Chapter 4
My boyfriend walked over to us. He took my hand.
"I am so sorry," he said quietly. "I should have told her. I should have stood up the moment she lifted that glass. Forgive me."
I looked at him. At the regret in his eyes. At the way he stood beside me now, unshakable.
"You are standing now," I said softly. "That is what matters."
He turned back to his mother.
"I love her," he said clearly. "And nothing you do or say will ever change that. If you cannot respect her... if you cannot respect her mother... then you cannot respect me either."
Mrs. Sterling sat alone at the table. The red stain of her cruelty was everywhere—on the tablecloth, on my mother’s dress, on her own conscience.
She looked down at her empty glass. Then up at my mother.
May you like
"I..." She stopped. Swallowed hard. "I did not know."
"You did not want to know," my mother said. "You judged us before you knew us. And that is the greatest blindness of all."
