Madison followed us out but stopped several feet away.
“Iris,” she said.
I turned.
For once, there was no performance in her face.
“I thought I was entering a marriage that was already over,” she said. “That does not excuse me. I know it doesn’t. But I need you to know Jason told me you had family money hidden away, that you were manipulating him, that you had abandoned people before. I repeated things I had no right to believe.”
I did not know what to do with her apology. It was not the thing I needed most, but it was something.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because I’m afraid I helped him,” she said. “And because when he asked me to lie last night, I realized he wasn’t asking me to protect him from you. He was asking me to become part of what he did to you.”
