“You wanted a pregnant woman to fight harder for a family that had locked the door,” I said.
Patricia wept then. Silently. Completely.
Marcus turned away, gripping the mantel. “You let me believe there was no proof.”
“You wanted to believe it,” Harold said.
That brought Marcus around. “What does that mean?”
Harold’s jaw tightened. “It means your mother hid the envelope, but she didn’t make you cruel. She didn’t make you refuse Kesha’s calls. She didn’t make you sign divorce papers without meeting her face to face. She didn’t make you vanish.”
Marcus stared at him, stunned.
The house seemed to shrink around us. Christmas music played faintly from another room, cheerful and horribly out of place.
Celeste removed the ring from her finger.
Marcus noticed immediately. “Celeste, wait.”
She placed it on the side table, not dramatically, not with anger, but with devastating calm. “I’m not leaving because you have children. I’m leaving this room because I need to understand whether I was engaged to a man who made one terrible mistake or a man who built his life on avoiding truth.”
