“Are you a team?” I asked him softly.
“Daniel, honey… when was the last time you made a choice without asking Amanda first?”
“That’s what marriage is,” he said, but he sounded uncertain.
“No,” I said. “Marriage is working together. What I’m seeing looks like control.”
I stood up.
“I came here tonight to explain why I canceled the payment. But I’m realizing something.”
I let the words land, slow and steady.
“You can’t really hear me right now. Not while she’s sitting right there telling you how to think.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Amanda snapped. “Daniel, tell her she’s being crazy.”
“Stop,” Daniel said.
His voice was quiet but firm.
He looked at Amanda, then at me.
Everyone stopped talking for a minute. The silence felt long and heavy.
I watched my son thinking, trying to understand.
This was the important moment.
Would he automatically defend her?
