Chương 10
“They were in the guest suite closet.”
Lauren took the box.
“I thought they were lost.”
“You put them there when we moved in.”
Lauren remembered carrying boxes while pregnant.
A flash of nausea.
Margaret labeling shelves.
Ethan disappearing for three hours because a friend needed help moving a television.
Lauren opened the lid.
Her grandmother’s handwriting filled the top card.
POTATO SOUP — DO NOT BOIL THE MILK, LAUREN.
She laughed unexpectedly.
Margaret smiled.
“She knew you.”
“She really did.”
For several seconds, they stood inside a house built from money inherited from a woman who had never met Mia and had distrusted Ethan on sight.
Lauren closed the box.
Margaret said, “I told him everything.”
“I know.”
“Robert told you?”
“He said you talked.”
Margaret nodded.
“I told Ethan the idea was mine.”
Lauren watched her.
“And?”
“That I asked you to do it. That Robert and I contributed nothing to the purchase. That you never promised to transfer ownership. That I was the one who said we should wait to tell him.”
Lauren waited for the missing part.
Margaret’s eyes lowered.
“And I told him you agreed.”
“Good.”
Margaret looked up, surprised.
“You thought I wanted you to take all the blame?”
“I don’t know what you want anymore.”
“I want the truth.”
Margaret’s mouth tightened.
“Truth is getting very fashionable in this family.”
Lauren almost laughed.
“That sounded like me.”
“I’ve known you a long time.”
There was danger in tenderness.
Lauren set the recipe box on the counter.
“Why did you tell him I didn’t trust him?”
Margaret’s face changed.
“You did not trust him.”
“That wasn’t your truth to weaponize.”
“I know.”
“Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Trust him.”
Margaret looked toward the garage.
“No.”
Lauren had not expected honesty that quickly.
“Why?”
“He was like me.”
Lauren frowned.
Margaret smiled sadly.
“When he got scared, he changed the story until he could live with himself.”
Lauren felt a chill.
“You knew.”
“I knew what I had taught him.”
“Then why did you keep protecting him?”
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“Because admitting what I had taught him meant admitting I was part of what he became.”
Neither spoke.
Outside, Robert dropped something metal.
He swore.
The sound was so ordinary it broke the moment.
Lauren rubbed the edge of the recipe box.
“Did you know about the affairs?”
Margaret’s face went still.
There.
A clue Lauren had not been looking for.
She had asked because Ethan had betrayed her twice that she knew of.
A woman from his gym three years earlier.
Then a six-month relationship with a married client that ended the previous winter.
Ethan had insisted his parents knew nothing.
Lauren watched Margaret fail to answer.
“Oh my God.”
Margaret sat down.
“Lauren—”
“How much?”
“I didn’t know details.”
“How much did you know?”
“I knew about the first one.”
Lauren stepped backward.
“Did Robert?”
“No.”
“You knew?”
“He came to me after it ended.”
“And?”
“He said it was a mistake.”
Lauren laughed.
The sound frightened even her.
“What did you do?”
“I told him to tell you.”
“He didn’t.”
“No.”
“And you?”
Margaret’s silence answered.
Lauren’s face went hot.
“You hugged me.”
“What?”
“Thanksgiving. That year. You hugged me in this kitchen and told me I looked tired.”
Margaret cried then.
Lauren did not.
“You knew he had slept with someone else, and you stood in my kitchen and told me I looked tired.”
“I was afraid your marriage would end.”
“It should have.”
“Mia was three.”
“So?”
“I thought—”
“No.”
Lauren stepped toward her.
“No more what-you-thought. What did you do?”
Margaret wiped her face.
“I stayed quiet.”
“Again.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know about the second affair?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Lauren stared at her.
She wanted to believe it only because the alternative was exhausting.
Margaret said, “I’m sorry.”
Lauren picked up the recipe box.
“I need you out before I lose my temper.”
“Lauren.”
“Please.”
Margaret stood.
At the hallway, she stopped.
“I loved you.”
Lauren’s throat tightened.
“That’s what makes it worse.”
Margaret left.
Lauren stood alone in the kitchen.
Then she took one of her grandmother’s recipe cards from the box, put it back, and sat on the floor.
She did not cry.
She was past crying.
For ten minutes she stared at a crumb beneath the refrigerator and listened to Robert continue doing something badly with a wrench in the garage.
The next time Lauren saw Ethan, she asked him about Margaret.
They were in a mediator’s conference room.
The room contained a fake plant, bottled water, a box of tissues, and a painting of a sailboat that Lauren came to hate within six minutes.
The attorneys had stepped out to discuss a proposed property settlement.
Ethan sat across from her.
He had cut his hair.
Lauren did not know why she noticed.
“Did your mother know about Brooke?” she asked.
His eyes changed.
So he understood immediately.
“Yes.”
Lauren nodded.
Ethan looked down.
“She told you.”
“Yes.”
“I was going to.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
“Three years seems like a long runway.”
He exhaled.
“I’m not defending it.”
“That’s also new.”
He looked at her.
“You want me to fight?”
“No.”
“I think sometimes you do.”
Lauren stared.
“Why?”
“Because then I’m easier to hate.”
She almost dismissed it.
Then stopped.
There was truth there.
Uncomfortable truth.
“Maybe.”
Ethan rubbed his hands together.
“I hated Dad for a week.”
“The house?”
“Yes.”
“Just a week?”
“I’m efficient.”
Lauren smiled before she could stop herself.
He saw it.
Again, for one second, old familiarity entered the room.
Ethan looked toward the sailboat painting.
“Then I started remembering things.”
“What things?”
“Every time he changed the subject when I thanked him. Every time Mom got weird when I talked about refinancing. The time I asked Dad if we should put the house into a trust and he said not to touch anything.”
Lauren had forgotten that.
She could see it now.
May you like
Christmas dinner.
Robert’s fork stopping halfway to his mouth.
