They met her in a small visiting room.
Rebecca wore a plain gray sweater. Her hair was shorter, and without the expensive coat and carefully arranged appearance, she looked less like the woman who had once controlled every room and more like someone who had finally been forced to sit with the consequences of her choices.
She looked at her children.
"I know I have no right to ask anything of you," she said.
Mara folded her hands.
"Then don't ask."
Rebecca nodded.
"I won't."
She turned toward Colton.
"I wanted you to know that I told the investigators everything I remembered. I gave them the names of the people who handled the records, the accounts I authorized, and the conversations I had with Arthur."
Colton listened.
"I did not do it to earn forgiveness," she continued. "I did it because the truth should not depend on whether I am afraid of what it will cost me."
Mara's eyes remained fixed on her.
"That is what you should have done years ago."
"Yes."
Rebecca took a breath.
"I don't expect you to visit me. I don't expect you to write. I don't expect you to tell Lila that I am a good person."
Colton looked at her.
"What do you want her to know?"
Rebecca's eyes filled.
"That I was wrong. That she did nothing wrong. That none of this was her fault."
He nodded slowly.
"I can tell her that."
Rebecca's shoulders relaxed.
"Thank you."
Mara looked away, struggling to contain her emotions.
Rebecca reached for the table but stopped before touching either of her children.
"I loved you both," she said. "I know that is not enough. I know love did not make my decisions right. But I want you to know that the love was real."
Colton thought of Nora's letter.
Both things can be true.
He looked at his mother.
"I believe you loved us."
Rebecca began to cry.
"But I don't know what that means for us now," he continued. "I don't know whether we can rebuild a relationship. I don't know whether I can forgive you. I won't promise something just because it would make this conversation easier."
Rebecca nodded through her tears.
"That's fair."
Mara finally looked at her.
"I loved you, too," she said. "I still do, in ways I don't know how to explain. But I cannot keep pretending that love means I have to trust you."
Rebecca bowed her head.
"I understand."
The visit ended without an embrace.
There was no dramatic reconciliation.
No promise that everything would eventually be fine.
But for the first time, they had spoken without trying to control what the other person was allowed to feel.
It was not forgiveness.
It was honesty.
And perhaps honesty was the only place forgiveness could ever begin.
Samuel's case took longer.
He cooperated with investigators, provided information about the transfers, and testified about the payments that had funded the operation. His testimony helped establish the roles of several people who had previously avoided scrutiny.
But his cooperation did not erase his actions.
He was convicted of financial crimes and obstruction-related offenses connected to the cover-up.
Colton did not attend the sentencing.
Mara did.
Afterward, she told him that Samuel had looked smaller than she remembered, that he had cried when the judge read the sentence, and that he had asked whether she thought he would ever be forgiven.
"What did you tell him?" Colton asked.
"I told him I didn't know."
Colton nodded.
"That's honest."
Mara looked toward the window.
"I wanted to tell him that I forgave him. Part of me does. But another part of me remembers being a child and believing he was dead. I don't know how to make those feelings fit together."
"You don't have to."
She looked at him.
"That's what you told me."
"Because it's true."
Mara smiled sadly.
"I suppose we're learning."
Samuel wrote to them occasionally.
His letters were brief and did not ask for anything. He wrote about memories, about the things he regretted, and about the work he was doing in prison to help other inmates learn basic literacy.
Colton read the first letter and put it away.
He read the second.
The third remained unopened for several weeks.
Eventually, he understood that he did not need to decide whether to forgive Samuel before he could read what he had written.
He could read a letter without accepting an apology.
He could remember a good day without pretending the bad ones had not happened.
He could miss the father he had known while refusing to excuse the man who had left Nora behind.
Those truths could exist together.
And he could choose what to do with them one day at a time.
Arthur Vale's trial began the following year.