Chloe called next. I answered once because some remaining part of me needed to know whether she would begin with an apology.
She did not.
“Do you have any idea what you’re doing to my babies?” she demanded.
“I didn’t run Greg’s company.”
“David humiliated him on purpose.”
“He asked questions about the numbers.”
“Because you told him to!”
“I did not know Greg had a meeting until today.”
Chloe began crying. She said they had already placed a deposit on a larger house. She said Greg promised the funding was certain. She accused me of hiding David’s wealth to make the family look foolish.
“No, Chloe,” I said. “You looked foolish because you decided a quiet man had no value before learning what he could do for you.”
“We would have come to the wedding if we knew.”
The honesty of that sentence stunned both of us.
I closed my eyes.
“I know,” I said. “That is exactly why I’m done.”
I hung up, blocked her number, then blocked my mother, father, Greg, and every relative who had ignored my wedding but found the energy to demand money. I did not write a dramatic post. I did not expose them publicly. I simply closed the door they had left open only for their own convenience.
David found me on the porch a few minutes later.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Yes.”
This time, the answer was true.
“For the record,” he said, sitting beside me, “the decision would have been the same if Greg were my brother.”
“I know.”
“And if the company had been sound, I would have fought to prevent our relationship from influencing the decision against him.”
“I know that too.”
He took my hand. “Then what hurts?”
I looked at our joined fingers.