Chapter 6 - The Empty ChairThe next family dinner took place in my apartment.
Not beneath a chandelier.
Not beside a lake.
At the same small kitchen table where Lauren once completed homework while I counted grocery coupons.
She sat across from me with her children.
Her son, Owen, was ten.
Her daughter, Sophie, was seven.
They did not understand the investigation.
They knew their father was “working through legal problems.”
They knew they would stay with their mother for a while.
They knew Grandma Helen had made spaghetti.
That was enough for one evening.
After the children fell asleep, Lauren stood near the kitchen window.
“I put you at a folding table.”
“Yes.”
“There were empty chairs.”
“I noticed.”
“I told you to apologize.”
“Yes.”
She turned toward me.
“Why didn’t you tell me everything before dinner?”
“I tried to warn you about documents.”
“You didn’t tell me about Diego.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I did not know whether you would destroy the evidence to protect Ethan.”
She looked wounded.
The truth often looks cruel when trust has already been damaged.
“Would I have?”
“I don’t know.”
Lauren sat down.
“I might have.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment.
Then she said, “Margaret made me feel ashamed of you.”
“I know.”
“I let her.”
“I know that too.”
“She would praise me for changing.”
“Changing how?”
“My clothes. The way I spoke. The people I invited.”
Lauren looked around my apartment.
“She said I had escaped.”
The word stung.
“Did you believe her?”
“At first, no.”
“And later?”
“I liked what her approval gave me.”
“What did it give you?”
“A place at the main table.”
The answer explained more than any apology.
Lauren had spent her childhood watching wealth from the outside.
When Margaret opened the door, Lauren accepted the condition that she leave parts of herself behind.
Eventually, I became one of those parts.
“I am sorry,” she said.
I did not tell her it was all right.
It was not.
“I love you,” I replied.
She began crying.
“That isn’t forgiveness.”
“No.”
“Will you forgive me?”
“I hope so.”
“When?”
“When your actions stop asking me to ignore what happened.”
She nodded.
For once, she did not demand a faster answer.
The following morning, she called Harbor Ridge’s former accountant.
His name was Thomas Avery.
He had disappeared from the company seven months earlier.
Lauren remembered Margaret calling him unstable.
Rachel found him living in Wyoming.
Thomas had not disappeared.
May you like
He had run.
And he had kept copies of everything.
