“I asked for proof before I believed it.
The remaining screenshots arrived tonight.”
Brenda shook her head rapidly.
“They could be altered.”
“The dates match your excuses,” Sarah said.
“That does not make them real.”
Michael pointed toward the phone.
“Is that your coat?”
Brenda did not answer.
“Is that your bag?”
Silence.
“Are those your messages?”
Her eyes flashed.
“You’re my son.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I raised you.”
Michael’s voice lowered.
“That still isn’t an answer.”
Richard swiped back to the photograph with the mirror.
He enlarged it until the image began to blur.
Then he stopped.
On the man’s wrist was a silver watch.
Brenda had cropped him from a photograph she posted months earlier, but she had not noticed the edge of that watch beside her shoulder.
Richard remembered the day.
He remembered asking who had taken the picture.
Brenda had said a stranger in the lobby.
He looked at her with a terrible calm.
“How long?” he asked for the third time.
Brenda’s anger finally cracked.
“Six months.”
The room released a collective breath.
Richard’s eyes closed.
Brenda rushed toward him.
“It was not serious.”
“Six months.”
“I was lonely.”
“You could have told me.”
“You never listen.”
“You told a room full of people that we chose each other every day.”
“I was trying to save the evening.”
Richard looked around at the guests, the decorations, and the wedding photograph displayed beside the cake.
“No,” he said.
“You were trying to save the picture.”
Brenda’s face collapsed for one unguarded second.
Then she turned back to me.
“This is your fault.”
Michael moved before I could respond.
He stepped between us.
“No, Mom.”
“She brought this here.”
“You brought it here when you gave speeches about loyalty.”
“She wanted revenge.”
He looked at me, and I could see the truth in that accusation.
I had wanted revenge.
Pretending otherwise would only make me sound like Brenda.
“Yes,” I said.
