Chapter 15 - The Choice
I read the messages twice. Vanessa stood in my doorway, waiting for me to tell her what they meant.
“You chose him,” I said.
She nodded. “I did.”
“Then you let Mom laugh at me.”
“I did.”
“And you left me responsible for the charter.”
“Yes.” Her voice cracked. “I kept telling myself you'd be angry for a day, then you'd fix it like you always do.”
There it was again: the convenience of my predictability.
I stepped aside and let her in. She sat at the kitchen table while I made coffee. For once, neither of us rushed to fill the silence.
“I loved him,” she said. “I still don't know what parts were real.”
“I can't answer that for you.”
“He made me feel important. He said I deserved more than our little family had ever given us.”
“Did he tell you I was holding you back?”
“Every time you asked about costs, he'd say you wanted to control me.”
I set a mug in front of her. “Questions about money aren't the same as control.”
“I see that now.” She looked down. “I'm sorry, Evelyn. Not because the party failed. I'm sorry I sent that message. I'm sorry I let him use you. I'm sorry I took your help and called it interference.”
It was the first apology she'd ever given me without an explanation attached.
“I hear you,” I said. “But I can't go back to the way things were.”
“I don't expect you to.”
I wanted to believe her. I also knew one good conversation couldn't erase years of bad ones.
Her phone buzzed. She glanced at the screen and went pale.
“It's Grant.”
“Don't answer if you don't want to.”
She showed me the text instead.
IF YOU HAND OVER THOSE MESSAGES, YOUR DAD LOSES HIS HOUSE. I CAN MAKE THAT HAPPEN.
Vanessa's hands shook. “What do we do?”
May you like
I took a breath. The old Evelyn would have promised to make it disappear.
This time I said, “We let the attorneys see exactly what he wrote.”
