It was the first time anyone in my family’s orbit had asked me that since I left.
I swallowed.
“I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t hit me.”
“No, but I stood there for several seconds after it happened.
I should have said something sooner.”
I appreciated that he didn’t make excuses.
“I saw the video,” I told him.
He was quiet.
“Then you know.”
“Did you mean it?”
“About the wedding? Yes.”
I closed my eyes.
“Mason, don’t end your engagement because of me.”
“I’m not.”
His answer was immediate.
“I’m ending it because of what Vanessa did and what she said afterward.
There’s a difference.”
He told me he had been uneasy for months about the way Vanessa treated people when she believed there would be no consequences.
He had excused it as stress, competitiveness, wedding pressure, or family friction.
Watching her hit me changed that.
Watching Dad defend her changed it more.
“I kept thinking there must be context I didn’t understand,” he said.
“Tonight I understood the context.”
Before hanging up, he gave me one warning.
“Your father is going to ask you to come back tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Because he thinks if you tell me everything is fine, I’ll reconsider.”
I almost laughed.
“Will you?”
“No.”
The next morning, Dad arrived at my hotel.
I knew because the front desk called my room.
“There’s a Richard Cole here asking to see you.”
I could have refused.
Instead, I went downstairs because there was one thing I wanted to hear for myself.
Dad stood near the lobby windows in the same clothes he had worn the night before.
He looked older.
He looked tired.
He did not look sorry.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“You’ve called fifty-six times between you.
I assumed so.”
His mouth tightened.
“Vanessa’s wedding is falling apart.”
“I heard.”
“Mason won’t speak to her.
Guests are sending that video around.
Vanessa is devastated.”
I waited.
Dad seemed irritated by my silence.
“You need to tell Mason this was a misunderstanding.”
There it was.
“Which part?”
“Emily.”
