Chapter 24 - GREG’S LAST YEARS
Greg remained out of Lily’s life.
He completed supervision.
No new criminal convictions.
Worked.
Attended addiction treatment inconsistently, then more consistently.
Paid restitution slowly.
Not enough to make everyone whole.
Enough to show legal obligations continued after headlines ended.
At sixty-eight, he developed heart disease.
His attorney contacted Lily:
Would she permit a letter?
She said no.
Later:
Would she permit medical notification if condition became terminal?
She said yes.
Not contact.
Notification.
Greg died at seventy.
Lily was forty.
Nora called.
“You okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“Want me there?”
“Yes.”
Nora came.
Lily did not attend the funeral.
She requested proof that remaining restitution claims were handled through the estate before any residual distribution.
Lawful.
Not revenge.
Greg left her a cardboard box of childhood photographs.
The executor asked whether she wanted it.
She did.
Inside:
Emily holding baby Lily.
Birthday candles.
Beach.
Greg smiling beside them.
Evidence that bad people? No.
People who later do terrible things can exist in older happy photographs.
Lily kept some.
Discarded others.
One showed Greg carrying her on his shoulders when she was two.
She cried.
Nora asked:
“Does it make you doubt what he did?”
“No.”
“Does it make you miss him?”
“Someone he could have been.”
That was different.
May you like
She kept the photograph.
Memory did not need moral purity.
