They Left Me Out Of The Picture So I Created My Own Chapter 19
There was a long silence, then a rustle on the other end of the line.
“Avery? It’s me.” Sadie’s voice was soft. “I… I want to apologize.”
I waited.
“For years, I accepted so much without questioning it. The campus tours, the clothes, that college fund… every time they said I needed it more, I just took it. I kept telling myself I hadn’t asked for any of it, but I never once refused it, either.”
She took a shaky breath.
“If you’re willing to come back, I can talk Dad into giving the 529 money back to you. It should have been yours all along.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“But I really can—”
“Sadie, you didn’t take that money from me. My father took it from me and gave it to you. Those are two very different things.”
She went quiet, as if she hadn’t expected me to say that.
A few seconds later, she asked hoarsely, “Do you hate me, then? Or do you hate Dad?”
“No.”
The answer wasn’t a strain.
To hate someone is to still want something from them—an apology, a change of heart, a final reckoning.
But I didn’t want anything anymore.
The money wouldn’t bring me back. An apology couldn’t put the missing years back into those photographs. I had my own school, my own work, my own life. I didn’t need them to return anything to me just to prove that the past had hurt.
“You really don’t hate us at all?”
“I really don’t.” I looked at the gallery wall that had been set aside for my work. “Live your life, Sadie. You don’t need to call me about this again.”
She whispered, “Okay.”
When I hung up, the silence returned to the room, and for the first time, it felt like the past had finally gone quiet with it.