“You keep using that language because it sounds terrible.”
“It was terrible.”
Lavinia looked toward the window.
After a long silence, she said, “My father made us work for everything.”
“Did you like it?”
“That isn’t the point.”
“Did it make you feel secure?”
She did not answer.
Sebastian waited.
Finally, she said, “I didn’t expect gratitude every minute. I expected some sign that what I did mattered.”
“It could have mattered without Teddy being afraid.”
“You weren’t there.”
The accusation landed.
He nodded.
“You’re right.”
She looked at him.
“You left the schedules to me. The events. The calls from school. You liked that I handled things.”
“Yes.”
“And now you get to come home and be the good parent.”
Sebastian sat with that.
Then he answered.
“I failed him too. That doesn’t make what you did acceptable.”
Her eyes filled.
For the first time, the conversation seemed to reach something other than defense.
“I thought if he listened to me, I’d belong.”
Sebastian looked at her carefully.
“And when he didn’t?”
She looked down.
“I pushed harder.”
He believed that answer.
It did not change the decision taking shape inside him.
“You can’t make a child prove your place in a marriage.”
Lavinia wiped her face.
“So what happens now?”
He spoke quietly.
“We separate. Properly. With advice and clear arrangements.”
She stared at him.
He did not look away.
There was no dramatic public downfall.
Lavinia did not lose everything overnight.
Her father defended her.
Some friends described Sebastian as overprotective.
One relative suggested that rich children often needed stronger discipline than other children.
Sebastian asked whether that included hunger.
The conversation ended shortly afterward.
The marriage ended through a process neither of them enjoyed.
Property and practical matters went through their representatives.
Teddy was kept out of those exchanges.
He did not carry messages.
