“Is that lawyer language for shut up now?”
“It’s lawyer language for let the institution eat the rest.”
Judge Carter joined us a second later. “Ms. Riley, thank you.”
“For what?”
“For showing up with facts instead of melodrama.”
It was one of the finest compliments I have ever received.
My father approached slowly. Security, discreet but suddenly very visible, had moved around Vanessa’s table. Not handcuffs, not spectacle—just proximity, containment, the social version of a perimeter until formal next steps could be determined. Vanessa was still speaking, rapidly now, to someone from the board. Khloe clung to her arm with mascara beginning to move. The champagne gown looked too expensive for the face wearing it.
My father stopped in front of me.
He looked at the stage floor, then at my face. “Bianca,” he said, and that was all for a second.
Then: “I should have listened to you a long time ago.”
There are apologies that try to reduce the past and apologies that finally stand inside it. This one was the second kind. Not complete, not magic, not enough to erase years. But real.
“I know,” I said.