Chapter 7 - A Visitor in Orange
Three months later, I received an urgent summons from the Plymouth County Correctional Facility. Preston had filed six emergency petitions through a public defender, begging for a visitation.
I decided to go. Not out of lingering affection or spite, but because I needed to close that chapter of my life with absolute finality.
I sat down on the metal stool behind the scratched plexiglass partition. A heavy iron door buzzed open, and Preston was escorted in by two guards.
The transformation was shocking. His once-tailored suits were replaced by an ill-fitting, faded orange jumpsuit. His perfectly styled hair was shorn close to his scalp, revealing patches of gray. His shoulders were slumped, his face hollow, and a dark bruise bloomed across his left cheekbone.
He grabbed the plastic telephone receiver with shaking hands. I picked up mine and pressed it to my ear without saying a word.
"Audrey," he choked, tears spilling down his sunken cheeks immediately. "Audrey, thank God you came. You have to help me. You have to get me out of here."
"I have nothing to do with federal criminal charges, Preston," I replied calmly. "You forged federal documents. You stole from your company's pension funds. That was your doing."
"The public defender says I’m facing twenty-five years in federal prison!" he sobbed, slamming his open palm against the glass. The guards behind him tensed, but he quickly shrank back. "I can't survive in here, Audrey. The inmates know who I am. They treat me like garbage! Please, use the trust funds to hire Sullivan. Pay the restitution so they drop the charges to probation!"
I looked at the man I had spent over a decade trying to please. I remembered the endless nights I had cried alone in the master bedroom while he stayed out late with Sabrina. I remembered him sneering at our sick daughter, treating her like an inconvenient burden.
"You traded your daughter's medical treatments for yachts and hotel rooms," I said, my voice dropping to a low, unforgiving register. "You brought your mistress to your mother’s birthday to publicly humiliate me and throw us onto the street."
"I was stupid! Sabrina poisoned my mind! She used me!" he pleaded, pressing his forehead against the cold glass. "Audrey, I'm Willa's father! She needs her father!"
"Willa doesn't have a father," I said firmly. "She has a memory of a monster she defeated with a four-gigabyte flash drive."
I stood up, sliding the divorce decree—already signed and stamped with a judge's final decree terminating all parental rights—against the glass so he could read the bold red seal.
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"Enjoy your twenty-five years, Preston," I said, hanging up the receiver.
I walked out through the heavy iron gates into the crisp, clean Massachusetts morning air, never looking back.
