“That isn’t what I asked.”
He closed his eyes.
Then sat on the edge of the couch.
“I understand now.”
“Understand what?”
“What I did to you.”
I said nothing.
He continued.
“I know what it feels like to lose control of your life. To wake up somewhere you never planned to be. To have people you trusted decide you’re not worth standing beside.”
His voice became quieter.
“I understand what I did.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
He looked around the room.
“I keep thinking about you at Sunset Manor while Amber and I were posting photos from five-star hotels.”
He swallowed.
“And it makes me sick.”
“It should.”
“I know.”
There was no argument in his voice.
No defensiveness.
No excuse.
“I treated you like you were something standing in my way,” he said. “I told myself I was helping you because that made what I was doing easier to justify.”
He looked directly at me.
“But I wasn’t helping you. I was using you.”
For six months, I had wondered whether Dominic would ever understand that distinction.
Now, finally, he did.
“What’s the money for?”
“I stole from you.”
He nodded toward the envelope.
“So I’ll repay you. Every month. However long it takes.”
“At that rate, it could take many years.”
“I know.”
I picked up the envelope.
Then set it down again.
“The money was never the most important part.”
He frowned.
“Then what was?”
“Respect.”
I leaned forward.
“You forgot I was a person.”
He stared at me.
“You thought of me only as your mother. Someone who existed to support you, forgive you, help you, and stay out of your way.”
His eyes lowered.
“You never stopped to consider that I am Vera too.”
“I know.”
“I had a marriage. A career. Friends. Plans. Opinions. Fear. Grief. Dreams. You reduced all of that to one word.”
“Mom.”
“Yes.”
I stood and walked toward the window.
“While I was at Sunset Manor, I met people whose families had done something similar. Maybe not fraud. Maybe not selling houses. But the same basic thing.”
“What?”
“They had decided convenience mattered more than dignity.”
Dominic remained silent.
“I realized I wasn’t ready to disappear.”
I turned toward him.
“I wasn’t ready to become invisible because someone else decided sixty-two was old enough to stop making my own decisions.”
He nodded.
“You completely outsmarted us.”
“This was never about outsmarting you.”
“But you did.”
“Because you underestimated me.”
He gave a faint, embarrassed smile.
“That too.”
