Chapter 7
The next morning, Sabrina came to my workshop.
I saw her through the front window.
Wedding hair undone.
White dress replaced by jeans and a hoodie.
She looked younger without the makeup.
For one painful second, she looked like my little girl again.
I unlocked the door but did not invite her in.
“Dad,” she whispered.
I waited.
She flinched.
“Glenn.”
That hurt too.
“What do you need?”
Her eyes filled.
“Logan left.”
I said nothing.
“His family wants an annulment.”
“That seems reasonable.”
She looked wounded.
“You’re not even sad for me?”
“I am sadder than you know.”
“Then help me.”
There it was.
The reflex.
The old expectation.
She broke something, and I fixed it.
Shoes.
School fees.
College applications.
Parking tickets.
Heartbreaks.
Now her marriage.
“No,” I said.
She stepped back.
“No?”
“No.”
Her face hardened.
“After everything?”
I almost laughed.
“Yes, Sabrina. After everything.”
She wiped tears angrily.
“Raymond said you’d turn on me eventually.”
“Raymond abandoned you as a baby.”
“He came back.”
“When Logan’s family came with money.”
She slapped the doorframe.
“You’re jealous.”
I looked at the sewing machines behind me.
The ruined suit on the table.
The photos on the wall, where I had once kept every school picture.
“No,” I said. “I’m grieving.”
Her anger faltered.
“I didn’t think Mom would actually take the money.”
“You laughed.”
Her mouth trembled.
“I wanted Raymond to be proud.”
I softened only enough to tell the truth gently.
“I know. And you were willing to make me disappear for it.”
She cried then.
Real tears maybe.
But I had learned tears did not automatically mean change.
“Go home,” I said.
“I don’t have one.”
May you like
I looked at her.
“Neither did you when you were one. I gave you one. Then you helped plan to steal it.”
