Chapter 18 - Shadows of the PastEven in paradise, ghosts occasionally rattle their chains, though they hold no real power.
In November, a legal notice arrived from the state women's correctional facility where Victoria was serving her eighteen-year sentence.
I sat at my desk after the children were asleep, staring at the stark institutional envelope. With calm deliberation, I used my letter opener to slit the top, pulling out a handwritten letter filled with bitter excuses and demands for financial assistance with her prison commissary account.
I read the first two lines, let out a dry, humorless laugh, and walked over to the stone fireplace.
May you like
Dropping the letter directly onto the blazing logs, I watched the ink curl, blacken, and turn to weightless ash within seconds.
There was no room for her bitterness in our world. She was nothing more than a bad memory erased by time and justice.
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