“Did I?”
“I don’t think so,” he replied. “You were always quiet around her.”
“I was careful around her.”
He looked down.
“She said you represented a part of my life she couldn’t control.”
There it was.
Plain and ugly.
I had not mistreated Vanessa.
I had simply existed before her.
I held memories of Daniel she could not rewrite, influence she could not own, and a permanent place in his life that did not require her approval.
Daniel continued.
“She admitted changing the seating chart. She said she wanted to make a point.”
“What point?”
“That my loyalty belonged to her now.”
Weariness settled deep inside me.
“And what did you say?”
His voice broke.
“I told her loyalty to my wife didn’t require cruelty to my mother.”
Tears burned behind my eyes.
Daniel leaned closer.
“Mom, I am so sorry.”
I studied his face.
People often apologized when consequences arrived.
