Chapter 4 - The Drive Down Broad Street
We left twenty minutes later.
Cole didn't say goodbye to his mother. He didn't offer a hug or a conciliatory pat on the shoulder. He simply took my coat from the brass stand in the vestibule, held the front door open for me, and walked down the stone steps into the mild Richmond afternoon.
The drive down Broad Street was completely silent.
Cole gripped the leather steering wheel of his SUV so tightly that his tendons stood out like cords beneath his skin. His jaw was clenched, his eyes locked on the asphalt ahead, watching the traffic lights change from green to amber to red with mechanical precision.
Beside him, I sat looking out the passenger window. The scent of lemon frosting still clung faintly to my hair, a stubborn reminder of the absurdity of the afternoon. My green silk dress was ruined, its bodice permanently stained with butter oil, but I had refused to cover it.
"I’m sorry," Cole said finally, his voice breaking the heavy silence as we stopped at a red light near the Museum District.
I didn't answer right away. I watched a young couple walking a golden retriever along the brick sidewalk, laughing under the blooming crape myrtles. They looked effortless, untethered to fifty-year-old family houses and generational pride.
"Elena," he said, turning his head toward me. "Please talk to me."
"I'm not angry at Camille," I said quietly, keeping my eyes on the window.
Cole blinked, surprised. "You're not? She spent twelve months systematically sabotaging our relationship, feeding Mom lies about your background, and trying to turn my entire family against you so she could hide an embezzlement scheme."
"Camille is a desperate person doing desperate, selfish things," I said, turning to look at him. "She’s a symptom, Cole. She isn't the disease."
"Then what is?"
"You," I said.
The light turned green, but Cole hesitated for a split second before pressing the accelerator, the engine humming softly beneath us. "Me? Elena, I stood up for you! I demanded to know where the debt rumors came from! I confronted Camille!"
"You confronted Camille after your mother assaulted me," I replied, my voice steady, measured, and free of theatrical drama. "You stood up for me when the evidence was so grotesque that remaining silent would have made you a coward. But what about the last two years, Cole?"
He swallowed hard, keeping his hands fixed at ten and two.
"What about when Lydia told Aunt Marian at Thanksgiving that my father probably 'smelled like motor oil' because he worked with his hands?" I asked. "What about when she introduced me to your cousins as 'Cole's friend from the state school'? What about when she spent our entire engagement party questioning whether my diamond was lab-grown in front of six people?"
"I told you she was from a different generation, Elena," he muttered defensively. "I told you that's just how she is."
"And that was your mistake," I said. "You treated her cruelty like bad weather. You told me to carry an umbrella instead of telling her to stop blowing the storm into our lives. You asked me to be gracious, you asked me to understand, you asked me to wear softer lipstick and bring white hydrangeas to her house on a Sunday afternoon so she would feel comfortable while she looked down her nose at my family."
A muscle in his jaw twitched. He pulled the car into the driveway of our brick home in the Fan, shifting the transmission into park and killing the engine.
The silence returned, heavier this time.
Cole rested his forehead against the steering wheel. "You're right," he whispered. "I was so used to managing her temper, so terrified of being the son who broke the family apart, that I let her treat you like a second-class citizen in my own life."
"I am nobody's second-class citizen, Cole," I said, reaching for the door handle. "My father worked twelve-hour shifts six days a week on concrete floors so I could graduate from college debt-free. He taught me to look every person in the eye and respect myself too much to let someone throw their insecurities in my face. Literally."
I opened the car door and stepped out onto the driveway.
May you like
"Where are you going?" he asked, scrambling out of his seat.
"Inside to take a shower and scrub this lemon grease out of my hair," I told him, looking back across the roof of the car. "And then I'm logging into my workstation. Because if your sister has been using that beach house for an illegal commercial enterprise, the Dare County tax assessor isn't the only one who has questions. The IRS will, too. And if your name is on that trust, Cole, her financial crimes are your legal liabilities."
