Chapter 9 - THE PRISON VISIT
Three weeks after Diego’s sentencing, I drove down to the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana.
I didn't go because I missed him.
I didn't go because I wanted an apology.
I went because my legal team needed his final signature on the document that surrendered his remaining voting rights in our old joint holding entity, formally closing out the last remaining legal tie between us.
The visitation room was sterile, concrete, illuminated by harsh fluorescent lights overhead. Heavy bulletproof glass separated the visitors’ booths from the inmate processing area.
I sat down on the metal stool, wearing a tailored cream wool coat, setting my leather handbag on my lap.
A heavy steel door clicked open on the opposite side of the glass.
Diego walked in.
He was wearing a dark khaki prison uniform with his inmate identification number—#89142-077—stenciled in black ink across his left chest.
His hair had been shaved close to his scalp according to prison regulations. His face was thin, gaunt, his cheekbones sharp, his eyes sunken and surrounded by deep purple shadows.
He sat down on the stool across from me, his hands handcuffed to a heavy chain around his waist.
He looked at me through the glass, his lips moving silently for a moment before he picked up the black telephone receiver on his side.
I picked up my receiver and held it to my ear.
“Clara,” his voice came through the earpiece. It was thin, raspy, completely stripped of the resonant, booming authority he had once used to command boardrooms and intimidate his wife.
“Hello, Diego,” I said calmly.
He looked at my cream wool coat, my styled hair, the simple diamond studs in my ears, taking in the absolute image of success, peace, and unshakeable power that I had become.
“You look... you look wonderful,” he whispered, his bloodshot eyes filling with sudden tears.
“I am wonderful, Diego,” I said truthfully. “Herrera Logistics crossed eighty million in revenue this quarter. The new automated hub in San Antonio opens next month.”
A sharp, painful flinch passed across his gaunt face. RouteNova’s expansion into San Antonio had been his dream for three years—a dream he had ruined with his own greed.
“I heard about Mark and Renata,” Diego muttered, looking down at his handcuffed wrists. “Mark won't even look at me during exercise hour in the yard. He blames me for his sentence.”
“Mark blamed everyone except himself his entire life,” I replied smoothly. “Just like you did.”
Diego pressed his forehead against the cold glass, letting out a long, ragged sob that fogged the surface of the barrier.
“Clara... please,” he wept, his voice muffled by the glass and the speaker. “Please tell me you don't hate me. Please tell me that somewhere inside you, you remember the two kids in that coffee shop off I-35... the two kids who built RouteNova together.”
I looked at him through the glass.
I remembered that coffee shop. I remembered the cold July nights in the warehouse. I remembered believing that Diego Romero was a good, hard-working man who loved me.
But that man hadn't existed for a very long time—if he had ever existed at all.
“I don't hate you, Diego,” I said, my voice completely clear, completely honest, and utterly free of malice.
Diego looked up, a tiny, desperate ray of hope flashing across his tear-stained face. “You don't?”
“No,” I said gently. “Hate requires feeling something for you. Hate requires giving you space in my mind. I feel nothing for you, Diego. You are simply a closed file in a legal drawer.”
I slid the final surrender document against the document pass-through slot at the bottom of the glass.
“Sign the paper, Diego,” I said. “So I can get back to my life.”
Diego stared at the white paper sliding through the slot.
He reached out his trembling, handcuffed right hand, picked up the cheap plastic pen attached to the counter, and signed his name on the final line: Diego Romero.
He slid the paper back to my side.
I picked up the document, verified the signature with a single glance, and slid it into my leather folder.
I stood up from the metal stool, smoothing the front of my cream wool coat.
Diego watched me stand, his face filled with an agonizing, hopeless despair.
“Clara...” he whispered into the phone, his hand pressing flat against the glass. “Will you ever come back?”
May you like
I set the phone receiver back onto its wall cradle, picked up my handbag, and turned my back on him.
I walked through the heavy steel doors of the visitation room, stepped out into the warm, golden Texas afternoon sun, and took a deep, clean breath of fresh air.
