“I’m getting an annulment,” he told me. “Megan’s lawyer already called David’s office. She wants a settlement.”
“She can want whatever she likes,” I said.
Brandon looked around the living room — the room Megan had measured for her own furniture. “Mom, why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Because your father and I believed that telling a child about money before teaching him about character would ruin both lessons,” I said. “We were wrong about the timing. But we were right about the order.”
Six months later, Brandon moved into a modest one-bedroom across town. He took a job at a nonprofit — the first job he’d ever held that didn’t come through a connection. He visits every Sunday now. He brings groceries. He asks about my flowers.
Megan married someone else within the year. I heard it was a man with a boat. I hope she measured it first.
As for the apartment — I still live here. Every morning I make coffee and stand at the window, looking at the skyline William and I watched rise, building by building, year by year. People see a sixty-eight-year-old widow in a department-store dress.
They don’t see the woman who owns the view.
And they never will, unless she decides to tell them.