Chapter 11 - The Part Ryan Had to Own
Ryan enrolled in an anger-management assessment before anyone ordered him to.
Claire drove him to the first appointment because his car was in the shop.
She didn't praise him.
He appreciated that.
“You still think I should've hit Nicole?” he asked as they waited at a red light.
Claire glanced at him.
“No.”
“You didn't even hesitate.”
“You want me to?”
“No.”
“Then why ask?”
Ryan watched traffic cross the intersection.
“Because part of me still does.”
Claire nodded.
“That part is why you're going.”
At the assessment, Ryan described the moment exactly.
Emma crying.
The reckless transfer.
Vanessa minimizing it.
Nicole stepping toward him.
The slap.
The counselor did not tell him his anger was wrong.
She asked what he wanted Emma to learn from him when anger was justified.
Ryan had no answer.
Later that week, he gave a voluntary supplemental statement regarding the videos and provided the medical documentation through Denise.
Nicole still had the right to pursue her complaint.
Ryan accepted that.
It embarrassed him.
That was not the same thing as being treated unfairly.
Meanwhile Northline's investigation stalled.
Nicole's company controlled the original creator account, and some material had already been licensed to third-party pages that reposted short clips.
Ryan's revocation stopped new commercial use through Northline, but it could not magically pull every copy from the internet.
One clip had already been reposted hundreds of times.
Not the arm-to-arm transfer.
An earlier video.
Vanessa taking Emma's pacifier.
Emma crying.
Vanessa saying, “Some babies need to learn patience.”
Twenty-two seconds.
Millions of views across several accounts.
Ryan watched exactly once.
The comments made him close the laptop.
Some called Vanessa abusive.
Some called Emma spoiled.
Some argued that babies cried all the time and people were too sensitive.
Some said the scene was obviously staged.
One person wrote:
The baby is the only one who doesn't know it's content.
Ryan shut the computer.
That sentence stayed with him.
He called Vanessa.
She answered on the first ring.
“The pacifier video is everywhere.”
“I know.”
“You told me nothing major had been posted.”
“I didn't think that one was major.”
“Millions of people have watched our daughter cry.”
Vanessa began to say something.
Ryan interrupted.
“No. Don't explain yet. I need you to hear me.”
She stopped.
“I helped create the conditions for this.”
Vanessa was silent.
“I signed the release. I told you I trusted you. I dismissed the whole thing because I didn't want another responsibility.”
“Ryan—”
“That is mine.”
He swallowed.
“But do not confuse me admitting that with me taking yours.”
“I don't.”
“Do you?”
Vanessa began crying softly.
“I don't know how I became somebody who could do that.”
Ryan looked at Emma asleep beside him.
“That isn't the question you get to answer first.”
“What is?”
“How many times did you see her scared and decide the video mattered more?”
Vanessa didn't respond.
Ryan waited.
Finally she said, “More than once.”
It was the closest thing to a confession he'd heard.
But it didn't make anything easier.
Because Ryan now understood something Denise had warned him about.
Truth did not automatically create accountability.
Sometimes people admitted what they had done and still had no idea what to do with the damage.
Vanessa spoke again.
“Can I see her?”
Ryan closed his eyes.
“No.”
“Ryan, please.”
“Not right now.”
“I'm not asking to be alone with her.”
“No.”
Vanessa inhaled sharply.
He could hear anger beginning to replace grief.
“You can't erase me from her life.”
Ryan looked at Emma.
“You don't get to make this about what you're losing.”
The line went quiet.
When Vanessa finally answered, her voice was different.
“Then maybe you should ask yourself what you were so afraid of losing that you didn't look closer either.”
She hung up.
Ryan sat beside Emma for a long time afterward.
He hated Vanessa for saying it.
Mostly because he knew exactly what the answer was.
May you like
The second family he had built after Leah died.
And his desperate need to believe it could not fail.
