“Yes.”
He went silent.
I was not going to make it easier.
Eventually he said, “I should have stopped Brenda.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know she would send Darren armed.”
“You knew she was sending him.”
Silence.
“Yes.”
“You knew there was no valid vote.”
“I thought we could ratify it later.”
That sentence made me angrier than anything Brenda had said.
“Ratify it later?”
“I know how that sounds.”
“You were collecting house keys under a policy you knew had not been adopted.”
“Brenda said counsel would approve it.”
“Did counsel?”
“No.”
“So you let her pressure residents anyway.”
“I thought keeping peace on the board was better than fighting her.”
I laughed once.
No humor.
“How did that work?”
He did not answer.
That became Cedar Grove’s second lesson.
Brenda created the problem.
Charles enabled it.
One abused authority.
The other surrendered responsibility to avoid conflict.
Both mattered.
