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Dad shifted his eyes from mine and looked at Mom. Her face was steeled when she said, “I can’t do that.”
I looked to Dad to say something, but he didn’t. Still. After all of that. Nothing had changed. The message was clear, and it was like I’d been looking through gray-tinted glasses this whole time and just removed them.
Before spilling my guts to them, there was that tiny spec of hope I tried to do away with. The hope that maybe, if they could see how much pain they were causing me, maybe if they could hear it, they’d find it in their hearts to move past their ego and stop. That tiny possibility had been in the back of my mind even though the forefront of my mind knew the truth. That they wouldn’t budge.
But now, after laying everything out in front of them and having them do the same thing they'd always done, which was whatever the hell they wanted, it became clear to me that I had nothing left here anymore.
“Fine,” I said. “Well, I guess we’ll see each other in court.”
As I turned around to leave, I jumped in shock to see Chris standing behind us. “Shit,” I said. “How long have you been standing there? Couldn’t you say something?” My annoyance with him was obvious as well.
“I didn’t want to interrupt,” he confessed.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I felt exposed and vulnerable, but I challenged him with my gaze. “How much of that did you hear?”
“A lot,” he said.
Shifting on my feet, I almost waited for him to say something, but I didn’t want to be disappointed again.
“Good,” I said. “I won’t have to say it twice. Everything you heard applies to you too. If you can’t love me unconditionally, then just don’t love me at all.”
My voice trembled, and it broke my heart to say that to Chris, but he deserved it too. He abandoned me just as much as they had. He stripped the apartment from under my feet and left me without somewhere to live. And the fact that he was over here told me he was supporting my parents in their attempts to bring us all down.
As I walked away, leaving them with those words, something else hit me. They all probably knew deep down that they were being ridiculous, but their pride was too blinding for them to pull the brakes made my heart break even more. This time, it wasn’t for myself or my men. It was for them. With newfound confidence, I turned to them and returned the words they used on me earlier.
“You know, it’s a pity you couldn’t drop the case. Something tells me the embarrassment of losing in court and having the truth be revealed is going to hit a lot harder than the respect you could’ve saved yourself if you just owned up to your mistakes.You’rethe ones I pity.”
With that, I left feeling far lighter than I did earlier.
Chapter 19
Valerie
AsIstaredather departing frame, a soft voice inside me screamed her name, calling her back. But the even louder voices overpowered it, quietening it. The louder voices were focused on her parting words.You’re the ones I pity.
Chris and Ben turned to face me, and I knew what they wanted to say before the words even tumbled from their quivering lips.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said, turning away from them to open the front door and hurry inside. I could only imagine what the neighbors must have been thinking, and the last thing I wanted was to become their new entertainment source. Heaven knew they must have already had so much to gossip about.
“But honey, she’s got a point,” Ben said. “We would be doing ourselves a much bigger favor in the eyes of the public if we came out in support of our daughter.”
My daughter. The child I carried for nine months. The woman I birthed, kept alive, and gave everything to. Something deep within my belly ached. Perhaps it was my womb. My skin grew warm with many feelings including regret, shame, and anger. Regret that I wasn’t the mom she needed me to be even though I tried to be everything I could for her. Shame that I hurt her the way I did. And anger that she didn’t appreciate everything I’d done for her.
She didn’t even know the half of it. It wasn’t like I came from money. My mother and father tried their best, but they couldn’t make ends meet. Some days, we went without food. I went to school with holes in my shoes and sometimes lost the bottom of a shoe on the way home. It wasn’t easy and though I knew my parents tried, deep down I resented them for not trying harder. It took a while to develop thick skin when all the kids in school would make fun of the clothes I wore or the digestive issues I had due to improper eating.
The only thing that kept me going was the knowledge that one day, I would make it out. I vowed to myself that I would. And when I did, I vowed that I’d never return.
I’d never break that vow. Not even now.
When I was eighteen, I met Benedict. He came from money, and his parents’ parents came from money. Oh, they didn’t like a single hair on my head. Not one bit. But I proved to them that I was worthy of respect through the way that I carried myself, by my ambitions, by the fact that I kept my grades up, my shoulders straight, and never mixed in with the wrong crowd. When we finally got their blessing, Ben and I got married. Together, we started Levine LLP with money from his family. At first, no one knew us, so it was hard to get clients. Eventually, with my tenacity, I was able to get clients and keep them. Building trust and respect with them until we became what we were known for today.
Still, after all that, I looked in the mirror and behind the wrinkles and gray hair, my child self never left. The scars of the ridicule I faced still lived on. Oh, it wasn’t that I didn’t love Tiffany. It’s just that I never subscribed to the idea of gentle love. I preferred tough love. The world was harsh, and gentle love did nothing but keep you stuck.
My parents were a great example of that. Once I left home, I never looked back. Being around my parents terrified me. I was afraid if I didn’t make the cut then and leave immediately, I’d never leave. And the thought of living the way they had comfortably lived, forever, felt like a death trap. I had to get out of there and create a life for myself without their voices and their beliefs in my ear. I never built up the courage to return.
In the kitchen, I reached for a glass and a bottle of wine, sighing. If that’s what Tiffany had to do now, more power to her. She was right. She was an adult. She was big enough. She could take care of herself, but I had to focus on taking care of me, the company, and the reputation I had built.
“And let everyone look at me like a loose parent? As if I represent the same lifestyle she does? To have them speculate about whether or not she learned that from us and push their noses into our sex lives? Are you crazy?” I kept my back to my husband while I took a sip of the wine I just poured.
