I waited. I waited for the smallest sign that he understood what had just occurred, a glance in my direction, a word of protest, even an embarrassed cough into his napkin. Anything.
Nothing came.
Then Eleanor, his mother, leaned back in the very chair I had personally paid to rent for this reunion, and smiled at me without an ounce of warmth behind it.
“Oh, here we go,” she said, the moment I reached down and picked up my purse. “Always so dramatic.”
She pointed one finger toward the empty chair beside Richard.
“Sit down and apologize to Madison for making everyone uncomfortable,” she said. “Or leave.”
Richard finally lifted his eyes and met mine, and gave me that particular warning look he reserved for moments when his family expected me to quietly absorb their cruelty and smile through it, the way I always had.
For nine years, I had done exactly that. I had erased everything. I had paid Madison’s college tuition in full after Richard’s business hit its first real crisis. I had covered Eleanor’s back taxes and quietly settled a lawsuit that Richard’s brother had dragged the family name through. They called all of it helping family.
