Chapter 18 - The Reckoning in Room 204
I didn't keep the call a secret.
When Kendra came down for dinner that evening, smelling of soap and cedar shavings, I laid the hospital discharge report on the table between our plates.
She read it twice. Her face didn't crumble into hysterics. Her hands didn't shake. The three months of graveyard shifts, grease, and solitude had burned away the frightened, volatile child who had smashed a four-tier wedding cake in a fit of manufactured entitlement.
"She’s at the county intake center now," Kendra said, looking up at me.
"Yes," I said. "They gave her a voucher for twenty-one days of temporary housing and a bus pass. She has an arraignment hearing on Monday for the fraud charges."
Kendra stood up, walked to the window, and stared out into the dark, snowy woods. "I need to see her."
Leah, who was nursing Toby in the rocking chair, stopped rocking. Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she didn't speak. She looked at me, leaving the judgment to the man who had carried the financial whip on his back for ten years.
"Why, Kendra?" I asked gently. "Do you think she’s changed?"
"No," Kendra said, turning around. The firelight carved deep, mature lines into her young face. "She will never change. She’s going to scream at me. She’s going to call me a traitor, a whore, a failure. She’s going to tell me that everything that happened to her is my fault because I didn't stick to the script."
"Then why go?" Arthur asked from his corner, his voice thick with a father’s protective dread.
"Because the last time I saw her, I was running away," Kendra said, her jaw tightening. "I was running from her, running to Julian, looking for somewhere to hide because I was terrified of what I had done. If I don't look her in the face while she has no power over me, I will spend the rest of my life jumping every time a white Mercedes drives past my plant."
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I stood up, grabbing my coat from the peg by the door. "I’ll drive."
"No," Kendra said firmly, taking her own heavy canvas work coat off the hook. "I drive my own car now, Julian. You taught me that."
