Chapter 14 - Scott's Apology
Scott apologized to me one year after the assault.
Not in person.
Through the parenting app.
One message.
Rachel warned me before I opened it.
Scott wrote:
I told myself I was keeping the family functioning. I used your illness to make my control look necessary. I hurt you physically. I lied about your judgment. I involved Grace. None of that was caregiving.
I read it once.
Then again.
No explanation of his childhood.
No request for forgiveness.
No promise that he was a new man.
Better.
I did not reply.
Three days later he sent no follow-up.
That mattered too.
Grace asked whether I had received it.
"Yes."
"Did you forgive him?"
"No."
She looked surprised.
"Are you going to?"
"I don't know."
"Does he need you to?"
I smiled.
"No."
She thought.
"That's kind of sad."
"Maybe."
Scott continued his program.
His supervised visits eventually became unsupervised daytime visits.
The first time Grace asked to sleep at his apartment, everyone stopped.
Her therapist discussed it with her.
Rachel reviewed the existing order.
Scott agreed to conditions.
I wanted to say no forever.
Then Grace said:
"Mom, I know what happened to you. I also want to know what happens with me."
That sentence forced me to separate two truths.
Scott had hurt me.
Grace still had a relationship with him that needed its own evaluation.
Her first overnight went fine.
I did not sleep.
The second went fine too.
I slept three hours.
Progress.
Scott never asked Grace about my health again.
At least not according to Grace.
I stopped asking her to report whether he asked.
That mattered more.
Then I ran into Scott at Grace's school concert.
No attorney.
No therapist.
No app.
Just folding chairs.
He stood ten feet away.
He did not approach.
After the concert Grace hugged him, then me.
Scott looked at me.
"You look well."
My body stiffened.
He noticed.
"Sorry."
He corrected himself.
"I hope treatment is going okay. You don't have to answer."
Then he left.
I sat in the car afterward and cried.
Not because I wanted him back.
Because change was painful too.
The man I needed him to become while married had appeared only after I stopped making my safety contingent on his arrival.
That was sad.
It was also not a reason to return.
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