Chapter 25 - The Last Family Meeting
Loretta requested one final meeting.
Tasha almost refused.
Then Loretta wrote a letter instead of calling.
I owe you an apology that I cannot make through Malcolm.
Tasha read it three times.
She agreed to meet at a public restaurant.
Kendra offered to come.
Tasha declined.
“This one is mine.”
Loretta was already seated when Tasha arrived.
She looked smaller without the house around her.
No family photographs.
No inherited furniture.
Just a woman in a booth.
“Thank you for coming.”
Tasha sat.
“I almost didn’t.”
“I know.”
Loretta folded her hands.
“I signed the relocation agreement.”
Tasha nodded.
“I heard.”
“I have thirty days to leave.”
“Where will you go?”
“My sister has a downstairs suite.”
Tasha was surprised.
“That sounds reasonable.”
Loretta smiled bitterly.
“Reasonable feels like failure.”
Tasha understood that more than she wanted to.
Loretta looked down.
“I owe you an apology.”
“Yes.”
The direct answer startled her.
Tasha did not soften it.
Loretta deserved the dignity of giving a real apology rather than being rescued from discomfort.
“I knew Malcolm had used your income information.”
Tasha waited.
“I did not know at first that the loan was solely in your name.”
“When did you know?”
“Before the second transfer.”
The seventy-five hundred.
Tasha’s jaw tightened.
“And you still transferred the money.”
“Yes.”
“You could have told me.”
“Yes.”
“You created an email using my name.”
Loretta looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“The refinance underwriter wanted cleaner documentation about Malcolm’s employment.”
“So you attempted to make his firing look like a layoff.”
“I wanted a letter.”
“Using my identity.”
“Yes.”
Tasha sat back.
“Do you understand why that was wrong?”
Loretta’s eyes flashed reflexively.
Then she stopped herself.
“I understand now that believing something helps the family does not give me the right to decide for everybody.”
Tasha felt the echo.
Malcolm’s lesson.
Passed backward.
Loretta continued.
“My husband handled everything when he was alive.”
“Money?”
“Money. Repairs. Taxes.”
“When he got sick?”
“I took over.”
“Did you know how?”
“No.”
There it was.
The first crack in Loretta’s armor.
“I was terrified all the time.”
Tasha listened.
“After he died, everybody looked at me like I was supposed to protect what he left.”
“Who is everybody?”
“Myself.”
Tasha understood.
Loretta’s eyes filled.
“I thought selling the house meant admitting I had failed him.”
“So you made Malcolm responsible for saving it.”
“Yes.”
“And Devon.”
“Yes.”
“And then me.”
Loretta nodded.
“I used everybody.”
The sentence sat between them.
Tasha’s anger did not disappear.
But it stopped needing to prove itself.
Loretta looked at her.
“I blamed you because Malcolm changed after he married you.”
“How?”
“He started asking me why.”
Tasha almost smiled.
Loretta noticed.
“I hated it.”
“I know.”
“He used to just help.”
“Without questions.”
“Yes.”
“And you preferred that.”
Loretta looked down.
“Yes.”
Tasha took a breath.
“I appreciate the apology.”
Loretta looked hopeful.
“That doesn’t mean we’re family again.”
Hope vanished.
“I understand.”
“Maybe someday we can be in the same room without all this.”
“I would like that.”
“But I need distance.”
Loretta nodded.
Then she reached into her purse.
A cashier’s check.
$7,500.
Tasha stared.
“What is that?”
“The amount I transferred from Malcolm’s account.”
“Give it to Malcolm.”
“He told me to give it to you.”
Tasha frowned.
Loretta slid over a note.
Malcolm’s handwriting.
Apply this toward whatever the lender determines I owe you or toward shared losses. No conditions.
Tasha stared.
“I sold my jewelry,” Loretta said.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes.”
Tasha looked up.
Loretta’s voice trembled.
“I did.”
Not legally.
Morally.
Tasha understood the difference.
She did not take the check immediately.
“I’m sending this through the attorneys.”
Loretta almost laughed.
“Of course you are.”
“That wasn’t an insult.”
“I know.”
For the first time, Loretta seemed to respect the caution she had once mocked.
Tasha left the restaurant feeling strange.
Not healed.
Not vindicated.
Free from needing Loretta to remain a villain.
A person could harm you deeply and still be human.
Understanding that humanity did not require returning access.
That evening Malcolm called.
“Mom met you?”
“Yes.”
“How did it go?”
“She apologized.”
Silence.
“Wow.”
“She gave me the check.”
“Good.”
“I’m routing it through counsel.”
“I figured.”
Tasha smiled.
“Your mother said you told her to give it to me.”
“It was your credit that got used.”
“Our savings too.”
“I’ll deal with my share later.”
Tasha leaned against her balcony railing.
City lights flickered below.
“Malcolm.”
“Yeah?”
“You sound different.”
He was quiet.
“I feel different.”
“Good?”
“Some days.”
She understood.
“Me too.”
The next morning, their divorce petition was filed.
Not because the apology failed.
Because apologies did not require Tasha to abandon the decision she had already made.
Malcolm received the filing at lunch.
He sat in his car for twenty minutes.
Then texted:
I got the papers. I’ll have my lawyer respond. I won’t make this harder than it already is.
Tasha stared at the message.
May you like
![92 The Girl They Called Broke Was a Billionaire’s Daughter—But Her Father’s Arrival Exposed a Secret Powerful People Had Buried for Years]](https://cdn.treeiq.biz/site_590/2026/11/clone-0-0915d882-53d7-4d17-b43a-a010ca1a1068.webp)
Months earlier, Malcolm had believed love meant preventing her from saying no.
Now, perhaps for the first time, he was loving her by accepting it.
