“No,” Paul said coldly. “I don’t think I will.”
I kept speaking because I feared that if I stopped, twenty years of silence would close over me again.
“You called Ethan a mistake before he was old enough to understand the word. You forgot his birthdays unless I reminded you. You missed his parent-teacher conferences, his little league games, and his emergency-room visits. But whenever he achieved something, whenever he won, you appeared with your hand on his shoulder.”
Ethan lowered his gaze.
I turned toward him.
“And I am sorry.”
His head lifted immediately.
“Mom—”
“No. I need to say it.”
My throat tightened.
“I thought protecting you meant keeping the worst parts of him away from you. But I also let you grow up watching me accept disrespect. I should have shown you sooner that love does not require self-erasure.”
Ethan walked around the table and took my hand.
“You showed me love,” he said. “That was enough to teach me what he wasn’t.”
Richard gave a bitter laugh.
“Beautiful performance. Both of you. Very moving.”
Then he looked around the room and realized no one was laughing with him.
Denise, who had defended him at countless family gatherings, pushed back her chair.
“Richard,” she said, “you humiliated Margaret in front of everyone tonight.”
“She raised another woman’s child in my house,” he snapped. “Do you understand what kind of generosity that required from me?”
Denise stared at him.
“Your generosity?”
Richard pointed at me.
“She wanted a child. I gave her one.”
Pain moved through me like something physical.
But this time, it did not bend me.
