Emily continued.
“You
hurt me. I remember every word. For a long time, I wondered if maybe you were right about me.”
My chest tightened.
She had never told me that.
“But eventually,” Emily said, “I realized I didn’t need to prove my worth to you.”
She glanced at me.
“I just needed to build a life with the person who already saw it.”
My father lowered his head.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then he did something I had never seen him do in my entire life.
He cried.
Not quietly.
Not politely.
He put his hands over his face and cried like a man who had finally understood the cost of his pride.
“I was wrong,” he said. “About you. About him. About everything.”
Emily reached across the table and touched his hand.
“I’m not asking you to spend the rest of your life feeling guilty.”