Right beside the coffee she’d poured for me to clean.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Please.
I was being awful.
I thought…”
She stopped.
“You thought what?”
Her voice dropped.
“I thought you had to take it.”
That was the most truthful thing anyone in the room had said besides me.
Cynthia covered her mouth.
Then she came around the table and lowered herself beside her daughter.
“I’m sorry too.
I should have stopped him.
I should have helped you.
Please don’t destroy this family over what we did.”
Colton stared at them.
“Get up.
Both of you.”
Neither moved.
His father looked from the documents to Lilah, then to me.
Pride fought with panic across his face.
Finally he lowered himself stiffly beside his wife.
“I’m asking you to reconsider,” he said.
“For everyone’s sake.”
I looked at Colton.
He was the only one still standing.
His face burned with humiliation.
For a moment, I could see the same rage that had crossed it before he slapped me.
Then he looked at the camera.
At Lilah.
At the bank representative.
At his parents and sister on the kitchen floor.
And finally at my wedding ring sitting beside the black folder.
His shoulders dropped.
Colton knelt.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
I waited.
He swallowed.
“I shouldn’t have hit you.
I shouldn’t have threatened you.
Please don’t end everything because of this.”
There it was.
The scene promised in the first stunned second after his hand struck my face: the entire family kneeling and begging the woman they had expected to mop their floor.
But standing above them didn’t make me feel powerful.
It made me tired.
“Get up,” I said.
Nobody moved at first.
“I said get up.
I don’t need anyone kneeling to me.”
One by one, they stood.
I picked up my ring.
Colton watched my hand, probably hoping I would slide it back onto my finger.
Instead, I placed it inside the open folder.
“Your apologies don’t restore the morning,” I said.
“And your fear of losing money is not the same thing as understanding what you did.”
