Chapter 14 - The Bitter End of Sylvia
Karma is not just a concept; it is a meticulously patient executioner.
Three months after my visit to Leavenworth, I received another unexpected phone call.
This time, it was from the medical ward of the state women's correctional facility.
Sylvia Montgomery was dying.
She had been diagnosed with late-stage pancreatic cancer, and the prison doctors gave her less than a week to live.
The warden informed me that I was the only person on her emergency contact list.
David was not permitted to leave federal custody to see her.
She had absolutely no one else in the world.
I didn't owe her anything.
I owed her less than nothing.
But a morbid sense of closure drove me to make the two-hour drive to the prison hospital.
The smell of sickness and industrial bleach hit me the moment I walked into the sterile ward.
Sylvia was lying in a narrow, uncomfortable bed in the corner of the room.
She looked like a withered skeleton wrapped in pale skin.
The woman who used to obsess over designer handbags and country club gossip was now reduced to a fragile, shivering prisoner.
An IV dripped slowly into her bruised arm.
She turned her head as I approached, her sunken eyes widening in sheer disbelief.
"Anna," she croaked, her voice barely a whisper.
"You... you came."
I stood at the foot of her bed, my hands clasped professionally in front of me.
"I was notified of your condition," I said simply.
She coughed violently, a wet, rattling sound that shook her entire frail body.
"I'm dying, Anna," she cried, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes.
"I know," I replied.
"I am so afraid," Sylvia whimpered, reaching a trembling, bony hand toward me.
"Please, tell me you forgive me."
"I don't want to die with this sin on my soul."
"Please, Anna, give me peace."
I looked down at the woman who had shoved me into a granite counter.
I looked at the woman who had called me hired help and mocked my pain.
I felt absolutely no pity.
"Forgiveness is a luxury for those who show remorse before they are caught, Sylvia," I said softly.
"You aren't sorry for what you did."
"You are just terrified of what comes next."
Her hand dropped back onto the thin, scratchy blanket.
"You are so cold," she whispered bitterly.
"You made me cold," I corrected her.
"You and your son taught me that weakness is a liability."
"I am just returning the energy you gave me."
I didn't stay to watch her cry.
I didn't offer her a comforting lie.
May you like
I turned around and walked out of the hospital ward, leaving her to face the darkness entirely alone.
Sylvia Montgomery died two days later, surrounded by concrete walls and strangers who didn't care about her name.
