Chapter 6 - The Voices through the Iron Bars
The Hotel des Saints-Pères occupied an old seventeenth-century townhouse on a quiet street behind the church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés.
My room was on the top floor—the suite I had originally reserved for my parents, with exposed oak beams, white linen curtains that fluttered in the autumn draft, and a private terrace that looked out over the grey slate roofs toward the twin towers of Saint-Sulpice.
At four in the afternoon, after three hours of sleep in a four-poster bed that smelled of lavender and ironed cotton, my phone began to vibrate against the nightstand.
The caller ID displayed a collect call notification from the Fulton County Jail - Inmate Intake Facility, Atlanta, Georgia.
I accepted the call, tapped the speakerphone button, and set the phone on the marble mantelpiece beside a silver vase of fresh white tuberoses.
"Valerie?"
The voice was unrecognizable. It had no thunder. It had no chamber-of-commerce pomposity. It was a thin, wheezing rasp that sounded like dry gravel being shaken inside a rusted tin can.
"Richard," I said, leaning my hips against the mantelpiece and taking a slow sip of hot black tea.
"Valerie... my God, Valerie, you have to talk to the judge," my father wept.
The sound of his weeping was ugly, wet, and rhythmic, punctuated by the mechanical clank of steel gates and the shouts of corrections officers in the background.
"They won't set bail until tomorrow morning," he choked out. "They took my belt. They took my blood-pressure medication. I’m in a holding pen with twenty-two men on concrete benches. There is no bed, Valerie. There’s an open toilet in the corner. I have an irregular heartbeat—you know I have an arrhythmia!"
"You should have thought about your heart rate before you swung your right arm at Gate T-4, Richard," I replied, my voice completely devoid of inflection.
"Your mother... they took your mother away in federal vans!" he sobbed. "The marshals were waiting at the county line! They have her in the federal detention center on Ted Turner Drive! They won't let her have her hairpins! She’s sixty-four years old, Valerie! She has osteoporosis!"
"She also has five federal counts of identity fraud," I said. "And a grand jury subpoena for Aunt Clara. Clara has already retained a criminal defense lawyer who is currently cutting a proffer deal with the US Attorney. Aunt Clara is testifying against Mom, Dad. She’s giving them the date, the time, and the notary log from the Emory ICU."
A ragged, choking gasp came over the line. "Valerie... please. We are your parents. The fourth commandment—honor thy father and thy mother—"
"The fourth commandment does not include a clause for international wire fraud and battery at a Delta boarding counter," I interrupted. "And you ceased being my parents the moment you decided that my only purpose on this earth was to be bled white so Danielle could pretend to be an expatriate socialite on my dime."
"Danielle is on the porch!" he screamed, his voice breaking into a high, hysterical register. "She called me from a payphone at the gas station! The sheriff came with the tow truck, Valerie! They took the BMW! They posted the thirty-day notice of foreclosure on the front door in Alpharetta! She has no money for food! She has nowhere to go!"
"She has an art history degree," I said. "And she has two healthy hands. I hear the warehouse club on Old Milton Parkway is hiring night-shift shelf stockers at sixteen dollars an hour. She won't need a lavender sweater for that. A high-vis vest will do just fine."
"You're a monster," he whispered, the ancient, poisonous venom returning to his tone for half a second. "A cold, unfeeling, barren monster."
"No, Richard," I said, looking out at the golden sunlight hitting the spire of the church across the garden. "I am an accountant who has finally closed an unprofitable division."
I tapped the red end-call button.
The screen went black.
I opened the contact card for Richard Castillo.
Select: Block Caller.
I opened the contact card for Eleanor Castillo.
Select: Block Caller.
I opened the contact card for Danielle Castillo.
May you like
Select: Delete Contact.
The silence returned to the suite—clean, vast, and sweet as morning water.
