Chloe was quiet for a long time. So long that I thought maybe I’d won.
“We’ll deal with Richard afterwards.”
Then she said, very evenly, “I’m tired of watching Grandma be lied to.”
“Chloe.”
“I love her too, Mom. That’s all I’m saying.”
She stood up, kissed the top of my head as if I were the teenager, and went inside.
I sat on the porch a while longer, staring at the street where Richard’s taillights always disappeared.
“I’m tired of watching Grandma be lied to.”
***
Mom fussed with her hair in the hallway mirror for the third time. I could tell she was nervous. It was her 72nd birthday, and she wanted the night to be perfect.
“You look gorgeous,” I told her.
“I look like a woman who’s trying too hard.”
“Grandma, you look like a woman who’s trying just enough,” Chloe called from the couch. “There’s a difference.”
I could tell she was nervous.
***
The doorbell rang at 6 p.m.
Richard stood there with a dozen roses in one hand, a wrapped gift in the other, and that leather tote of his tucked under his arm as if it were surgically attached.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart!”
Mom lit up. Honestly, it was hard to stay suspicious when she looked at him like that.
Richard stood there with a dozen roses.
***
Dinner went beautifully.
Richard told a story about mistaking a zucchini for a cucumber at the gardening club and slicing it into a salad that nearly killed a man’s taste buds. Mom laughed so hard she snorted, which she hadn’t done since Dad was alive.
Then she brought out the pie.
“Chocolate pie,” she announced. “I made it because my boyfriend said it was his favorite.”
Richard’s face changed into something complicated. Grateful. Guilty. Trapped.
Mom laughed so hard she snorted.
He checked his watch.
7:26 p.m.
“Grace, I am so sorry, sweetheart. I have to go.”
The room went quiet. Mom’s smile didn’t disappear all at once. It faded in stages, as if somebody were slowly turning down a dimmer.
“Can’t you stay for 10 minutes? It’s my birthday, Richard.”
“I really can’t. I’m so sorry.”
“I have to go.”
He leaned down, kissed her cheek, grabbed the tote, and was out the door before anyone could stop him. The pie sat there on the table like a witness to a crime.
Mom sat down slowly. She picked up her fork, set it back down, and folded her hands in her lap.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, honey.”
She wasn’t fine. I knew she wasn’t, and she knew I knew.
“Mom, are you okay?”
Chloe watched Richard through the window.
A moment later, my daughter stood up abruptly. “I need to run out. I’ll be right back,” she mumbled.
“Chloe, wait, it’s dark out.”
“Don’t worry, Mom.”
The door slammed. I stared at it, then at my mom, then at the untouched pie.
“Well,” Mom said with a brittle little laugh. “That’s one way to end a birthday.”
“He’s an idiot.”
“Avery.”
“I need to run out.”
“He is! Whatever he’s hiding, he’s an idiot for hiding it tonight.”
I started clearing plates just to have something to do with my hands. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Twenty. I glanced out the window and saw nothing.
“Do you think I should call her?”
Mom looked up.
“Maybe give it a little more time. She probably needed to clear her head. She’ll be back.”
“Do you think I should call her?”
***
I paced from the kitchen to the living room and back again, chewing the inside of my cheek. My daughter had that look before she left. The look she gets right before she does something I’m going to lecture her about for a week.
Nearly 40 minutes after she’d left, footsteps pounded up the porch steps.
The door burst open, and Chloe stood in the frame, cheeks streaked with tears, breathing hard. Clutched against her chest was Richard’s leather tote.
I paced.
