Emma gasped. Lucas stared.
Vanessa didn’t move.
Margaret sat stunned, soup dripping from her cardigan, the room buzzing with an indecipherable sound. Humiliation followed disbelief.
She didn’t argue. She didn’t shout. She wiped her face with the napkin, stood slowly, and reached for her purse.
“I should go,” she said.
No one stopped her.
She drove home on autopilot, hands trembling. In her bathroom, cold water ran until the sting subsided. In the mirror, she barely recognized the woman staring back—hair flattened, eyes hollow, a faint red mark along her hairline.
She slept fitfully. By morning, something inside her had hardened.
On Monday, Margaret went to the bank.
She requested statements. Six months’ worth. The teller printed them with a polite smile, unaware they contained a reckoning.
