Chapter 2 - The Sound of Silence in the Car
The drive back from Barbara’s house to our home on the north side of the city took forty-five minutes.
For thirty of those minutes, neither of us said a word. The only sound in the SUV was the hum of the tires against the damp asphalt and the rhythmic sweep of the windshield wipers clearing a light, freezing drizzle.
My hands were folded tightly in my lap. The adrenaline that had sustained me in Barbara’s living room was beginning to recede, leaving behind a cold, hollow ache in my chest. I thought of the photograph of James at my commencement—the way his chin had rested on my graduation cap, the way he had laughed right before the shutter clicked. It was gone. The physical print, given to me by his mother ten years ago, was ash.
I squeezed my eyes shut, feeling a single, warm tear slip down my cheek.
"Amanda," David said softly.
He pulled the car over onto the shoulder of a quiet residential street, shifting the vehicle into park. He didn't immediately turn to look at me; his hands remained gripped tightly around the leather steering wheel, his knuckles white.
"I am so sorry," he whispered.
I took a deep breath, wiping my cheek with the back of my hand. "It’s not your fault, David. You didn't burn it."
"I let her push you to that point," David said, his voice thick with a rage that was entirely directed at himself. "For three years, Amanda. Three years of 'let's keep the peace,' three years of 'she's just set in her ways,' three years of squeezing your knee under the table instead of standing up and telling my mother to go to hell."
He slammed his hand against the steering wheel. The sudden thud made me jump slightly.
"I sat there," David continued, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he finally turned to face me. "I sat there and watched her talk down to you about James. I watched her take his parents' picture off our mantel. I thought... I convinced myself that if I just kept quiet, she’d eventually see how incredible you are. But she didn't want to see it. She wanted to hurt you. And tonight, she burned your life in front of me, and I stood there like a coward with a pair of tongs."
"David, look at me," I said, reaching across the console to lay my hand over his white-knuckled grip on the wheel.
He looked at me, his brown eyes filled with an agony so raw it broke my heart.
"You grabbed the tongs," I said gently. "You tried to save it. And when you saw who she really was... you walked out with me. You didn't stay for the cake. You didn't ask me to apologize to her to smooth things over. You chose me."
"It shouldn't have taken my mother throwing a photo album into a fire for me to choose you," he said, tears finally spilling over his dark lashes. "James was a good man. He loved you, he built a life with you, and he died in a terrible way. You had every right to put him in that book. You were trying to be honest. And she... she acted like a monster."
"She acted like a woman whose entire identity is built on a lie," I corrected softly. "Barbara spent thirty-eight years pretending she was the perfect, spotless matriarch of the Whitmore family. When she saw James’s pictures, it wasn't just that she hated my past—it was that seeing me be honest about having a past reminded her that she was lying about hers."
David leaned his forehead against the steering wheel, letting out a long, shuddering sigh. "What do we do now?"
"Now," I said, pulling my phone from my purse, "we go home. And tomorrow morning, I’m going to print out the backup digital files of that album. Because I made three digital copies before I had the leather cover bound."
May you like
David raised his head, a faint, disbelieving laugh escaping his lips despite the tears on his face. "You made digital backups?"
"I work in archival restoration, David," I said, offering him a small, tired smile. "I never work with a single physical original. The leather book she burned was just paper and glue. The memories are on my hard drive. She didn't destroy James. She only destroyed herself."
