Chapter 15 - Eleanor Without an Audience
Eleanor received eleven years after cooperation.
She wrote to me from prison.
The first letters accused Victor.
The next accused Kendra.
The later ones accused poverty, ambition, and humiliation.
None mentioned the moment she watched her son strike me.
Then one letter arrived without excuses.
I knew who you were.
I wanted your family’s power.
When it did not arrive quickly, I punished you for making me feel foolish.
I taught Victor that women existed to confirm his importance.
He learned too well.
I did not answer.
Accountability did not require correspondence.
Eleanor requested that I fund her appeal.
The request revealed how shallow the apology remained.
I declined through counsel.
Victor wrote once.
His letter contained six pages.
He described his childhood.
His mother’s pressure.
His fear of being ordinary.
His belief that rich men respected only results.
On the final page, he wrote:
I think I loved you before I began needing you to feel smaller.
I read the sentence twice.
Perhaps he believed it.
Perhaps some damaged form of love had existed.
It did not change what he chose.
I placed the letter in a sealed file.
I did not destroy it.
I did not carry it.
I stopped letting Victor’s understanding determine my peace.
The penthouse was sold.
I kept none of the furniture.
The proceeds from my trust share funded housing for workers displaced during the Ashland reconstruction.
I moved into a smaller apartment overlooking a public park.
My father called it aggressively ordinary.
I called it mine.
The first night, rain struck the windows.
For a moment, my cheek remembered Victor’s hand.
I opened the balcony door.
Cold air entered.
May you like
I stood there wearing shoes.
Then I closed the door myself.
