He stopped at the foot of the steps. “I didn’t know if I should come.”
“Neither did I,” I said. “But the coffee’s hot.”
He sat on the bottom step, not the chair next to mine. We watched the live oaks drop leaves
into the yard. After a while he said, “I never counted them. The slaps. I didn’t know how many it was until the footage.”
“I know.”
“Thirty.” His voice shook. “I think about it every day. That you stood there and took every one of them and didn’t hit back.”
“I could have.”
“I know.” He swallowed. “That’s the part I can’t forgive. Not what I did. That I did it to someone who could have stopped me, and chose not to. And you still gave me a lawyer. You
still said yes at the gate.”
“I didn’t say yes to what you wanted.”
