Bullies Targets The Wrong A Waitress — Unaware She's A Karate Black Belt Working Part-Time
Chapter 31
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Walt was quiet for a long moment. "No," he said finally. "As far as I ever knew, he never said a word to clear your father's name. Never paid back what he'd taken in any way that helped Otis directly. He paid Gus back quietly over time. He never once, that I know of, tried to undo what happened to your father."Roy's jaw was tight, his eyes bright with something between grief and anger. "And you knew this," he said. "All this time, you knew my father spent his life carrying a lie that wasn't his.""I did," Walt said, not flinching from it. "I had evidence of my own: testimony from another worker on that site who saw enough to clear your father's name completely. I brought it to Gus once quietly, thinking he'd want to use it. He asked me to trust his judgment, to let him handle it his own way. I did. I let it go. And then years passed, and it got easier to keep letting it go than to reopen something that painful.""My father died believing this whole town saw him as a thief," Roy said, his voice shaking now. "He worked odd jobs the rest of his life because nobody trusted him with anything steady again. He never talked about it, not once. But I know it broke something in him that never healed.""I know," Walt said quietly. "I've known for thirty years. And I let it stand because it was easier than admitting my own silence made me part of it."Dotty reached across the table and took Roy's hand, saying nothing, letting the moment hold the weight it needed to hold. Roy sat with it a long time, breathing hard, working through something enormous in real time."Why now?" he finally asked. "Why tell me now, after all these years?""Because tomorrow this whole town votes on whether Marcus Whitfield gets to build his legacy on top of this diner," Walt said. "And I couldn't stand by and let him walk into that vote with his name still clean. Not while your father's name stayed dirty for something he never did. I have proof," Walt added. "The old testimony, written and signed. I kept it all these years, telling myself I was protecting Gus's decision. Truth is, I was protecting my own comfort. I'm sorry, Roy. I'm sorrier than I know how to say properly."Roy stood up slowly, walked to the window, and stood there a long moment with his back to the room. "My father used to sit right there," he said finally, nodding toward the booth by the window—Walt's old booth. "Before he got too proud to come in anymore, after everyone started looking at him different. He'd have a cup of coffee and read the paper and never say a word about any of it."He turned back around, his eyes wet but steady. "Tomorrow," he said. "Tell everyone tomorrow. He deserves that, even if it's thirty years too late.""You have every right to be angry with me," Walt said. "I'll understand if that never changes."