Chapter 6: The Body She Finally Saw

I watched my mother reject the hospital's calls while Miles raised a glass and thanked her for everything she had done for his career. When he heard someone was claiming I had died, he suggested I was trying to ruin his celebration. Mother agreed.

Then her private work phone rang. A police officer told her that Scott Durham had been fatally stabbed outside a law office and that the hospital needed next of kin. This time she did not hang up.

She rushed to the hospital insisting it had to be a cruel joke. A doctor led her downstairs and warned her to prepare herself. Mother demanded to know what she was supposed to prepare for.

My body lay beneath a white sheet. She walked toward me angrily and ordered me to get up. She slapped my cold cheek as if I were still the troublesome son refusing to obey. Nothing happened.

The instant she touched my cold skin again, reality reached her. She screamed, pulled down the sheet, saw the bandages over my stab wounds, and demanded that the doctors try again. There was nothing left to try.

Police handed her my belongings, including the bloodstained forensic report I had carried when I was attacked. She read the finding that the incriminating messages had not come from my device.

Miles immediately said it proved nothing. For the first time, Mother looked at him without automatic trust. She ordered him out of the room.

Alone beside my body, she took my hand and pressed it against her forehead. She repeated the words she had said before my trial: a few years in prison would not kill me. Then she finally whispered the question she should have asked before passing judgment: What did I do?

Watching Mother beside my body was nothing like the revenge fantasies I might once have imagined. I had wanted her attention while I could still answer her, not after death made every apology one-sided. Her grief could not become the childhood affection I had missed, and her tears could not turn the hospital room into a second chance.

Watching Mother beside my body was nothing like the revenge fantasies I might once have imagined. I had wanted her attention while I could still answer her, not after death made every apology one-sided. Her grief could not become the childhood affection I had missed, and her tears could not turn the hospital room into a second chance.

Watching Mother beside my body was nothing like the revenge fantasies I might once have imagined. I had wanted her attention while I could still answer her, not after death made every apology one-sided. Her grief could not become the childhood affection I had missed, and her tears could not turn the hospital room into a second chance.

Watching Mother beside my body was nothing like the revenge fantasies I might once have imagined. I had wanted her attention while I could still answer her, not after death made every apology one-sided. Her grief could not become the childhood affection I had missed, and her tears could not turn the hospital room into a second chance.

Watching Mother beside my body was nothing like the revenge fantasies I might once have imagined. I had wanted her attention while I could still answer her, not after death made every apology one-sided. Her grief could not become the childhood affection I had missed, and her tears could not turn the hospital room into a second chance.

Watching Mother beside my body was nothing like the revenge fantasies I might once have imagined. I had wanted her attention while I could still answer her, not after death made every apology one-sided. Her grief could not become the childhood affection I had missed, and her tears could not turn the hospital room into a second chance.

Watching Mother beside my body was nothing like the revenge fantasies I might once have imagined. I had wanted her attention while I could still answer her, not after death made every apology one-sided. Her grief could not become the childhood affection I had missed, and her tears could not turn the hospital room into a second chance.

Watching Mother beside my body was nothing like the revenge fantasies I might once have imagined. I had wanted her attention while I could still answer her, not after death made every apology one-sided. Her grief could not become the childhood affection I had missed, and her tears could not turn the hospital room into a second chance.

Watching Mother beside my body was nothing like the revenge fantasies I might once have imagined. I had wanted her attention while I could still answer her, not after death made every apology one-sided. Her grief could not become the childhood affection I had missed, and her tears could not turn the hospital room into a second chance.

Watching Mother beside my body was nothing like the revenge fantasies I might once have imagined. I had wanted her attention while I could still answer her, not after death made every apology one-sided. Her grief could not become the childhood affection I had missed, and her tears could not turn the hospital room into a second chance.