“I know.”
“Do you forgive me?”
I considered the question.
“I no longer need you to suffer.”
Her eyes filled.
“That may be the closest answer I have.”
She nodded.
It was enough.
We did not become friends.
Forgiveness did not require access.
GRANT’S LETTERS
Grant wrote during his first year in prison.
The early letters contained explanations.
His father’s expectations.
Mavis’s control.
Business pressure.
Fear of losing the company.
He apologized for the affair but described the fraud as a desperate attempt to protect employees.
I did not respond.
The second year, his letters changed.
He began working in the prison education program.
A financial-literacy instructor asked him to explain shell companies to inmates convicted of lower-level offenses.
Grant realized some of them were serving longer sentences for stealing less money than he spent on one vacation.
His first honest letter arrived eighteen months after sentencing.
