Chapter 14 - THE LAST TIME I WALKED INTO A HALE ROOM
Six months after the brunch, Brenda asked to meet me.
I almost refused.
Then I agreed to thirty minutes in a hotel café.
Public.
Daytime.
My choice.
She arrived early.
No pearls.
No floral dress.
Just a gray sweater and black slacks.
She looked smaller without the mansion.
“Thank you for coming.”
“You have thirty minutes.”
Brenda nodded.
“Fair.”
She did not ask me to stop the divorce.
That surprised me.
Instead, she placed a small brass key ring on the table.
Not the old master keys.
A duplicate she had kept.
“I found these while moving.”
“Why give them to me?”
“Because I realized how ridiculous it was that I kept keys to rooms I don’t own anymore.”
I looked at her.
“That’s not why you wanted to meet.”
“No.”
Brenda folded her hands.
“I spent years blaming Nathan because admitting Charles did what he did meant admitting I helped him do it.”
“You did.”
“Yes.”
“And then you did it again with Derek.”
“Yes.”
“And me.”
“Yes.”
She took the answers without defense.
“Why the brunch ritual?”
Brenda closed her eyes.
“Charles’s mother did something similar to me.”
I had expected an explanation.
I had not expected that.
“She made you kneel?”
“She spilled gravy intentionally at our first family Thanksgiving and told me to clean it because ‘Hale women maintain the house.’ Charles laughed.”
“And you repeated it.”
Brenda’s face twisted.
“I told myself I transformed it into a joke.”
“You didn’t.”
“I know.”
There was nothing noble in inheriting cruelty and passing it on.
Brenda seemed to understand that now.
“I wanted you to know I’m sorry.”
“I believe you.”
She looked surprised.
“That doesn’t mean I want a relationship with you.”
Her face fell.
“I understand.”
I stood.
“One more thing.”
“Yes?”
“Derek is responsible for what he did.”
“I know.”
“Don’t make yourself responsible for his entire life now. That’s another form of control.”
Brenda stared at me.
Then slowly nodded.
“I’ll try.”
I left the keys on the table.
They belonged to a house neither of us lived in anymore.
The divorce became final four weeks later.
Derek and I stood on opposite sides of a courthouse hallway after a proceeding that lasted less than fifteen minutes.
He looked at me.
“So that’s it.”
“Legally.”
He gave a sad smile.
“Still precise.”
“Occupational hazard.”
He put his hands in his coat pockets.
“Chloe?”
“Yes?”
“If I ever become someone you could trust again, would you want to know?”
I could have given him a clean ending.
No.
Never.
Or yes.
Someday.
Instead I told the truth.
“I don’t know.”
He nodded.
May you like
“Okay.”
For the first time since I met him, Derek Hale accepted an answer he didn’t like without trying to change it.
