“You didn’t spare me by lying, Marcus. You robbed me of the choice to leave with my dignity intact.”
I hung up before he could answer.
I called Chloe next. I told her everything, gently and completely, letting her cry when she needed to.
“Mom,” she whispered, “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. Just stand with me.”
“Always.”
I found Peter on the upper deck, his hands in his pockets, watching the water.
“I don’t know what any of this becomes,” I told him. “Maybe nothing. Maybe someday we’ll be friends. I can’t promise more than that.”
He nodded, quiet as the sea.
“But thank you,” I said. “For not staying silent this time.”
“I owed you the truth I didn’t dare to give at seventeen.”
Six months later, I opened the small interior design consultancy I’d shelved twenty years earlier for Marcus’s career. The divorce was settled fairly. Chloe helped me paint the office walls a soft, honest blue.
