“Di,” Graham said.
“Don’t. Don’t you Di me.” She was shaking. “He’s fourteen, Graham. He’s a child. He read some studies on the internet, and now my daughter is—”
She couldn’t finish.
Wyatt didn’t say anything. He just sat there with his notebook open on his knees and let her say it. Every word.
I put my hand on his back. I didn’t defend him. I didn’t know if she was wrong.
That was the worst hour of my life.
At 5:30, after the alarms stopped, Diane got up and went to the bathroom and didn’t come back.
I found her ten minutes later in the hospital chapel, sitting in the back row with her face in her hands.
I sat down next to her.
I didn’t say anything. Neither did she.
Then, finally, without lifting her head, she said, “I said that to a fourteen-year-old boy. In a waiting room. I said it was his fault.” She pressed her hands harder against her eyes. “And I was so awful to you. For years.”
