The Visit Without an Apology
Chapter 15 - The Visit Without an Apology
Franklin looked smaller in the prison infirmary.
One side of his face drooped. His right hand shook against the blanket.
Emily sat across from him.
He struggled to speak.
“You… took… everything.”
Emily felt the old instinct to defend herself.
She let it pass.
“No. The court took what you stole. I used what remained.”
Franklin’s eyes filled with anger.
He pointed toward a photograph on the table.
It showed Hawthorne House filled with families at the opening ceremony.
“My house.”
“It was never only yours.”
Franklin tried to say Katherine’s name.
Emily leaned closer.
He whispered, “She would hate this.”
Emily opened Katherine’s journal.
Her mother had written about wanting Hawthorne House to become a place where women could ask for help without being called weak.
Emily read the passage aloud.
Franklin closed his eyes.
It was not repentance.
But the anger left his face.
Emily placed a photograph of the three siblings beside his bed.
“We are not coming back to become the family you wanted,” she said. “But we stopped being strangers.”
Franklin touched the photograph with one finger.
Emily stood.
He made a sound that might have been her name.
She did not turn around immediately.
Then she did.
“I loved you when I was a child,” she said. “That child deserved better.”
She left without forgiving him and without hatred controlling her steps.
Outside, Grant waited in the parking lot.
Daniel waited beside him.
May you like
Neither had gone inside.
They had still come for Emily.
