I had apologized until everyone mistook silence for peace.
***
Then Lucille moved.
Slowly, she lifted Ryan’s hand off her waist.
He looked down.
“What are you doing?”
Everyone mistook silence for peace.
She did not answer at first.
Her eyes were on me.
Not smug now.
Not pretty in the victorious way she had been all afternoon.
Frightened.
She did not answer at first.
Then she asked, “Do I apologize this much too?”
Ryan’s face went pale.
“Lucille.”
She waited.
He said nothing.
The silence answered for him.
Lucille looked at Ryan as if the future had briefly opened its mouth.
“Do I apologize this much too?”
Then she grabbed her purse from a lounge chair and walked across the patio.
At the gate, she started running.
Ryan took two steps after her.
“Lucille, come back.”
“NO!”
Everyone was watching.
At the gate, she started running.
