Chapter 7 - Thomas Finally Spoke Too Late
Thomas had imagined many ways his life could collapse.
Business failure.
Divorce.
His mother’s disappointment.
He had never imagined it would happen in a side room at a wedding while his six-year-old daughter wore a stained tablecloth and looked at him like he was a stranger.
“Lily,” he said softly.
She moved behind Rebecca’s leg.
The movement was small.
It destroyed him.
He deserved it.
Rebecca looked at him without pity.
“Don’t use her name to make yourself feel better.”
Thomas flinched.
Charlotte crossed her arms. “Thomas, say it clearly. Did you know Aunt Eleanor was planning to embarrass them?”
Thomas stared at the floor.
“Not exactly.”
Aaron’s voice was calm. “That’s not an answer.”
Thomas rubbed both hands over his face.
He was tired.
Not from the night.
From being a coward for thirty-eight years.
“My mother told me Rebecca needed to be shown as unstable,” he said. “She said if Rebecca made a scene tonight, it would help the custody case.”
Rebecca’s face hardened.
“You let me bring Lily here knowing that?”
“I thought she meant she’d provoke you,” Thomas said, ashamed. “Say something rude. Start an argument. I didn’t think she’d involve Lily.”
“But when you saw the waiter?”
Thomas looked at Lily.
His voice broke.
“I froze.”
Rebecca laughed once, bitter and devastated.
“No. Freezing is what people do when they don’t know what’s happening. You knew enough to make a choice. And you chose your mother.”
Lily tugged Rebecca’s dress.
“Can we go home?”
Rebecca immediately softened.
“Yes.”
Thomas stepped forward. “Please. Let me fix this.”
Rebecca turned on him.
“Fix what? Her dress? Her birthday parties for the next ten years when she wonders if people are laughing at her? The way she looked at the floor because she thought she did something wrong?”
Thomas’s face crumpled.
“I’m sorry.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“You’re always sorry after the damage is public.”
Charlotte looked away, crying silently.
Aaron opened the side door.
Rebecca lifted Lily into her arms.
Before leaving, she looked back at Thomas.
“You wanted more custody because your trust required a stable family image,” she said. “Now you can explain to a judge why your family’s image needed my daughter humiliated.”
Thomas went pale.
He had forgotten she knew about the trust.
Rebecca had not.
She carried Lily out of the side room.
May you like
This time, when she left, the whole wedding knew exactly who had been protected.
And exactly who had been sacrificed.
