Sarah sent another update five months after the lakehouse. Derek had lost the custody fight. Tyler now lived with Clare eighty five percent of the time. Derek had been evicted from his apartment, unable to afford rent, moving back into his childhood bedroom at his parents’ house at forty years old, credit destroyed, bankruptcy filed, working at his parents’ accounting firm for forty five thousand a year. Sarah included a screenshot of a Facebook post he’d made. When family betrays you over materialism, it read, you learn who your real friends are. Some people care more about things than people. I’ll rebuild stronger. Three comments beneath it, all from his own parents. I read it once and felt something close to pity. Derek still didn’t understand. Still blamed me. Still played the victim in his own story.
Then Sarah texted with a different tone entirely. Clare wants to meet, she wrote. Says she needs to talk to you. I told her I’d ask. No pressure. I thought about it, then agreed to a neutral coffee shop on Woodland Street. Clare arrived without makeup, without the polished family image she usually maintained, without a defensive husband standing beside her. She looked older. Thank you for seeing me, she said. I nodded. I’m getting divorced, she said. You probably heard. Yeah, I said. You were right, she said. About Derek. About Tyler. About all of it. I waited. I enabled Derek’s ego, she said. I raised an entitled kid because it was easier than confronting the actual problems underneath. Her voice cracked. That day at the lakehouse, Derek had been mocking your guitar all weekend, she said. Saying you wasted money on hobbies while he drove a Mercedes. I knew about it. I didn’t stop him. Why not, I asked. She looked down at the table. I was afraid, she said. If I admitted Derek was wrong, I’d have had to admit I’d married the wrong man. Then she cried, real tears this time, not strategy, not panic. I’m sorry, she said. I’m so, so sorry. I passed her napkins from the dispenser. I forgive you, I said. She looked up, genuinely shocked. Really, she asked. Yeah, I said. But we’re not going back to how we were. I understand, she said. Maybe someday, I told her. Not now. You’re my sister. I don’t hate you. But I don’t trust you yet either. Trust takes time. Can we try slowly, she asked. Maybe, I said. Time will tell.
