Chapter 3 - THE VISITATION ROOMThree weeks later.
My health had begun to stabilize. The dialysis treatments were working effectively, my blood pressure had normalized, and the wound on my head had healed into a thin, faint silver scar hidden beneath my dark hair.
I was no longer confined to the hospital bed. Wearing a simple black sweater, jeans, and a warm coat, I sat on one side of a thick glass partition inside the visitor section of the Cook County Women's Correctional Facility.
On the other side of the glass sat my mother, Evelyn Whitaker.
She was wearing a faded yellow inmate jumpsuit. Her hair, usually perfectly styled, was limp and grey at the roots. Her skin was sallow, devoid of the expensive creams and cosmetics she had spent thousands of my dollars purchasing. Her manicured nails were gone, replaced by chipped, unwashed edges.
She picked up the plastic telephone receiver with shaking hands.
I picked up mine, holding it calmly against my ear.
"Maya," Evelyn begged, her voice coming through the static-filled speaker, high and frantic. "Maya, baby, thank God you came. You have to help us. You have to tell the prosecutor it was all an accident!"
I looked at her through the glass, feeling a strange, hollow sensation in my chest. I had expected to feel anger, or perhaps a bitter sense of triumph. But looking at her now, sitting in a concrete cage, all I felt was profound pity for a woman who had ruined her own life out of pure, unadulterated greed.
"An accident, Mom?" I asked softly. "You brought a heavy plastic monitor down on my head while I was tied to a hospital bed."
"I was stressed!" Evelyn cried, pressing her free hand against the glass. "Connor was losing his opportunity! Your father and I were desperate! You don't know what it’s like to feel the pressure of keeping this family together!"
"Keeping the family together?" I countered, my voice steady, devoid of any emotion. "You mean keeping up appearances in Oak Brook? Paying for Connor’s luxury clothes while I worked eighty hours a week until my kidneys failed?"
"We raised you!" she snapped, a flash of her old, ugly arrogance leaking through her pathetic facade. "We gave you a roof over your head! We fed you! You owe us your life! What kind of daughter puts her own mother in a prison cell over a little money?!"
I leaned forward, looking her straight in the eyes.
"You didn't give me a roof, Evelyn," I said quietly. "I paid your mortgage for five years. You didn't feed me; I bought your groceries. And I don't owe you my life. You tried to take it from me."
Evelyn blinked, her lips trembling as she realized her old emotional manipulation tactics no longer worked. The power dynamic that had defined my entire existence had been permanently shattered.
"Connor is in the men’s facility, Maya," she wept, trying another angle. "He’s terrified! He’s only twenty-six! He can't survive in a place like this! His skin... his heart... he isn't built for prison! Please, sign the affidavit! Tell them Connor had nothing to do with it so he can get out!"
"Connor offered to testify against you two weeks ago, Mom," I revealed flatly. "He gave a full written statement blaming you for everything in exchange for a lighter sentence."
Evelyn froze. The color completely drained from her face. "What?"
"He sold you out the second they handed him a pen," I said. "Just like you sold me out the second my kidneys failed."
She stared at me, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, completely crushed by the betrayal of the son she had ruined her life to protect.
"The trial starts in two months," I continued, standing up from my chair. "The State’s Attorney is offering you a plea deal: fifteen years in state prison for attempted murder and financial fraud. If you take it, you might be out by the time you're seventy-two. If you reject it and go to trial, the video will be played for a jury, and you will spend the rest of your natural life behind bars."
"Maya... please..." she sobbed, holding the phone against her ear with both hands, her forehead pressed against the cold glass. "Don't do this to me... I'm your mother..."
"A mother protects her child, Evelyn," I said, looking down at her one last time. "You were just a parasite with a birth certificate."
May you like
I set the telephone receiver back on its hook.
I turned my back on her weeping, pounding figure behind the glass, and walked out through the heavy steel security doors into the crisp, clean Chicago air.
