“Legal rights are options. They’re not commands.”
That helped.
“What do you want?”
June smiled sadly.
“Everyone keeps asking me that lately.”
“Good.”
June looked out the office window.
“I want him to take it seriously.”
“The debt?”
“The fact that it was money.”
Priya waited.
June continued.
“I think I made a mistake by calling everything help. It became invisible.”
Priya nodded.
“Then perhaps treat this as a loan again.”
They drafted a simple repayment proposal.
Two hundred fifty dollars a month.
No new interest.
The goal was not financial recovery.
At that rate, repayment would take years.
The goal was acknowledgement.
June mailed it to Ethan.
He appeared at her house two nights later.
No warning.
She opened the door.
He held the letter.
“What is this?”
June stepped aside.
“Come in.”
He did.
The quilt remained on the spare-room bed upstairs.
June had not told him.
Ethan placed the letter on the kitchen table.
“You got a lawyer?”
“I spoke to one.”
“For me?”
“For myself.”
He stared.
“You’re going to sue me?”
“No.”
