, maintaining a professional distance of at least ten feet.
"You lost the right to call yourselves my parents the night you watched a grown man shatter my daughter's skull."
"You lost that right the day you tried to bribe me to protect a sociopath."
My father’s face flushed with a brief flash of his old arrogance, but it quickly faded into pathetic desperation.
"We served our time, Evelyn."
"We paid our debt to society."
"Don't you have a shred of Christian forgiveness in your heart?"
I looked at the security guard standing near the elevator bank.
"I forgave you a long time ago, which is why I am not screaming at you right now."
"But forgiveness does not mean I will ever allow you back into my life."
"If you ever come to my office or my home again, I will have you arrested for stalking."
I turned on my heel and walked back toward the secure glass doors of my department.
May you like
I didn't look back as the security guard firmly escorted them out into the freezing Chicago wind.
That was the last time I ever saw the people who brought me into this world.
