The Price of a Stolen Marriage Chapter 08
Chapter 8 Justice, At Last
A week later, I had my mother’s grave relocated.
She was laid to rest in the finest cemetery on the outskirts of the city, on a south-facing hillside where the sun shone brightest.
The headstone was not large, but two words were engraved on it, clear as day-Grace Bennett.
She had been trapped in that village for forty years. Even after she died, she had not been allowed into the family
cemetery.
Today, she had finally left that place behind. At last, she could rest peacefully under her own name.
Benjamin came. Dressed in black, he stood at the very back of the crowd.
His hair had turned completely white, and he had lost so much weight that his jacket hung loosely from his frame.
When it was time to bury her, he dropped to his knees. He kneeled alone in the dirt, far away from everyone else.
Frederick stood on my left, and Christopher stood on my right.
“Mom,” Frederick said as he bent down and placed a bouquet of flowers before the headstone. “I’m your son-in- law. I’m sorry I came so late.”
Christopher kneeled beside him. “Grandma, I’m sorry. I never knew what you went through.”
I said nothing.
A warm breeze drifted in from the south.
I kneeled before the headstone and rested my hand against the smooth stone. “Mom, this justice came forty years too late, but I got it for you.”
Behind me, Benjamin was still kneeling in the dirt. His lips kept moving, though I could not make out what he was saying.
Maybe he was calling my mother’s name. Maybe he was not. It did not matter anymore.
The headstone stood there in silence.
Grace Bennett. She finally had a name of her own. Untainted. No longer tied to anyone else.
Three months later, Hailey was sentenced. Six years.
She was convicted of fraud, identity theft, and misappropriating someone else’s property. Combined, the charges earned her a six-year sentence.
Laura was sentenced to two years, but because she was ninety-two, she was allowed to serve it outside prison. She probably would not live long enough to finish it.
Benjamin was not sentenced to prison, but his life became worse than prison ever could have been.
His company was gone. His friends were gone. His reputation was gone.
He lived alone in a rundown rental house on the outskirts of town. Most of the paint had peeled off the walls, the windows would not close properly, and cold air poured in during the winter.
No one in the neighborhood knew who he was. No one cared.
Every morning, he went to the farmers market and argued with vegetable vendors over twenty cents.
While serving her sentence outside prison, Laura fell seriously ill and was admitted to the hospital.
No one visited her. Not one of the housekeepers, drivers, or maids she had bossed around over the years came to see her.
She called Benjamin, but he did not answer.
She called Hailey, but Hailey was sitting in a detention center and could not answer.
Laura lay alone in her hospital bed without even someone to pour her a glass of water.
I knew nothing about any of it.
At the time, I was sitting in a Wellington Group’s board meeting.
Frederick had secured the Ashcroft Group’s property.
The land in Southgate Hailey had once tried to use to bribe me had been acquired by Wellington Group for less than half its original value.
To pay off its debts, the Ashcroft family sold everything they could.
Eyen their estate, where Natalie had grown up, had been put on the market.
I drove past it once.
The tree at the entrance was still there, and the walls had been freshly painted. But the people living inside no longer carried the Ashcroft name.
Natalie left the country. She went somewhere no one knew her.
She sent me one message. “Mrs. Wellington, I have no right to ask for your forgiveness. I just wanted to say I’m sorry.”
I never replied. Not because I could not forgive her, but because there was no need anymore.
From that day on, her life had nothing to do with mine.
That spring, Frederick, Christopher, and I went to visit my mother’s grave.
There were two bouquets in front of the headstone. One was ours. The other had been left by someone else.
White lilies. The petals were still covered with dew.
Beside them was a handwritten note. “Grace, I’ll repay what I owe you in the next life.”
The handwriting was crooked and shaky, like it had been written by an old man with trembling hands.
Frederick looked at me. “Was it him?”
I did not answer.
I crouched down, picked up the note, looked at it for a moment, then placed it back where it had been.
A warm breeze drifted in from the south, and sunlight fell across the headstone.
Grace Bennett. The two words shone quietly in the light.
I crouched down and gently wiped the dust from the stone. “Mom, look. Justice finally came. It took forty years, but it came.”
Christopher stood behind me and rested a hand on my shoulder. “Mom, do you think you’ll ever forgive him?”
I thought about it.
“It doesn’t matter anymore. Your grandmother waited forty years to hear an apology. She finally got one. Whether she forgives him or not is up to her. She never told me, so I don’t know. But I do know one thing.”
“What?”
“From now on, no one will ever bully anyone in our family again.”
Frederick smiled and took my hand. Christopher smiled too, his eyes glistening.
The three of us stood together beneath the warm sun. The sunlight was beautiful that day.
I hoped my mother saw it too.
