“No. I’m not tearing anything apart.”
“Then prove it.” Colton leaned across the table. “Give your brother the trip. We leave this here, and tomorrow everything goes back to normal.”
“You don’t get to tear this family apart.”
Adrian looked at him for a long moment.
I understood then what Colton was really offering.
Obey me one more time, and you can still belong.
Adrian understood it too.
This was the threat he’d spent his whole life avoiding.
For the first time, saying no might actually cost him the family he’d spent thirty years trying to deserve.
Obey me one more time, and you can still belong.
“No,” he said.
Colton’s jaw tightened.
“Then don’t expect this family to be here the next time you need something.”
“Dad’s right,” his brother said. “You can’t treat people like this and expect us to keep showing up for you.”
Adrian looked at his brother.
“When was the last time I needed you?”
“Don’t expect this family to be here the next time you need something.”
His brother opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Adrian continued.
“You borrowed my car. You call me when you need help. Tonight you came into my house expecting my anniversary trip.”
His brother’s face reddened.
“When was the last time I needed you?”
Colton suddenly looked at me.
“This is because of you.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“He was never like this before he married you. Ten years of you telling him we’re the enemy, and now look at him.”
His son nodded.
“This is because of you.”
“She’s been trying to turn him against us for years.”
Adrian stood.
“Don’t talk to my wife like that.”
Colton blinked.
“Adrian—”
“No.”
My husband stepped beside me.
“She’s been trying to turn him against us for years.”
“You don’t get to blame her because I finally made a decision you couldn’t control.”
“You’re choosing her over your family?”
Adrian’s expression softened, but his voice didn’t.
“She is my family. And I’ve spent ten years asking her to pay for peace she never agreed to.”
My throat tightened.
“I won’t ask her again.”
“She is my family.”
Nobody moved.
Then Adrian looked at the man he’d called his father nearly his entire life.
“You raised me. And I loved you as my father for it. I still do. But that’s why it took me so long to understand something.”
Colton’s expression shifted.
Adrian folded his mother’s letter and placed it back on the table.
“It took me so long to understand something.”
“A father doesn’t make his son earn the right to stay his son.”
Colton had lost his hold on Adrian.
What he did next showed me just how badly he needed to prove he still had control over someone.
Colton stared at him.
Then he turned sharply toward his wife.
He needed to prove he still had control over someone.
“Get your coat. We’re leaving.”
She stayed seated.
“I said we’re leaving.”
She looked up at him.
“Then go.”
Colton’s face went blank.
“Then go.”
His son pushed away from the table.
“Come on, Dad. We’re not staying where we’re not wanted.”
But Colton wasn’t looking at him.
He was staring at his wife.
For thirty years, my husband had been the one afraid that saying no would cost him his family.
Now Colton was standing in our dining room discovering that demanding obedience could cost him his.
“We’re not staying where we’re not wanted.”
They walked toward the door together.
Before his brother left, he looked back at Adrian.
“You’ll regret this.”
Adrian shook his head.
“No. I regret how long it took.”
The door closed behind them.
“You’ll regret this.”
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Colton’s wife looked at Adrian.
“I am sorry.”
He looked at her.
“For what?”
“For knowing that keeping the peace always meant asking you to pay for it.”
“I am sorry.”
Adrian’s eyes filled, but he nodded.
She reached across the table and squeezed his hand.
For the first time that night, nobody asked him for anything.
***
Days later, I zipped the last suitcase while Adrian checked our flight times.
His phone rang on the dresser.
Colton.
His phone rang on the dresser.
Adrian stared at the screen.
A day earlier, he would have answered before the second ring.
The phone kept ringing.
“Aren’t you going to get that?” I asked.
Adrian turned it facedown.
“No.”
Then he picked up our suitcases, took my hand, and we left for our anniversary trip.
“Aren’t you going to get that?”
