part 9
PART 9
Linda asked to see Richard from holding.
Mara advised against it.
Natalie said nothing.
Richard went anyway.
Not for closure.
For answers.
Linda sat behind glass in a beige jail uniform, looking smaller without pearls and black dresses.
She cried when she saw him.
Richard felt nothing.
That scared him for a moment.
Then he accepted it.
“Why?” he asked.
Linda wiped her face.
“Mark made mistakes.”
“Do not begin with him.”
Her mouth tightened.
“You loved Natalie more than anyone.”
Richard stared at her.
“She was my child.”
“I was your wife.”
The answer was so ugly in its simplicity that he almost stood.
Linda continued.
“Mark was drowning.”
“He borrowed from the foundation.”
“Natalie found out.”
“She was going to ruin him.”
“She was going to tell the truth.”
“She was seventeen.”
“She was cruel.”
Richard leaned toward the glass.
“She was honest.”
Linda flinched.
“I only meant to send her away long enough to calm down.”
“You held a funeral.”
Linda covered her mouth.
“I lost control of the story.”
“No.”
Richard’s voice turned cold.
“You built a story that needed my daughter dead.”
Linda looked at him through tears.
“I loved you.”
Richard thought of Natalie’s empty room.
The sealed coffin.
The annual memorials.
Linda grabbing for his phone in church.
“No.”
“You loved standing where my grief made you untouchable.”
Linda began sobbing.
Richard stood.
“Mark will answer for what he did.”
“You will answer for what you did.”
“And Natalie will never again be used as the price of keeping your son comfortable.”
Linda pressed both hands to the glass.
“Richard, please.”
He walked out.
At home, Natalie was sitting in the garden where her mother Elise used to plant roses.
Richard sat beside her.
“She blamed love,” he said.
Natalie nodded.
“People do that when they mean ownership.”
Richard looked at his daughter.
She sounded older than nineteen.
That hurt.
But she was there.
That healed.
A little.
That night, Richard took down the memorial portrait from the chapel room.
Natalie watched.
He did not throw it away.
He placed it in a new frame beside a photo from her graduation.
One girl frozen in grief.
One girl alive in a cap and gown.
Both true.
May you like
But only one would define her now.
Read the full story 👉 Linda admitted Natalie was hidden to protect Mark, but Richard refused to let grief protect them anymore.
