Two months after my rescue, the court cases began, and thanks to Daniel's dilligent work, my parents and Faith were put away for a long time. Faith was, in fact, sentenced to life without parole, and she was furious. I wasn't present for her court case on Jethro's advice, and I had no desire to see my sister anyway, but according to Daniel, she'd vowed revenge, and had threatened to have my son kidnapped so she could raise him and turn him into a weapon to use against me. That had earned her some stiff ire, and she was likely to have a second consecutive life sentence to serve alongside her first.
My parents were sentenced to twenty-five years each, and were jailed seperately, forbidden from communicating with one another, and barred from contact with each other when they were released from prison. To ensure they didn't break the rule of no communication, their minds were ringed with stringent protections to ensure they couldn't even think of each other without suffering excruciating pain. My father had agreed to the conditions, saying it would be a relief to get away from my mother, and I gathered the impression that she'd been the brains behind his treatment of me. It didn't excuse his enabling of Mother's abuse, but I sent him a message, telling him I forgave him. He sent a grateful reply, and I felt as if a small piece of my soul had slid back into place after so long. I even entertained the hope that he and I could meet up once he'd served his sentence, with the caveat he never tell Mother about our tentative plans.
He told me he had no intentions of talking to Mother ever again; seeing her be sentenced for her abuse of Faith and I, and a whole host of other crimes had opened his eyes to the shrew he'd married, and he admitted he was glad for the no-contact order. I offered to see if there was a way for him to divorce her from behind bars, and he accepted the offer gratefully.
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Mother did not react well to the divorce papers sent on Father's behalf, and she refused to sign them, stating she had no intentions of letting him be free. This highlighted just how abusive she'd been towards him during their marriage, and since she'd made it public she wasn't letting him go, solely so she could hunt him down after she'd served her sentence, it was a simple matter of granting the divorce, since abuse had played a large part in their marriage. Mother was even angrier when she'd found out the divorce had been granted, and she vowed to make Father pay once she got out of jail, no-contact order or no no-contact order. This made the authorities rather twitchy.
As a result, Mother was tried again, and, helped by Daniel, Father detailed all that he'd suffered while married to her. This got Mother's sentence extended to life without parole, and once Father promised to never contact her once he was released from prison, the blocks on his mind were lifted. Mother's blocks were strengthened as a result, just in case she tried attacking him etherically, and her mind was warded 24/7 to keep her on the straight and narrow. I almost wanted to feel sorry for her, but given she'd placed similar constraints on my mind while I'd been prisoner in her home, I found I didn't have much pity for her after all.
Being freed from Mother helped Father start to turn his life around, and within a few weeks after Mother's new sentence, he began attending some of the classes his prison had to offer. After trying a few here and there, he decided to learn how to knit, and once the authorities had been assured he no longer meant me harm, he was allowed to contact me via a monitored video call once a week, and I soon grew to look forward to learning about his forays into the world of knitting. He proudly showed off his attempts, and I had to try hard not to laugh at how lopsided they looked, but he admitted to feeling silly over his errors, and we always ended up having a good laugh about the latest goof he'd made while attempting his new craft.
Xavier also proved an ice-breaker, and Father always brightened when he saw his grandson, so much so that he even offered to knit him some beanies for when he was a bit older, and I accepted the offer, knowing it came from a genuine desire to finally try and make up at least a little for what he'd put me through while I'd been living under his roof. I couldn't entirely feel quite comfortable around him again, but I was able to relax enough to trust him around my son, and that did wonders for our slow-mending relationship.
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Faith, in the meantime, had actually seen the error of her ways, and while I was less comfortable around her, due to how cruel she'd been towards me during my captivity at the nunnery and later at the packhouse, I allowed a once-a-month video call with her. But I never had Xavier around when I made these calls; there was too much risk Faith had changed her spots simply to worm her way back into my good graces. Faith noticed my reticence after a while, and she became bitter again, insisting she'd changed for the better, and wanted things to be okay between us. Unfortunately, this was just the sort of thing I'd feared would happen, and when she grew too aggressive during one of her video calls with me, I asked that they be stopped, and the authorities happily agreed, also noticing how angry Faith had grown. I then made it clear I never wanted to hear from her again, and the authorities cut her off on my behalf forthwith.
Faith did not take well to that, and the authorities were forced to inject her with tranquiliser after she went on a wild rampage throughout the prison, screaming the most hateful insults towards me and vowing to kill my son rather than let him grow up happy and free. This got her a consecutive second life sentence to serve alongside her first, and she was moved to the maximum security wing afterwards, to live out the rest of her days in solitary confinement.
Her story, however, closed early; two months after being moved, she was found dead in her cell, having hung herself, and once her death had been ruled as suicide, she was cremated, her ashes scattered so she'd never find a foothold in the afterlife to try and harm me or Xavier. Jethro was on high alert for a few months after her death, but once it had been ascertained her soul had been scattered to the four winds, he relaxed his vigil.
Mother was incensed when she found out about Faith's death, and she blamed it on me. I told her to eat rocks, and it wasn't long before Mother was moved to the maximum secutiry wing of her prison. She didn't kill herself, but the solitary confinement ended up breaking her mind, and she became a vegetable, all her years of spite and bitterness having finally caught up and broken her mind clean in two. I was horrified when I found out.
"It's a damn shame," Jethro admitted that night. "But let's face it; she wanted to do the same to you. I think this is the gods' way of dealing a justice you were denied for a long time."182Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFF2RZFLbFl
"I know," I admitted, "but she's still my mother. I know she was a right cow to me, but I can't help but feel a bit sorry for her. She could have turned her life to good after being made to marry Father."
"But she chose spite and bitterness instead," Jethro said firmly. He sighed and stroked my hair. "I know it's hard to let go, but you have to. She stopped being your mother the day she decided to take her forced marriage out on you."
Jethro had a point, and though it felt like I was tearing a part of my soul out, I made the bitter decision to consign my mother's fate to the whim of the gods. Two months later, they answered, and my mother was found dead in her cell one morning, not from suicide, but from the stresses brought on by a broken mind in a relatively unbroken body.182Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNH7aMO87HK
I did cry, but I didn't mourn her; instead, I mourned the mother she might have been, had bitterness and spite not twisted her into the horrible creature she'd become.
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