“For years, I told everyone that’s just how Susan is.”
I said nothing.
“I thought I was keeping peace.”
His eyes dropped to the broken necklace.
That was the first apology from that family that actually made me cry.
“But I wasn’t.”
He took a breath.
“I was asking everyone else to absorb the damage.”
That was the first apology from that family that actually made me cry.
Not because it fixed anything.
It didn’t.
But because someone finally understood what had been happening.
Before Matthew finally left to drive Susan home, he bent down near Thomas’s chair and found one tiny plastic bottle he’d missed.
He held it out to me.
I almost told him to throw it away.
Instead, I took it.
Susan didn’t call me for three weeks.
It wasn’t perfect.
When she finally did, she said, “I suppose I owe you an apology.”
I said, “You do.”
There was a long pause.
Then she said, “I’m sorry.”
It wasn’t perfect.
I didn’t need perfect.
The next time we saw Matthew, he came alone.
I needed different.
We didn’t go back to the old normal. I didn’t want to.
The next time we saw Matthew, he came alone.
