Chapter 9 - The Final Severance
Two days after the sentencing, I visited the Cook County Jail’s non-contact visiting room one final time. It was a cold, rainy November afternoon.
Julian sat behind the thick, scratched acrylic partition, wearing his orange inmate uniform, his hands handcuffed to the steel table. When he looked up and saw me, tears immediately poured down his hollow, stubbled cheeks. He pressed his shackled hands against the glass.
"Nora..." he sobbed, his voice tinny through the telephone receiver. "Thank you for coming. Please... please let me see the ultrasound photos. The guards told me you're having a boy and a girl. They're my blood, Nora. You can't erase me from their birth certificates."
I sat across from him, holding the telephone with calm, steady fingers. In my other hand was a certified legal binder.
"I didn't come here to show you photos, Julian," I said, my voice completely devoid of anger or pity. "I came to deliver this."
I pressed the document against the glass for him to read.
It was a final, irrevocable decree of termination of parental rights, accompanied by our finalized divorce decree. Under Illinois law, a parent convicted of attempted homicide against the mother and unborn children forfeits all legal, physical, and custodial rights permanently.
"Their names are Liam and Maya," I said softly. "They will carry my maiden name: Bennett. In their world, Julian Vance does not exist. You will never receive a photograph. You will never hear their voices. You will never see them take their first steps, graduate from school, or walk down the aisle. When they ask about their biological father, I will tell them that he died long before they were born."
"No! Nora, please!" Julian cried, slamming his forehead against the acrylic glass until the plastic shuddered. "Don't do this to me! That’s a living death! I have forty-five years in here! If I can't even know my children, I have nothing!"
"You had everything, Julian," I replied, standing up slowly, my coat falling gracefully over my baby bump. "You had a loyal wife, a fortune, an honest family, and two miracles on the way. But you traded it all for a scratch on another woman's arm."
I hung up the telephone receiver.
May you like
Julian screamed, banging his fists against the glass, sobbing uncontrollably as two correctional officers grabbed him by the arms and dragged him backward through the heavy steel door.
I turned around and walked down the long, gray hallway toward the exit. The air outside tasted like autumn rain, crisp and clean. I was finally, completely free.
