“I should have reached out sooner,” he says.
“You should have.” I’m tempted to lash out at him, but I don’t have the energy. “How are you doing in there?”
I don’t actually want to know. Frankly, I don’t care. If he did what he said he did, he deserves to pay for his crimes. I was always taught to forgive and forget, to give people the benefit of the doubt, but some crimes are too horrifying to overlook.
When I look at him now, all I see is the man who drove me out of his house late at night when I needed help, when I was pregnant and felt like my life was in danger. He did it knowing full well that he was the guilty one, and he was punishing Alex and me for his crimes.
“I don’t think I need to tell you how I’m doing.” He points to his swollen eye. “It’s written all over my face.”
He tries to smile but ends up wincing from pain. I can’t help wondering what happened. Maybe someone heard about what he did to Brittney and punished him for it.
I fold my arms in front of me. “Jeffrey, why did you want to see me?”
“I just—I owe you an apology.” He stares at his hands for a long time until I clear my throat to bring him back to the present. When he looks up again, his eyes are damp.
It’s hard for me to connect the broken man in front of me with the one I used to know, the one who was so put together and confident. I still remember his overly loud laughter when the four of us went out.
“What do you want to apologize for?” There’s no way I’ll let him off that easily. He deserves to have a taste of the pain he caused.
He wets his cracked lips. “I want to apologize for that day. I was unkind to you.”
“Yes, Jeffrey, you were. But you treated your wife even worse.” My voice lacks any hint of sympathy. “She died from heartbreak. You put her through hell. You hurt her in the worst way possible.”
Jeffrey nods and wipes his unbruised eye with the heel of his palm. His hands are filthy, his nails caked with dirt.
“You’re right.” The words burst from his lips. “I’ll never forgive myself for what I did.”
I want to keep torturing him, but there are other important things we need to discuss. Lavinia is dead. Nothing he says or does will make me feel better about what he put her through.
“She wrote me a letter.” I chew a corner of my bottom lip. “She asked me to take care of Jenna.”
“I heard.” He leans back in his plastic chair. “That Hoffmann lawyer came to see me. He told me everything.”
“And?”
He shrugs. “I don’t think it’s necessary for you to become my daughter’s guardian. Lavinia making you conservator of Jenna’s trust is pretty ironclad, but she wasn’t the only one who had a say in who’s her guardian—no matter what she wrote in the letter she left you.”
“Jeffrey, you’re in prison. You can’t take care of her.”
“You don’t have to remind me of that. And it looks like I’m going to be in here for quite some time.”
“That’s why you should let me take care of Jenna. I can file for temporary guardianship if you agree not to contest it.”
“I’m not in the position to be able to take care of Jenna, but she has a grandmother. The lawyer told me that Carmen is in town. I don’t particularly care for the woman, but she’s family, and Jenna deserves to be with her family.”
I scoff. “She may be family, but she’s not interested in Jenna one bit. Trust me on that. She barely holds her, and she hasn’t changed a single diaper.”
“Where’s Jenna now? Who’s taking care of her?”
I’m taken aback by his question, but I sense where he’s going with it.
“She’s with Carmen. She offered to babysit. But she—”
He holds up his hand to cut me off. “The point is, Carmen may be able to take care of Jenna even for a short while. She has raised a child before.”
I press my lips together, holding back my frustration.
The fear of losing Jenna rages through me. I had formed a bond with her. Seeing her go to anyone else, even her grandmother, hurts like hell. I care for her more than Carmen ever would. I bet the only thing Carmen wants is access to the savings that Lavinia left behind for her daughter.
