Chapter 8 - THE MAN IN THE MIRROR
I began therapy.
I hated saying that.
Then hated that I hated saying it.
Dr. Benjamin Cole was annoyingly patient.
“Why did you believe Maya immediately?”
“She was my sister.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is.”
“No.”
He waited.
I eventually understood.
Maya’s accusation protected my ego.
If Lucy had betrayed me, I was a victim.
If Lucy was innocent and trying to warn me about my own company?
Then I had failed to see what was happening in my own house and business.
One story made me powerful and wronged.
The other made me foolish.
I chose the story that preserved pride.
That was why I threw her out before hearing her.
Then under the bridge?
I saw Lucy poor.
That confirmed my old story.
She must have failed because she was guilty.
I wanted that.
My arrogance required her suffering to mean I had been right.
When she refused the fifty dollars, something cracked.
Not because she rejected money.
Because she rejected my authority to define what her life meant.
Therapy is rude.
I recommend it reluctantly.
A year after the arrests, Lucy and I met accidentally at Dad’s rehabilitation center.
She still visited him.
Not every week.
Sometimes.
Dad loved her.
I had stopped resenting that.
She walked more evenly after physical therapy.
Hair shorter.
Healthy color back in her face.
“You look well.”
She smiled slightly.
“That is a dangerous sentence from an ex-husband.”
“I meant medically.”
“Worse.”
I laughed.
Then she laughed too.
It felt almost normal.
That frightened me more than hostility.
We sat in the garden while Dad slept.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Lucy sighed.
“I know.”
“No speech.”
“Good.”
“I just…”
I stopped.
“What?”
“I wish I could undo it.”
She looked toward the trees.
“So do I.”
That surprised me.
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you hated me.”
“I did.”
Past tense.
Maybe.
“But I also loved you.”
My throat tightened.
“You don’t turn that off cleanly just because someone hurts you.”
I said nothing.
Then:
“I’m not asking to come back.”
“Good.”
She looked at me.
“I need you to understand something.”
“I’m listening.”
“The worst part wasn’t losing the house.”
I waited.
“Or money.”
She touched her healed hip absentmindedly.
“It was realizing my husband could look at me and believe the worst version of me without needing proof.”
I closed my eyes.
“That changes how a person loves you afterward.”
“I know.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“You understand it intellectually.”
Pause.
“I lived it.”
She was right.
Again.
“Will you ever forgive me?”
She thought.
“I already forgive some of it.”
My eyes opened.
“But forgiveness isn’t marriage.”
I nodded.
That phrase stayed.
Forgiveness isn’t marriage.
Love isn’t necessarily access.
Regret isn’t restoration.
She stood.
“Your dad wakes up around four.”
“I know.”
She smiled.
“Now you do.”
May you like
Then she walked away.
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