Chapter 14 - The Final Summons
Winter arrived with a bitter, relentless cold that chilled the city to its core.
I received a sudden, unexpected phone call from the maximum-security state penitentiary.
The prison warden informed me that Karen had suffered a massive, terminal stroke.
She had been transferred to the palliative care unit and was not expected to survive the week.
The warden stated that Karen had explicitly requested a final meeting with me.
She had refused to see the prison chaplain, demanding only the presence of her biological daughter.
I sat in my office, looking at the blinking light on my telephone.
My initial instinct was to refuse the request entirely.
Karen had orchestrated my abandonment and funded the conspiracy to let me die of cancer.
She had viewed my existence as a financial liability to her pristine social reputation.
I owed her absolutely nothing.
However, I realized that avoiding her would mean granting her a lingering psychological power over me.
I decided to go to the prison, not to offer forgiveness, but to enforce an absolute, final boundary.
I drove through the heavy snow, the gray sky mirroring the bleakness of the penitentiary walls.
I passed through multiple security checkpoints, the heavy steel doors echoing loudly behind me.
The prison hospital ward smelled of cheap bleach and impending death.
I walked into the small, sterile room where Karen lay tethered to a dozen humming medical machines.
She looked incredibly frail, her once perfectly styled hair now thin and stark white.
The glamorous, terrifying matriarch had been reduced to a broken, helpless shell.
She opened her eyes slowly, struggling to focus on my face.
Her mouth twisted into a weak, bitter attempt at a smile.
She weakly gestured for me to step closer to the metal railing of her bed.
I stood at the foot of the bed, my posture perfectly straight, my hands resting calmly in my coat pockets.
I did not reach out to hold her hand.
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I waited in complete silence for her to speak.
The monitor beeped steadily, marking the final, fleeting moments of a deeply wicked life.
