Chapter 11 - “DON’T CALL THAT LOVE”
“Don’t.”
Pamela stared at me.
“I did love her.”
“No.”
“You think people who love somebody can’t hurt them?”
“Not interested.”
Her eyes filled.
“I wanted us to be a family.”
“Then why were you trying to have her placed in residential treatment?”
“Temporarily.”
I stared.
“You created the condition you wanted her treated for.”
Silence.
“I know.”
“Spencer said you needed documentation.”
“Yes.”
“And you drugged a child to create it.”
Her face crumpled.
“I didn’t think of it like that.”
“That is the problem.”
She cried.
“I wanted the property project.”
“Why?”
For the first time, something shifted.
The real answer appeared.
“I wanted something that was mine.”
“You had a career.”
“I hated it.”
“You had savings.”
“Not enough.”
“For what?”
“To feel safe.”
Safe.
The word nearly made me angry.
“My mother lost everything when my father left,” Pamela said. “No money. No security. She depended completely on him.”
“So you decided to profit from my daughter’s property.”
“I convinced myself the house was wasted.”
“It wasn’t yours to evaluate.”
“I know.”
“Matilda wasn’t an obstacle.”
“I know.”
“You made her believe I might send her away.”
Pamela covered her face.
That was the question I needed answered.
“Why did you tell her that?”
Her voice became very small.
“Because I needed her not to tell you.”
There.
No psychology.
No childhood.
No Spencer.
A deliberate threat against a six-year-old.
I stood.
“Greg.”
I stopped.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at her.
“I believe you regret what happened.”
Her face crumpled.
“That isn’t forgiveness.”
“No.”
“Will you ever forgive me?”
“I don’t know.”
Then I left.
That was the last conversation we ever had face to face outside court.
Pamela eventually received a prison sentence.
Spencer received a longer one.
The exact numbers mattered less than I expected.
No sentence could give Matilda back those mornings.
But accountability mattered.
Restitution was also ordered for medical and therapeutic costs.
I directed the amount owed to me toward a child advocacy organization.
I didn’t want Pamela’s money attached emotionally to Matilda’s recovery.
The affair was confirmed later.
Pamela and Spencer had been romantically involved for at least seven months.
When my attorney told me, I felt almost nothing.
That disturbed me.
Then Dr. Keene explained that emotions don’t arrive according to a moral schedule.
The betrayal that mattered most had already happened.
Not in a hotel.
In my kitchen.
May you like
And two years later, another woman who had loved Matilda gave me something that changed how I saw my own mistakes.
That woman was Beatrice.
