Chapter 113
Chapter 113: The Crimson Ledger
In the winter of 2083, a box of old administrative files from the defunct Richmond Parole Board was delivered to the Virginia estate. The state was clearing its physical archives, and since the Davis foundation held the permanent civil tracking file on the late Sabrina Davis, the historical documents were surrendered to us as a matter of public record.
Claire spent an evening in the sunroom, flipping through the yellowed, digitalized probation sheets. Near the bottom of the container, she found a faded crimson notebook that had been confiscated from Sabrina’s locker at the Richmond retail store during a routine parole check in 2034.
It was a personal diary Sabrina had kept during her first year of working minimum-wage retail after her prison release.
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October 14, 2034. I watched Claire’s car pass the store today. She didn't look at me. She looks exactly like she did when we were kids, except she has everything now and I have a plastic bucket. Mom always told me that Claire was the weak one because she didn't know how to play the game. But the game was a lie. Mom and Dad cheated the only person who actually worked for her money, and now I’m the one paying the interest. I look at my son’s face on his agency’s website, and I realize he’s successful because he ran away from me. That is the worst part. The Davis name is famous now because of Claire, and I'm just the grease under the wheels.
Claire closed the crimson notebook, her face solemn in the firelight. It was the absolute, unvarnished truth of human consequence. Sabrina hadn't just lost her money; she had lost the capacity to deceive herself. The vanity that had fueled the theft of Anna’s trust fund had turned into a mirror that forced her to see her own insignificance every single day until her final breath.
