Chapter 13 - Healing Old Wounds
The Sunday afternoon sun cast long, golden rays across the back porch where Harriet and Sylvia sat shelling peas into a porcelain bowl.
I stood in the doorway watching them for a moment. Four months ago, the idea of the two of them sitting together in quiet harmony would have felt like an impossible dream. But time, honesty, and the shared realization of near-catastrophe had worked a slow, steady alchemy on our family.
"Bellamy, stop hovering and come give your mother a hand with these green beans," Harriet called out without looking up, a faint smile playing on her lips.
I laughed, stepping out onto the wooden planks and pulling up a chair between them.
"I’m not hovering, I’m supervising," I teased, grabbing a handful of beans from the basket.
Sylvia looked over at me, her expression soft and genuinely warm. "Your supervisor skills are legendary around the office, I hear. Marcus Vance told me you caught a discrepancy in the supply chain logistics before the automated audit even flagged it."
"You have to stay sharp when you're running thirty-one states," I replied, snapping a bean in half.
Sylvia’s smile faltered slightly, replaced by a quiet, reflective solemnity. "Bellamy... I still think about how close we came to losing everything. Not just the company, but each other. If you hadn't held your ground that night..."
"You don't have to apologize every Sunday, Mom," I said gently, reaching out to place my hand over hers.
May you like
She looked down at our joined hands, a tear forming in her eye before she blinked it away. "I know. But I want to make sure you never forget how proud I am of the woman you’ve become. Despite everything I did—or failed to do—you built something unbreakable."
We sat in comfortable silence for a long time, the rhythmic clicking of peas dropping into the porcelain bowl blending with the hum of crickets in the garden. For the first time in my life, the past felt like something behind us rather than a weight dragging us down.
