Saoirse studied me.
“Good.”
We spoke for another hour.
She told me about her father, about the accounts she’d tried to obtain, and about the years she had spent wondering whether she was imagining things.
I told her about the recording.
I told her about the apartment.
And when she asked whether Grayson had ever loved me, I couldn’t answer.
“I don’t know,” I said finally. “I think he liked the person he believed I was. Someone he could guide, reassure, and eventually control.”
Saoirse nodded slowly.
“That’s what he does. He tells you who you are, then acts as if you’re cruel when you disagree.”
It was the clearest description of my marriage I had ever heard.
By the end of the meeting, we had not become friends.
We had become two women who finally understood how the same family had used different stories to keep us apart.
That was enough to begin with.
