I had expected that sentence too.
For fifteen days, I had rehearsed angry answers.
None of them felt right now.
“Your father would not have sold his own life to buy someone a plane ticket,” I said.
Ryan flinched.
Brittany’s eyes filled, but her voice remained sharp.
“You always hated me. This is about Paris. You think I did not deserve to go.”
“This is not about whether you deserved Paris. You could have gone to Paris with money that belonged to you. You went with money from things that belonged to me.”
“Ryan said you did not use any of it anymore.”
I looked at my son.
He stared at the porch floor.
That was the first crack between them.
“Is that what you told her?”
He said nothing.
“Ryan?”
“A lot of it was sitting around.”
“So you told your wife I had agreed?”
Brittany turned toward him.
“You said she would understand.”
“I said she would get over it.”
The sentence landed between all three of us.
Brittany stepped back.
I felt something inside me go very still.
There it was. Not need. Not desperation. Not a misunderstanding.
Calculation.
He had known I would be hurt.
He had simply believed the hurt would cost him less than asking permission.
“Read the inventory,” I said.
Ryan shook his head.
“I am not standing on the porch reading paperwork.”
