XXV: Secrets (6)

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”Harriet…my baby, are you okay?” Constance called out apprehensively, as she reached for the crumbled body of the younger woman.

Earlier, the guards had just unceremoniously dumped her back inside the cell after her week of solitary confinement.

Harriet lay crumpled on the ground, unmoving.

“Honey…talk to me, please,” Constance pleaded, her heart breaking at the sight before her.

In just one week isolated away, Harriet had deteriorated drastically.

She had lost a alarming amount of weight, her skin taking on a ghostly pallor.

But it was the dead, hopeless look in her eyes that tore at Constance’s soul.

When she reached out a trembling hand to touch her daughter, to reassure herself that she was really there, Harriet violently slapped it away. “Don’t touch me!” she hissed, venom lacing her words.

Constance recoiled, cradling her hand in shock. “I’m sorry…I was just so worried about you,” she apologized meekly, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill down her hollow cheeks.

With seeming great effort, Harriet pulled herself up off the filthy floor and retreated to the corner by her bunk, drawing her knees up protectively. She looked utterly lost and broken.

“Honey…you and Monique…what happened between you two?” Constance ventured carefully after a stretch of tense silence.

Harriet’s head whipped around, her eyes boring into Constance’s with a fury that made her want to recoil. “Don’t you ever mention that bitch’s name to me!” she snarled.

The pure rage emanating from her daughter scared Constance to her core. She wanted desperately to ask, to understand what had transpired to shatter Harriet’s world so completely.

Monique had been her best friend for years – what could possibly have happened to turn that bond to ashes? But she didn’t dare push any further, sensing how fragile Harriet’s state was. The wrong word could shatter her completely.

Later that day, as they sat having their meager rations in the dingy cafeteria hall, the guards came for Harriet again.

“You’ve got visitors, inmate. The Vanderbilts are here to see you.”

Constance felt a tiny flicker of hope.

The Vanderbilt family…maybe they were going to help Harriet’s situation, get her proper legal representation.

She anxiously watched her daughter follow the guard out, praying this visit would provide some answers or resolution.

But her hopes were dashed when Harriet returned nearly an hour later.

Her face bore vivid slap marks, scratches marring the pale skin of her cheeks. Whatever had transpired clearly had not gone well at all.

Harriet retreated immediately back to her bunk, shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

Constance ached to go to her, to wrap her in her arms and provide whatever comfort she could. But she knew her daughter would just rebuff her again.

The distance between them had become an uncrossable chasm.

If she couldn’t get answers from Harriet directly, Constance would have to find another way to piece together what anguish her baby was going through.

She could try using her wiles to entice the male guards, trade sexual favors for information. It made her feel dirty inside, but she was desperate. After all, despite her present circumstances, she was still an attractive woman – it was the whole reason the Vanderbilts had chosen her as a surrogate to birth their child in the first place, many years ago.

In the end, the sacrifice did yield results. The guards were all too eager to open up once Constance offered her body.

The sordid details came pouring out – about how it was actually Monique, not Harriet, who had been driving drunk that fateful night.

Monique had blown through a red light and smashed into a van, killing a pregnant woman and her two young children instantly.

Harriet’s supposed “best friend” had actually been the one behind the vehicular manslaughter, not her.

And now the Vanderbilt family seemed to be turning on Harriet too for some reason, likely due to their wealth and influence.

No wonder her daughter was so utterly destroyed, learning those she trusted most had betrayed her in the worst ways imaginable.

As the harsh truth sank in, Constance felt bile rise in her throat. Her poor baby, suffering so much injustice and heartbreak, and she was powerless to stop it.

She could only pray Harriet didn’t completely lose the will to live before the truth came to light.

Alas, things were not to be so. The following week, the trial commenced and a damning verdict was handed down.

Harriet was found guilty of three counts of first-degree vehicular manslaughter and sentenced to forty-five years – fifteen for each life she had taken.

She would already be an old woman, one step away from the grave, by the time she was released from behind bars.

Constance heard the crushing news even before Harriet was brought back to their shared cell.

She was utterly devastated, her heart wrung with pain and hatred towards those responsible for this profound injustice.

Her daughter’s entire life had been ruined, torn asunder by the selfishness and depravity of the Shettys, Vanderbilts, and that snake Monique.

The Shetty family, unwilling to see their precious daughter face consequences, had clearly paid off anyone they could to shift the blame onto Harriet as the scapegoat.

And the Vanderbilts, the people Harriet had loved and called family, had gladly accepted hush money to cover up their part. All they had to do was convince the vulnerable, traumatized Harriet to falsely plead guilty to the charges against her.

Even the victims’ grieving family had been paid off obscenely to avoid rocking the boat.

When Constance finally saw Harriet after the unjust court verdict, her daughter was like a hollow, lost soul.

Her eyes were utterly vacant, all light and life extinguished as she moved in an eerie trance. Constance ached to go to her, to wrap her in her arms and vow that somehow, someday, she would uncover the truth to set her free.

But she dared not approach, could sense the fragility of Harriet’s shattered psyche. One wrong word, one misplaced touch, could be enough to shatter her completely.

All Constance could do was look on helplessly as the guards led her daughter away, off to begin her harsh decades-long sentence at the Women’s penitentiary.

Two days later, Constance awoke to the worst news a mother could possibly receive. In the dead of night, her baby, her precious Harriet, had slashed open her own wrists with a razor blade.

She had bled out alone on the cold concrete floor, surrounded by uncaring guards.

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