Chapter 13 - Garrett Finally Looked at His Mother the Way Maren Had
When Garrett realized Maren had retained counsel and was no longer privately negotiating, he turned on Evelyn.
That part almost would have been funny if everything else hadn’t hurt so much.
He had always believed his mother could engineer outcomes.
Smooth messes.
Pressure the right people.
Control the narrative.
Instead, her composure had become a liability.
Because the more she tried to minimize what happened, the worse it looked.
Three days after the gala, Garrett confronted her in the study.
Maren wasn’t there, but she heard about it later from a staff member and partly from Garrett himself during formal separation proceedings.
He accused Evelyn of “saying too much” where Judith could hear.
Evelyn accused him of being too impulsive to follow simple instructions.
That sentence mattered.
Too impulsive to follow simple instructions.
Not shocked by violence.
Merely dissatisfied by how public it became.
For the first time, Garrett had to face what Maren already knew:
his mother had never been horrified by what he did.
Only by how badly he did it.
That truth damaged something between them even Maren could see from a distance.
And she felt nothing.
Not triumph.
May you like
Just clarity.
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