Chapter 18 - LACEY’S LAST MESSAGE
Lacey sent one final message after her sentence began.
Through counsel.
No direct contact.
Raina,
I don’t expect an answer. I wanted you to know I told investigators everything I remembered about the transaction and the house. I also wanted to say that I am sorry I wore your robe. It sounds trivial compared with everything else, but I did it because I wanted to humiliate you. I understand now that small cruelty still counts.
That was unexpectedly specific.
I replied through Naomi:
Received.
Nothing more.
Why not forgive her?
Maybe someday I would.
Maybe not.
Closure is not a court order.
Then I donated the remaining clothes I had recovered from the old house.
Not all.
I kept the robe’s matching sleep set.
The robe itself was never returned.
Police evidence? No, Lacey had left with it and eventually returned via property exchange? Better perhaps it was recovered in her things and returned months later in an evidence bag. I opened the bag, smelled perfume, and threw it away after evidence release.
No symbolism required.
Sometimes trash is trash.
Then Halstead’s new CEO called me.
She wanted to buy back some protective preferred rights from my trust.
Why?
Simplify capital structure.
Would selling be good?
Maybe.
Dad immediately had opinions.
I stopped him.
“This is my trust.”
He smiled.
“Good.”
Independent valuation.
Naomi.
Tax counsel.
No Damon.
No emotional history.
We sold a portion at fair value.
Kept limited protections until refinancing completed.
Money remained in my trust.
I did not use it to build a mansion.
Some invested.
Some reserved.
No grand revenge.
Then I realized:
The very asset rights Damon resented had become simpler once nobody was using marriage to manipulate them.
Business problem.
Business solution.
Then Damon’s first video call with Evelyn from prison.
She was too young to understand.
He appeared on tablet.
Smiled.
Cried.
She tried to grab the screen.
I stayed off camera.
The supervisor handled.
After five minutes Evelyn crawled away toward a toy.
Call ended.
Damon later wrote:
Thank you.
I did not respond.
It was not a favor to him.
It was a cautious choice for her.
Then Dad asked:
“What if she loves him?”
“When she’s older?”
“Yes.”
“She probably will.”
He looked unhappy.
“You need to accept that.”
“I know.”
“Love is not acquittal.”
Dad repeated:
“Love is not acquittal.”
“Exactly.”
He looked at the cedar bench.
“I could have used that sentence years ago.”
Probably.
Then Northline won a larger contract renovating an old railway hotel.
Dad offered to introduce me to the owner.
I had already won it through competitive bidding.
He looked proud.
I told him not to be annoying.
He failed.
Life.
At Evelyn’s first birthday, she smashed frosting into her own hair.
Dad applauded like she had closed a merger.
Rebecca laughed.
I sat on the cedar bench afterward with Evelyn asleep against my shoulder.
The party was inside.
No one was locked outside.
No one was being punished for disloyalty.
No mistress in my clothes.
No husband deciding where I belonged.
The story could have ended there.
But the final question had not been answered yet.
May you like
Damon would eventually come home.
And the court would have to decide what fatherhood looked like after incarceration.
