If Shirley had said those words a week earlier, I would have been furious.
Now, I felt nothing.
The moment I saw how Charlie viewed love, marriage, and the woman he claimed to love, any lingering desire to marry him disappeared...
Completely.
Shirley had grown up watching her father rule the household with an iron fist.
Her mother had spent decades sacrificing everything for a man who never appreciated her.
Our families had once lived in the same neighborhood.
As the years passed, my family's business prospered...
Theirs didn't.
The three of them continued living in a tiny one-bedroom apartment, barely large enough for a family.
It was my mother who eventually helped them move into a better home.
Without my mother's generosity, they might never have escaped that place.
Yet not
