when he came back to the living room. Yeah. He’d punched the wall. For her?
Gabe handed a glass of whiskey to their mother and gave her a mug. Rhiannon dunked the tea bag into the mug and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you sorry for?” Sonya demanded. “I knew that Peter was bad news. From the moment I met him, I knew he wasn’t any good. Something weaselly in his face.”
Rhiannon had thought Sonya loved Peter. He was wealthy and traditional and had also criticized Rhiannon’s taste in clothes. “I’m sorry for the inevitable blowback this is going to cause for you guys.”
Gabe rested his mug on his knee. “If there’s any blowback, it’s going to be on you, Rhi. We’re way more worried about you.”
“Why didn’t you go public with this when it happened?” Sonya demanded.
She’d known her mom would want to know that. “For the same reason I said on the show. Because I didn’t see any positive upside to it. Sure, some people may have believed me, but most would have taken his word over mine. I thought I could give it less fuel if I stayed quiet.”
“No. You should have defended yourself right then.”
The last thing she wanted or could deal with was for her mother to lecture her on her past choices. She scrubbed her face.
Gabe slung his arm over her shoulders. “She did what she thought was best.”
“I focused on beating him instead.” Rhiannon’s smile was wobbly. “It’s like you used to say, Mom, success is the best revenge.”
Sonya’s brow furrowed. “When did I say that?”
“In school. Don’t you remember? When kids were mean to me.”
“In school? That was ages ago.”
“I remember it like it was yesterday.” That horrible period of being too much.
Sonya squinted. “Oh. I vaguely recall.”
“Uh, I’ve basically used that one piece of advice to cope for the last few years. It was the only thing that kept me going sometimes.” And her mother only vaguely remembered it?
“Well, if it’s helped, that’s great, but I wouldn’t advise you to use every snippet I said to you as a child in your adult life. Half the time, I was throwing stuff at the wall in the hopes it would keep you balanced and well-grounded in that school full of toxic assholes.”
“What?”
“I hate to admit this, but I don’t know everything.” Sonya drained her glass of whiskey in one shot and made a face. “Do you have any idea what it’s like, to be the mother of a prodigy? To know your child is brilliant and destined for greatness but will still have to work four times as hard as people with a fraction of her intelligence? I was furious when your classmates were rough on you, but I figured my job was to keep you calm and focused and not let you lose this opportunity. I couldn’t let you be angry, or at the very least, I couldn’t let you show that anger. Because then you would be that angry Black girl, and everyone would dismiss your intelligence or worse, suppress everything that makes you you. So I—” She stopped, and inhaled sharply. “I guess I suppressed you. My God. I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”
Guilt and love coursed through her when her mother started weeping, and she rose from her seat to put her arm around Sonya. “No, Mom. It’s not—”
“Mom.”
The steel in Gabe’s voice had them both looking up. “This isn’t about you. Don’t make Rhi comfort you tonight. We need to be here for her.”
Sonya sniffed and surprised Rhiannon by nodding. “You are absolutely right.” She cupped Rhiannon’s face. “My dear, let me make it clear. Success is the best revenge? No. Sometimes, revenge is the best revenge.”
Gabe took a sip of his tea. “What you did wasn’t revenge, though, Rhi. It was justice. Justice is the best justice.”
“Exactly that,” Sonya said. “Even if it took four years, I’m glad you finally came forward.”
Rhi stirred. Physical and emotional exhaustion had taken root, and she didn’t want to think about Peter anymore. Especially when that thinking included the very real possibility that everything she’d done tonight was for naught and Peter would emerge from this unblemished. “Can we stop talking about this for a while? I’m beat.”
“Of course.” Sonya made a face. “Did Gabe tell you about our napkin crisis today?”
RHIANNON SLEPT WELL in Gabe’s guest room, her mom snuggled in the bed with her, quietly snoring. When she awoke in the morning and puttered into