He sighed. “Pretending you don’t see what’s right in front of you is hard. You know what the worst part is? I think Amanda knows the truth. Deep down. She just can’t admit it because that would mean admitting her whole family was built on lies.”
I knew exactly what he meant.
Garrett’s sentencing came through last week. Guilty on all counts. Fourteen years in federal prison. Plus, restitution payments that will follow him for the rest of his life.
The judge specifically mentioned the brazen contempt for working people’s retirement savings during sentencing. She called it one of the most egregious cases of pension fraud she’d seen in 20 years on the bench.
They showed his mugshot on the evening news. The guy who used to brag about paying cash for Teslas was now standing in front of a height chart in an orange jumpsuit with a booking number under his chin. The guy who called my career “middling” is now going to spend the next decade and a half learning what it’s like when the government takes everything you have.
I’d be lying if I said it didn’t feel good watching that segment. Claire and I were eating dinner when it came on. She looked over at me and just raised her glass.
“To karma,” she said.
“To karma.”
Richard called me the day after the sentencing. It was the first time we’d spoken since the grocery store conversation with Patricia.
“I wanted you to hear it from me,” he said. His voice sounded old and broken. “He’s going to prison. My son is going to prison.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I just waited.
“You were right,” Richard continued. “About everything. We raised him to think he was untouchable. We made excuses every time he cut corners. We told ourselves it was just ambition. Just drive. Just Garrett being Garrett.”
He laughed bitterly. “Funny how that phrase keeps coming back to haunt us.”
“I’m sorry it turned out this way,” I said. And weirdly, I meant it. Not for Garrett; he earned every day of that sentence.
But I meant it for Richard and Patricia, who had to watch their son get led away in handcuffs because they’d spent 40 years enabling him.
“Nathan,” Richard said before hanging up. “For what it’s worth—and I know it’s not worth much—you were the best thing that ever happened to my daughter. She just couldn’t see it. None of us could.”
Claire moved in with me three weeks ago. We found a bigger place. It’s a two-bedroom apartment with a view of the mountains and enough space for her books and my project equipment.
It is nothing fancy. Garrett would probably call it middling. But here is the thing about Claire: she actually gives a damn about what I do.
Last Tuesday, I came home stressed about a design flaw we’d found in the thermal coupling system. Most people’s eyes would glaze over after 10 seconds of that conversation.
Claire sat with me for two hours. She asked questions. She helped me think through the problem.
She genuinely tried to understand. She even sketched out a potential solution on the back of a napkin that turned out to be pretty close to what we eventually implemented.
“You know what I love about your job?” She said that night. “You’re literally putting things in space that help people communicate. That’s so much cooler than whatever Garrett was doing.”
“Stealing from old people?” I asked.
“Exactly. You build satellites. He built a prison sentence.”
I laughed so hard I nearly choked on my dinner. So that’s where we are. Garrett is in federal prison, starting a 14-year sentence.
His father-in-law is right behind him. Elena is rebuilding her life in Colorado. Amanda and Kyle are separated.
Megan is alone in a small apartment somewhere. She is probably still telling herself I’m the one who ruined everything.
And me? I’ve got a promotion. I have a girlfriend who actually respects what I do. And I have an apartment that feels more like home than that house with Megan ever did.
My satellite components are still orbiting Earth. They are helping people communicate across continents. I am still doing the work that Garrett called “middling” while he was busy committing federal crimes.
The other day, I got an email from my old engineering professor. “One of my former students is interning at your company,” he wrote. “She said you’re the reason she went into aerospace. She said you gave a talk at her high school career day three years ago, and it changed her life.”
I don’t even remember that talk. But apparently, while I was busy feeling like a failure because some trust fund fraud kept telling me I wasn’t good enough, I was out there inspiring the next generation of engineers. Funny how that works.
