Chapter 23 - Marjorie apologizes
Marjorie came to my house eighteen months after the incident.
She asked first.
I agreed.
Lily was not home.
Marjorie carried no gifts.
Good.
She sat at my kitchen table.
“I should have called you.”
“Yes.”
“I told Diane to stop.”
“Yes.”
“I thought that was enough.”
“It wasn’t.”
“No.”
She cried.
Then:
“I was afraid if I told you, Diane would never forgive me.”
There.
Useful.
“You chose your friendship.”
“Yes.”
“Over Lily’s safety.”
She closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
No need to yell.
She had reached the sentence herself.
“Why did you think the videos were acceptable enough not to report?”
“I didn’t.”
That surprised me.
“What?”
“I thought they were wrong. I told myself wrong wasn’t the same as dangerous.”
There.
The distinction that keeps bystanders silent.
I said:
“A child locked in a dog kennel looked dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“I know.”
No legal consequence.
No mandated-reporting prosecution.
Moral consequence:
Diane ended the friendship for almost a year anyway.
The thing Marjorie had protected disappeared despite silence.
Irony.
May you like
Eventually they exchanged letters.
Not my concern.
