The dinner plates were being cleared when Brenda approached me again.<\/p>\n
This time, she wasn't smiling.<\/p>\n
She held a small glass of water.<\/p>\n
"May I sit?"<\/p>\n
I looked at Carol.<\/p>\n
Carol understood without asking.<\/p>\n
"I'll go check on the photographs."<\/p>\n
She left us alone.<\/p>\n
Brenda pulled out the chair.<\/p>\n
She sat down and placed her glass on the table.<\/p>\n
For a few seconds, she stared at her hands.<\/p>\n
Then she looked up.<\/p>\n
"I've been thinking about what you said."<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
"About the apron."<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
She took a breath.<\/p>\n
"I shouldn't have done that."<\/p>\n
It was a simple sentence.<\/p>\n
No excuse attached.<\/p>\n
No explanation about the budget.<\/p>\n
No complaint about the missing servers.<\/p>\n
I looked at her carefully.<\/p>\n
"Why did you?"<\/p>\n
She seemed uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
"I don't know."<\/p>\n
I didn't believe that was the whole answer.<\/p>\n
Brenda had always known what she was doing.<\/p>\n
She had known which words would embarrass me.<\/p>\n
She had known which moments would attract an audience.<\/p>\n
She had known when to laugh.<\/p>\n
I looked down at the tablecloth.<\/p>\n
"Do you remember my prom dress?"<\/p>\n
Her face changed.<\/p>\n
For a moment, she seemed genuinely confused.<\/p>\n
Then she nodded.<\/p>\n
"The blue one?"<\/p>\n
I swallowed.<\/p>\n
"My mother made it."<\/p>\n
"I remember."<\/p>\n
"She worked on it for three weekends."<\/p>\n
Brenda looked away.<\/p>\n
I continued.<\/p>\n
"She was proud of that dress."<\/p>\n
I could still picture my mother standing beside the mirror.<\/p>\n
I could still hear her voice.<\/p>\n
You look wonderful.<\/p>\n
I had believed her.<\/p>\n
Until Brenda made me doubt it.<\/p>\n
"At the dance, you told Tommy it was made from tablecloth fabric."<\/p>\n
Brenda moved her glass slightly.<\/p>\n
"I was seventeen."<\/p>\n
"So was I."<\/p>\n
She didn't answer.<\/p>\n
I looked at her.<\/p>\n
"Do you remember what happened afterward?"<\/p>\n
She shook her head.<\/p>\n
"I went home alone."<\/p>\n
I paused.<\/p>\n
"Without my coat."<\/p>\n
Brenda's eyes returned to mine.<\/p>\n
"I didn't know that."<\/p>\n
"No. You didn't."<\/p>\n
I could have told her more.<\/p>\n
I could have described the walk.<\/p>\n
The cold.<\/p>\n
The porch steps.<\/p>\n
My mother sitting beside me.<\/p>\n
But I didn't need to give her every detail.<\/p>\n
The important part was that she had never wondered what happened after everyone stopped laughing.<\/p>\n
She had moved on.<\/p>\n
I hadn't.<\/p>\n
Brenda looked down.<\/p>\n
"I don't remember thinking about it afterward."<\/p>\n
I nodded slowly.<\/p>\n
"I know."<\/p>\n
That was perhaps the hardest thing to explain.<\/p>\n
The people who hurt you don't always carry the memory.<\/p>\n
Sometimes they forget the words they said before the person they hurt has even reached home.<\/p>\n
Brenda rubbed her forehead.<\/p>\n
"I was cruel to you."<\/p>\n
I didn't respond.<\/p>\n
She continued.<\/p>\n
"I suppose I enjoyed being the one everyone listened to."<\/p>\n
I looked at her.<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
She gave a small, uncomfortable laugh.<\/p>\n
"I wasn't exactly a nice person."<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
The word came out more quickly than I intended.<\/p>\n
She looked surprised.<\/p>\n
I almost apologized.<\/p>\n
Then I decided not to.<\/p>\n
There was no reason to protect her from a truth she had finally begun to acknowledge.<\/p>\n
Brenda took another drink.<\/p>\n
"I remember your tenth reunion."<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
She looked toward the ceiling for a moment.<\/p>\n
"I introduced you as the woman with the little coin laundry."<\/p>\n
I remembered that evening very clearly.<\/p>\n
I had been standing near the dinner tables.<\/p>\n
Brenda had approached with a group of former classmates.<\/p>\n
She had asked what I was doing.<\/p>\n
When I told her about the laundromat, she had smiled and introduced me as the owner of a cute little coin laundry.<\/p>\n
The others had laughed.<\/p>\n
I left before dinner was served.<\/p>\n
"Yes," I said.<\/p>\n
"I shouldn't have said that either."<\/p>\n
I looked at her.<\/p>\n
"Why did you?"<\/p>\n
She seemed to struggle with the question.<\/p>\n
Then she shrugged.<\/p>\n
"I thought it was funny."<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
"That was the problem."<\/p>\n
She stared at me.<\/p>\n
I continued.<\/p>\n
"You thought it was funny when I was embarrassed. You thought it was funny when other people laughed. You thought it was funny when I walked away."<\/p>\n
Brenda's eyes became wet.<\/p>\n
She looked down quickly.<\/p>\n
"I didn't realize you remembered all of it."<\/p>\n
I felt something tighten in my chest.<\/p>\n
"Why wouldn't I?"<\/p>\n
She didn't answer.<\/p>\n
I wasn't asking her to feel sorry for me.<\/p>\n
I wasn't asking her to fix fifty-five years.<\/p>\n
But I wanted her to understand that the things she had treated as jokes had become part of someone else's life.<\/p>\n
My mother had spent years trying to teach me not to confuse cruelty with truth.<\/p>\n
It had taken me much longer than I wanted to admit.<\/p>\n
Brenda finally spoke.<\/p>\n
"Did you ever hate me?"<\/p>\n
I considered the question.<\/p>\n
There had been years when I did.<\/p>\n
I had hated the sound of her laugh.<\/p>\n
I had hated seeing her name on reunion invitations.<\/p>\n
I had hated the way my stomach tightened whenever someone mentioned Oakridge High.<\/p>\n
But hatred had never built anything for me.<\/p>\n
It had only kept me connected to those old moments.<\/p>\n
"Sometimes," I answered.<\/p>\n
She nodded.<\/p>\n
"I understand."<\/p>\n
I shook my head slightly.<\/p>\n
"I don't think you do."<\/p>\n
She looked at me.<\/p>\n
"Hating you never made me feel better. It just meant I kept carrying those years around."<\/p>\n
Brenda wiped the corner of one eye.<\/p>\n
"I am sorry, Martha."<\/p>\n
I looked at her.<\/p>\n
This time, I believed she meant it.<\/p>\n
That didn't mean everything had suddenly become fine.<\/p>\n
It didn't mean I trusted her.<\/p>\n
It didn't mean I wanted to become friends.<\/p>\n
But I could hear the difference between an excuse and an apology.<\/p>\n
And I appreciated that she had finally offered one.<\/p>\n
I took a small sip of coffee.<\/p>\n
"Thank you."<\/p>\n
She nodded.<\/p>\n
Then she looked toward the ballroom entrance.<\/p>\n
"I suppose I should go back to my table."<\/p>\n
"All right."<\/p>\n
She stood.<\/p>\n
Before leaving, she paused.<\/p>\n
"Your company sounds wonderful."<\/p>\n
"Thank you."<\/p>\n
"You must be proud."<\/p>\n
I thought about Arthur.<\/p>\n
I thought about the old machines.<\/p>\n
The leaking roof.<\/p>\n
The first nursing home contract.<\/p>\n
The nights when we wondered whether we would have enough money to make the next payment.<\/p>\n
"Yes," I said. "I am."<\/p>\n
She gave a small nod.<\/p>\n
Then she walked away.<\/p>\n
I watched her return to her friends.<\/p>\n
Nobody applauded.<\/p>\n
Nobody announced that an apology had taken place.<\/p>\n
The reunion continued around us.<\/p>\n
And that was how it should have been.<\/p>\n
Some conversations are not meant for an audience.<\/p>\n
Carol returned a few minutes later.<\/p>\n
She sat beside me.<\/p>\n
"Did you talk?"<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
"How did it go?"<\/p>\n
I looked at the empty chair Brenda had left behind.<\/p>\n
"Honestly."<\/p>\n
Carol smiled.<\/p>\n
"That's a start."<\/p>\n
I nodded.<\/p>\n
It was.<\/p>\n
The dinner plates were being cleared when Brenda approached me again. This time, she wasn't smiling. She held a small glass of water. "May I sit?" I looked at Carol. … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=41444"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41454,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41444\/revisions\/41454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=41444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=41444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=41444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}