Chapter 7 - The Interrogation
With Sabrina gone, the remaining guests began to quietly make their exits. High-ranking colonels and corporate executives who had spent the cocktail hour praising Tristan’s brilliant future slipped out the back terraces and side corridors, avoiding eye contact with the disgraced major. Nobody wanted to be caught in the blast radius of a military officer whose moral character was being torn to shreds in public.
Soon, only the immediate Holloway family, Tristan, myself, and the boys remained in the Great Hall.
Tristan’s father had passed away years ago, leaving Evelyn as the undisputed ruler of the estate. She sat down slowly on one of the high-backed velvet chairs by the fire, her eyes never leaving the four boys.
""Come here,"" Evelyn said softly, gesturing toward the children.
Caleb and Asher looked up at me first, waiting for a nod. I gave it to them. They were safe; they were confident; they had nothing to fear from an old woman whose kingdom had just cracked wide open.
The four boys walked over and stood in a neat row before their grandmother.
""Which one is the oldest?"" Evelyn asked, her voice cracking with an emotion she had spent decades suppressing.
""I am,"" Mason replied. ""By twelve minutes. Then Caleb, then Asher, then Liam.""
""And do you go to school?""
""Fourth grade at Boise Valley Charter,"" Caleb answered, puffing out his chest slightly. ""I’m in advanced mathematics. Liam reads high school history books. Asher builds model planes that actually glide. And Mason is the class president.""
A tear finally broke free from Evelyn’s eye, tracing a glistening path through her foundation. ""And your mother... she raised you all alone?""
""She had the flight crew,"" Asher said plainly. ""Uncle Dave is a crew chief. Aunt Sarah flies the Sikorsky. And Mom takes care of everybody. When the blizzards hit the mountain passes, Mom is the one who tells the ambulances where to go.""
Every word from the boys was a clean, surgical strike against Tristan. He stood five paces away, his shoulders slumped, looking smaller and more pathetic than I had ever imagined possible. The arrogance that had defined him during our marriage was completely gone, replaced by the hollow emptiness of a man who realized that his greatest achievement was an illusion, while the greatest treasures he could have ever claimed had grown up without him.
""Why didn't you sue me?"" Tristan asked suddenly, his voice barely a rasp. He looked at me with genuine, tortured bewilderment. ""If you had all these records... if you had proof... why didn't you take me to military court? Why didn't you garnish my wages? You could have destroyed my career years ago!""
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I looked at him, feeling no anger, no hatred, only a profound sense of closure that had been eight years in the making.
""Because, Tristan, to sue you, I would have had to keep you in our lives,"" I answered honestly. ""I would have had to let a man who accused me of deceit around my sons. Your money wasn't worth their peace. I earned my own living. I built my own home. My sons grew up surrounded by real men—men who run into burning buildings and fly through blizzards to save strangers. Why on earth would I trade that just to take twenty percent of your paycheck?""
