Chapter 8 - The Settlement of Souls
In the weeks leading up to the trial,
the pressure on Jonah and my mother intensified.
The state's fraud investigation had uncovered more than just the stolen checks.
They found that Jonah had been claiming Chloe was receiving specialized care that never existed.
He had been billing the state for medical equipment that was never ordered.
He was looking at twenty years in federal prison,
on top of the state charges for assault.
He folded.
He signed a plea agreement that gave him fifteen years without the possibility of parole.
In exchange,
he gave a full,
recorded confession of his crimes and my mother's involvement.
He didn't hesitate to implicate her.
He blamed her for the idea.
He blamed her for the cover-up.
He was a coward to the very end.
My mother,
facing her own prison sentence,
offered a different kind of settlement.
She agreed to sign over the house and all its contents to Chloe.
She agreed to a lifetime restraining order.
And she agreed to testify in open court that she had failed her daughter.
I sat in the room when she signed the papers.
She looked at me,
her eyes cold and dead.
"You won,
Karina,"
she said.
"Are you happy now?"
"Happiness has nothing to do with this,"
I told her.
"This is about justice."
"This is about making sure Chloe never has to look over her shoulder again."
The day the house was sold,
I took Chloe back to Macon one last time.
We walked through the empty rooms,
the furniture gone,
the sour smell replaced by the scent of cleaning supplies.
The kitchen was bare.
The refrigerator had been removed as evidence.
Only a rectangular patch of cleaner floor remained where it once stood.
Chloe stood in that spot,
leaning on her crutches.
"It’s just a room now,"
she said.
"It’s not a prison."
"It’s just wood and paint."
"Do you want to see the new place?"
I asked.
I had used the trust money to buy her a small,
accessible condo in the city,
near my apartment.
It had wide doors,
a walk-in shower,
and a view of a park where she could see the trees.
"Yes,"
she said,
turning away from the kitchen.
"I'm ready to leave."
We walked out of the house,
closing the door on our childhood.
I handed the keys to the realtor,
a man who didn't know the history of the walls he was selling.
"It’s a good house,"
he said,
trying to be polite.
"It has a lot of character."
"It has a lot of ghosts,"
I said,
May you like
getting into the car.
"Make sure the new owners know to keep the windows open."
