Chapter 12 - The Iron Gate
"Colin! Margaret! Open this damn gate!" Jessica’s voice was ragged, cracking with a wild, hysterical fury that bounced off the limestone bluffs behind the house. The taxi driver behind her took one look at her wild posture, slammed his cab into reverse, threw gravel into the air, and sped away down the county road, leaving her standing alone in the damp mud.
Colin took a step toward the steps, his fists balling up at his sides, but I reached out and gently caught his forearm.
"Stand beside me, Colin," I said softly, my voice calm as mountain water. "Do not go down there. Do not give her the fight she is looking for."
Colin breathed through his nose, his knuckles relaxing slightly. "She’s completely lost her mind, Mom. Look at her."
We walked together down the stone pathway, stopping twenty feet inside the perimeter of the iron gate. Between us and Jessica stood six feet of heavy ornamental steel, bolted deep into reinforced concrete pillars.
Jessica looked through the bars, her eyes bloodshot, her face pale and greasy with sweat. When she saw Colin standing beside me, an ugly, twisted sneer spread across her chapped lips.
"Look at the happy little family!" she screamed, spitting onto the wet gravel. "Look at the great Colin Vance, hiding behind his mommy’s apron strings! Colin, you pathetic loser, my father’s life is ruined! The feds took our house! They took my car! They froze every account in my name! And you’re out here living like royalty on thirty million dollars that should have bought us a penthouse in River Oaks!"
"My mother’s money belongs to her, Jessica," Colin answered, his voice remarkably steady, devoid of the old weakness that used to bend him to her every whim. "You never had a right to it, and you never will."
"Where is my son?!" Jessica shrieked, slamming her palms against the gate. The metal clanged sharply. "Where is Lucas?! Lucas! Get out here! It’s your mother! You belong to me! Colin, tell him to come out! We’re leaving for Mexico! My uncle has an account in Monterrey! We can start over!"
I stepped forward until I was standing ten feet from the gate, looking straight into her wild, unhinged eyes.
"Lucas is not here, Jessica," I said evenly. "And he is never getting into a car with you again."
"You shut your mouth, you old hag!" Jessica screamed, her voice hitting a register that sounded like tearing metal. "You stole my life! You sat in my house for four years, eating our food, acting like a sweet little granny while you held a forty-two-million-dollar lottery ticket in your coat pocket! You watched us struggle! You watched me stress over private school tuition and credit card bills! You could have written a check and saved my marriage! You could have saved my family!"
"Your marriage wasn't killed by money, Jessica," I said, without a trace of anger. "It was killed by your cruelty. You didn't care about Colin when he was working seventy hours a week to keep you in luxury handbags. You didn't care about Lucas when you dumped him in a dormitory so you could drink wine in Aspen. And you certainly didn't care about me when you slid an expired ticket across the table and told me to get out of your house before the holidays."
"I was stressed!" she wailed, tears of self-pity finally cutting tracks through the grime on her cheeks. "People make mistakes! You’re a Christian woman, Margaret! Where is your Christian charity?! Look at me! I have nowhere to sleep tonight! I don't have five dollars to buy a sandwich! Give me my son, give me two hundred thousand dollars, and I will disappear from your lives forever! That’s nothing to you! It’s pocket lint!"
"No," Colin said.
Jessica froze, her eyes bulging. "Colin... please. Baby, look at me. Remember our wedding? Remember our house in Westlake? You loved me. You swore you would protect me."
Colin walked forward, standing right beside me, looking down at his former wife with a pity that was far colder than hatred. "I loved an illusion, Jessica. I loved a dream of status and beauty that turned out to be completely hollow inside. You don't love Lucas. You want to use him as a hostage to extort money from my mother. You broke your probation. You violated a protective order. You brought this entirely on yourself."
From around the bend of the county road, the quiet thrum of an engine signaled the arrival of help. A white-and-gold Travis County Sheriff's patrol car rolled silently up the shoulder, followed immediately by an unmarked sedan.
Jessica spun around, her eyes widening in absolute terror. "You called the cops?! Colin, you called the cops on the mother of your child?!"
Two deputies stepped out of the cruiser, their hands resting calmly near their belts. One of them held a clipboard with the court-ordered violation notice.
"Jessica Vance?" the lead deputy asked, stepping across the wet grass. "Step away from the gate and put your hands behind your back. You have an active bench warrant out of Travis County District Court for probation violation, and Dallas County has issued an extradition warrant for felony flight."
Jessica backed up against the iron bars, her hands clawing at the metal behind her back. "No! No! You don't understand! My mother-in-law is a multi-millionaire! She set me up! Colin, tell them! Tell them we’re reconciling! Don't let them take me to jail!"
Colin didn't look away, but he didn't move an inch to help her. "Do what the deputy says, Jessica. Stop fighting."
The deputies moved in smoothly and professionally. In less than thirty seconds, Jessica was handcuffed, her face pressed against the cold hood of the patrol car as they read her rights into the damp morning air. She was sobbing now, not with theatrical grace, but with the ugly, sputtering wails of a woman whose illusions of power had finally dissolved into handcuffs and wet gravel.
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As they guided her into the back seat of the cruiser, she looked back through the rear window, catching my eye one last time.
I didn't smile. I didn't sneer. I simply stood beside my son, holding my shoulders back, watching the patrol car turn around and carry her away down the winding road until the red tail lights vanished into the mist.
