I know you love your daughter and want to believe the best of her, but you asked me here to talk, and talking means telling you the truth, even when it's ugly. Patricia stood, hugged me with desperate strength. I'm so sorry, James. I'm so sorry. If we'd known.
If she'd told us, you would have told her to be honest with me. I know, but she didn't tell you because she knew what you'd say. I gently extracted myself from the hug. I should go. This is a family matter now, and I'm not I'm not family anymore.
You'll always be family to us, Patricia said fiercely. What Rachel did that doesn't change how we feel about you. But it did change things and we all knew it. The divorce would divide more than just assets. It would divide relationships, holidays, mutual friends.
I would lose not just a wife, but a whole extended network of people I'd considered family. Richard walked me to the door, his face still red, his hands clenched into fists. I'll talk to her. Make her understand what she's done, what she's thrown away. Don't do it for me.
Do it because she needs to hear it from people who love her unconditionally. She needs to understand that love doesn't mean enabling lies. He gripped my shoulder. You're a better man than I would be in your situation. I'm just trying to survive it with my integrity intact.
I drove home through darkening streets, past houses lit with Sunday evening warmth, past families having normal dinners and normal conversations about normal problems. My phone started buzzing before I was halfway home. Rachel calling over and over. Probably being confronted by her parents. Probably panicking that her narrative was falling apart.
I didn't answer, let her panic, let her explain herself to the people who raised her, who taught her right from wrong, who were now learning that she'd chosen wrong over and over again. When I got home, there were seven missed calls from Rachel in one text. How could you tell them? They're my parents. I texted back.
They asked for the truth. I gave it to them. That's what honesty looks like. Then I turned off my phone and sat in my living room in my half- empty house and I waited because this was just the beginning. Tomorrow I would talk to our mutual friends.
Tuesday I would contact our extended families. By the end of the week, everyone who mattered would know the real story. Not Rachel's sanitized version, but the documented evidence truth. Not for revenge, for the record. So that when this was all over, when the divorce was final and the property divided and the last boxes moved, nobody would be able to say they didn't know what really happened.