Chapter 15 - THE EMPTY SEAT
Eleven months after Sophie’s wedding, Megan attended another reception at the same Massachusetts estate.
This one belonged to a client’s daughter.
No family connection.
No Beacon transaction.
No black folder under Megan’s arm.
She drove the silver Subaru anyway.
She still liked the car.
Beacon had renewed Megan’s advisory contract for another year. Richard Vale had retired from full-time board work but remained an adviser. Hail Precision was performing better under a new commercial director, though integration remained incomplete.
Martin left the company six months after the acquisition.
He and Sophie were still legally married.
They had been living separately for nearly a year and were working through counseling and attorneys without announcing whether they intended reconciliation or divorce.
Megan stopped asking.
Sophie had returned to full-time hospital work, moved into a condo she could afford on her own, and learned far more about mortgage underwriting than she ever wanted to know.
She and Megan had dinner about twice a month.
Some dinners were easy.
Others ended with one of them saying something too sharp and texting the next morning.
It felt less polished than their old relationship.
More real.
Diane was harder.
She had apologized.
She had also slipped twice into old habits—once describing Megan as “stubborn” at Thanksgiving when Megan refused to attend an event with Thomas Hail, another time telling Sophie she was “throwing away” her marriage.
Both daughters left dinner.
Diane called them separately the next day and acknowledged what she had done without defending it.
Progress, Megan had learned, was irritatingly unimpressive.
At the reception, Megan found her assigned table.
One chair beside her remained empty.
A place card read:
DIANE COLLINS
Megan stared at it.
She hadn’t known her mother was invited.
Five minutes later her phone buzzed.
I’m in the parking lot. I saw your car. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. If you’d rather I leave, I will.
Megan looked across the conservatory.
Nearly a year earlier, Diane had tried to buy her absence from a room exactly like this one.
Now Diane was offering Megan the choice she should have had all along.
Megan typed:
You were invited. Come inside.
She stopped.
Deleted it.
Typed again:
You can come in. But sit with me because you want to know me now, not because you need us to look like a family.
Her thumb hovered over send.
Across the room, a waiter straightened wineglasses beneath warm New England evening light.
The empty chair beside Megan remained exactly where it was.
May you like
She sent the message.
Then she placed her phone facedown and waited to see whether Diane would understand the difference.
