Chapter 22 - Walt’s apology
My father came to me in person.
Three years? No.
About two years and three months after the discovery.
He asked first.
“Can we talk?”
“Yes.”
He sat at my kitchen table.
Older.
Quieter.
“I signed the boat withdrawal.”
“I know.”
“I signed others I didn’t read closely.”
“I know.”
“That isn’t better.”
“No.”
He nodded.
Then:
“I knew your mother used the closet.”
I waited.
“I hated it.”
“Not enough.”
“No.”
He looked down.
“I thought being against something privately counted.”
That sentence hit me.
Because I had done versions of that too.
Not the closet.
Family behavior.
Knowing without confronting.
“I thought if I told Gloria I disagreed once, I had done my job.”
“You hadn’t.”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“On the night you found Lizzy, I heard her crying around eight.”
My body stiffened.
“You never told me that clearly.”
“I told investigators.”
“I didn’t read every interview.”
“I heard her.”
“Why didn’t you go upstairs?”
He looked at me.
“Because Gloria had said she was handling it.”
There.
The old family religion.
“And I wanted the ball game.”
He almost laughed at himself.
Did not.
“I chose not to know.”
That was devastating because it was accurate.
Then:
“I’m sorry.”
I believed him.
May you like
Trust did not suddenly return.
But I believed him.
