Chapter 7 - TWO KEYS AND ONE UNOPENED LETTER
Grant avoided a trial by pleading guilty to multiple counts of felony assault of a child, unlawful imprisonment and witness intimidation.
He received a lengthy prison sentence. His roofing company closed, and its remaining equipment was sold to pay taxes and court-ordered restitution.
Mom pleaded guilty to child endangerment, conspiracy to commit financial exploitation, evidence tampering and filing false guardianship documents.
Her sentence included prison, probation after release and an order prohibiting contact with us unless we requested it through our attorney.
Dr. Warren surrendered his psychology license while the state investigated the false summaries. The trust company restored the improperly paid expenses and changed its review procedures for requests involving restricted minors’ accounts.
None of those outcomes repaired my wrist.
Lily’s ribs healed, but cold weather still made them ache. She sometimes woke believing the hallway camera was blinking outside her door.
We remained with Aunt June through graduation.
She did not ask us to call her Mom. She knocked before entering our bedroom and never demanded an explanation when one of us needed to leave a crowded room.
On our eighteenth birthday, Rachel met us at a credit union downtown.
The first settlement payments went into separate protected accounts under our names. We hired an independent financial adviser and set limits requiring a waiting period before any large withdrawal.
“You don’t legally need these restrictions,” Rachel reminded us.
“We know,” I said.
Lily signed her form.
“We want time to decide what our money means before somebody else decides for us.”
We used a small portion to rent a two-bedroom apartment near Eastern Washington University. Lily planned to study speech-language pathology. I enrolled in a forensic-accounting program, though Aunt June laughed when I insisted it had nothing to do with the case.
Our apartment was on the third floor.
We chose it despite the stairs.
On moving day, Lily carried a lamp while I carried a box of notebooks. At the top landing, she stopped to catch her breath.
“Twelve steps per flight,” she said.
“Thirty-six total.”
“Think we can manage?”
“We’re very clumsy.”
She laughed until she had to hold her ribs.
Inside, we removed the bedroom doors from their hinges while we painted, then put them back ourselves. Both locks turned only from the inside.
The living room had one blank wall.
We hung no cameras there.
Three months later, Rachel called.
Mom had completed a prison counseling program and written each of us a letter. She accepted responsibility in the legal sense, Rachel said, but the letters were personal. We could receive them, refuse them or keep them with Rachel until we decided.
Lily wanted hers.
I did not.
“You can choose separately,” Rachel reminded us.
But choosing separately was still new.
Lily brought both envelopes home.
Mine rested on the kitchen table with NORA written across the front in Mom’s familiar handwriting. Lily’s remained unopened beside it.
“I thought you wanted to read yours,” I said.
“I wanted the choice to be mine.”
That evening, we cooked spaghetti in a kitchen barely wide enough for both of us. The smoke alarm went off when Lily burned the garlic bread, and neither of us flinched when someone knocked on the wall next door.
After dinner, I checked the front lock once.
Not three times.
Lily placed two new apartment keys in a bowl near the door. Mom’s letters remained on the table behind us.
“When we read them,” Lily said, “do we do it together?”
I looked at the envelopes.
Then I turned off the kitchen light, leaving them where we could find them in the morning.
“We don’t have to decide tonight.”
May you like
Lily nodded.
I locked the door from the inside, and for the first time in our lives, the sound belonged to us.
