Chapter 14 - The Final Chapter of DavidThree miles away, near the commuter rail station in Brockton, a small suburban town south of Boston, David Vance walked out of a local auto repair shop wearing grease-stained blue work overalls.
He was thirty-one years old, but his posture was stooped, his face line-worn, and his hands calloused from six months of working as a junior mechanic.
His felony record prevented him from holding a corporate license, his family’s fortune was gone, and his father and uncle were serving long sentences in a federal prison in Pennsylvania. His mother, Rebecca, lived alone in a subsidized senior housing unit, spending her days staring out the window, complaining to neighbors who had long since stopped listening.
David sat on a wooden bench near the train platform, opening a cold aluminum can of tea, pulling a folded newspaper out of his jacket pocket.
On the front page of the Boston Globe’s metro section was a large, vibrant photograph:
"MAYA MERCER CENTER CELEBRATES SECOND ANNIVERSARY; EXPANDS WATERFRONT SANCTUARY FOR BOSTON FAMILIES."
In the center of the photo stood Maya, holding her baby daughter, standing beside her husband and her mother, surrounded by hundreds of smiling people under a bright summer sky.
David stared at the photograph for a long, painful time.
He remembered the night at The Copper Lantern—remembered the feeling of absolute, cruel control he thought he held when he grabbed Maya’s hair, remembered his mother’s pride, remembered how small he had tried to make his wife feel.
He realized now, with a crushing, unbearable clarity, that he had never possessed power.
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He had been a weak, arrogant child playing with fire in front of a woman who owned the mountain he stood on.
David slowly folded the newspaper, set it down on the wooden bench, and walked toward the arriving train as the cold evening wind swept through the empty station.
