Fifteen years ago, I had watched a crying seventeen-year-old walk away because I had been too tired and impatient to care what happened after my ruling.
I wasn’t doing that again.
I pulled out the empty chair beside me. “Sit down.”
Audrey looked at the neighbors, then at me.
After a moment, she sat.
“We both made a mess.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Not for the ruling. But for what I said afterward. You deserved better than that.”
She nodded slowly.
Margaret silently poured her some tea. For a moment, nobody spoke.
Audrey looked toward her stained white porch. I looked at the crushed edge of my garden.
She sighed.
“Then I suppose we both know where to start.”
“We both made a mess.”
I picked up my cup.
“Then I suppose we both know where to start.”
