Chapter 14 - Reunited Through the Glass
Toby chose a green shirt to meet his mother because one of her letters said green had always looked lovely on him.
He changed twice before we left.
“Is this stupid?” he asked.
“No.”
“What if she’s different from the letters?”
“She probably is.”
He looked frightened.
“So are you,” I added.
“You were two when she last held you.”
The drive took three hours.
Daniel came with us but waited outside the visiting area.
Lena had asked to meet Toby first.
They would need their own time, their own difficult conversation.
At security, my brother asked whether he could bring the rabbit.
The answer was no.
He left it with Daniel, blue ear folded carefully over its head.
Lena appeared on the other side of the glass wearing a prison uniform.
She was thinner than the woman in the photograph.
Her hair had begun to gray at the temples.
When she saw Toby, she stopped walking.
A guard spoke softly to her.
She sat down.
Toby picked up the telephone.
So did she.
For several seconds, neither said anything.
Then Lena smiled through her tears.
“You have his eyebrows.”
Toby touched one unconsciously.
“Everyone says I look like Richard.”
Her smile disappeared.
“No, sweetheart.”
He glanced at me.
I sat far enough away to give them privacy, close enough for him to reach me.
Lena pressed her free hand against her chest.
“I’ve imagined your voice so many times.”
Toby looked down at the counter.
“Did you stop writing?”
“Never.”
“They told you not to?”
“Sometimes. I wrote anyway.”
“Did you think I forgot you?”
She swallowed.
“I hoped you had people who made you feel safe.”
He rubbed the telephone cord between his fingers.
Then he asked the question he had rehearsed in the car.
“Was there something wrong with me?”
Lena’s face changed completely.
“No.”
“Then why did they get to keep me?”
“Because adults lied, and other adults believed them. You did nothing wrong.”
He began to cry quietly.
“I tried to be good.”
“Oh, Toby.”
“I thought if I was good enough, everything would stop.”
She placed her palm against the glass.
He lifted his own.
Their hands met through the barrier.
“I need you to hear me,” she said.
“You did not have to be good to deserve love. You were my baby. You were already loved.”
I turned away, giving him the dignity of tears nobody needed to watch.
On the drive home, he slept against the window.
Daniel sat beside him, holding the rabbit.
Later, the recovered files began yielding transaction records, correspondence, and scanned documents.
Much of it required independent verification.
The letters supplied dates.
Bank archives supplied transfers.
A former company accountant, contacted by investigators, agreed to testify.
The story no longer depended on Daniel’s word.
Or Lena’s.
Or mine.
For the first time, the people Richard had silenced could support one another with evidence.
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That night, Toby left Lena’s letters on his bedside table.
He no longer hid them.
