Julian sat across from me in the rear cabin, hands folded over a cane he did not seem to need but used anyway.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
The silence was not uncomfortable.
It was earned.
Finally, he said, “You look like your mother when you’re angry.”
I let out the first laugh of that day.
It sounded rusty.
“She used to say you were impossible.”
He nodded.
“She was usually right.”
I looked out at the passing stone walls and winter lawns.
“You could have warned me sooner.”
“I tried,” he said.
“Years ago.
By the time I learned which Whitmore she had married, you were already in their house.
You did not trust me then.
You had no reason to.”
That was true.
A wealthy uncle from a broken branch of the family tree was the sort of thing sensible women avoided.
But he had still come.
When I asked for help, he came.
“Why today?” I asked.
He looked at me steadily.
“Because leaving an abuser requires one clean exit.
If I arrived before you filed, they would have locked everything down.
If I arrived later, they would have gone after you first.”
I absorbed that quietly.
Then I asked the question I had been carrying for months.
“Will they go to prison?”
Julian’s expression turned unreadable.
