Chapter 18 - THE FINAL CONVERSATIONSix months later, the federal penitentiary upstate was surrounded by a thick, freezing layer of early spring drizzle.
I sat in the secure visitation booth on the visitor's side of the reinforced glass partition. The metal chair was hard, cold, and uncomfortable.
The heavy steel door at the back of the opposing booth clicked open.
A guard escorted Ethan in.
He had lost another twenty pounds. His orange jumpsuit hung loosely over his stooped shoulders, and his hair was completely gray at the temples. The confident, ambitious corporate executive who had once walked into our family estate with a former fiancée on his arm was entirely gone, replaced by an empty shell of a man whose life had been reduced to a serial number.
He sat down slowly on the metal stool on the other side of the glass and picked up the heavy plastic telephone receiver.
I picked up mine.
For a long moment, neither of us spoke. We just looked at each other through the thick, bulletproof glass that separated two completely different worlds.
"Clare..." Ethan's voice crackled through the small speaker box, sounding thin, raspy, and broken. "I didn't think you would come."
"I didn't come to reminisce, Ethan," I said, my voice steady, cool, and detached. "I came to close the final account."
Ethan lowered his head, staring at the scarred wooden counter beneath his hands. "They denied my first parole appeal last week. The judge added three years for the obstruction charges connected to Harrison's testimony."
"Naturally," I replied. "Crime doesn't pay institutional dividends, Ethan. You should have learned that during your first year of accounting classes."
He let out a dry, humorless laugh that sounded more like a cough. "You took everything, didn't you? The house, the company, the name, the trust... everything I spent ten years building."
"You didn't build it, Ethan," I corrected him gently. "You mortgaged it. I merely foreclosed on the debt."
Ethan looked up, his eyes swimming with a mixture of bitter regret and lingering disbelief. "Is there... is there anything left of what we had? Even a fraction of it?"
I stood up slowly, picking up my leather portfolio from the adjacent chair.
"The only thing left between us, Ethan," I said, looking directly into his hollow eyes through the glass, "is a signed divorce decree and a balanced ledger."
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I placed the telephone receiver back onto its cradle with a sharp, final click.
I didn't look back as I turned around and walked out of the visitation room into the bright spring sunlight outside.
