Chapter 2 - The Year Nobody Talked About
Delaney locked herself in the guest bedroom her mother had used during the final months of her illness.
She had avoided that room since Elise died eighteen months earlier.
Grant had told her they kept a bed downstairs because chemotherapy made the stairs difficult.
At twenty-two, Delaney had accepted that explanation.
Now she looked around differently.
There had been no medical equipment in here.
No pill organizer.
No extra blankets Grant would have needed if he had been staying beside his wife.
There was still a small reading lamp on the nightstand and a faint indentation on the carpet where Elise’s upholstered chair had stood.
A bedroom.
Not a sickroom.
A separate bedroom.
Someone knocked.
“Delaney.”
Her father.
“Go away.”
“Please let me explain.”
“Were you sleeping with Marissa before Mom died?”
Silence.
There it was again.
Delaney sat on the bed.
“Just answer.”
Grant spoke through the door.
“Yes.”
Her throat closed.
“But not the way she made it sound.”
Delaney laughed once, without humor.
“How many ways are there?”
“We were separated.”
She stared at the door.
“What?”
“Your mother and I had been separated for almost a year.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It wasn’t public.”
“You lived together.”
“We were still sharing the house.”
“You went to Thanksgiving together.”
“For you.”
“You took her to chemo.”
“Because she was still my family.”
Every answer made the situation worse because none sounded impossible.
Delaney opened the door.
Grant stood there looking suddenly older than fifty-two.
“Why didn’t I know?”
He lowered his eyes.
“Your mother didn’t want you to.”
Delaney recoiled.
“Don’t put this on her.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re telling me Mom spent the last year of her life pretending to be married because of me?”
“No.”
“Then what are you telling me?”
Grant rubbed his beard.
“You were finishing college. Elise’s diagnosis had just changed. She didn’t want every phone call with you turning into whether we were divorcing.”
“And Marissa?”
Grant hesitated.
That hesitation landed harder than the confession.
“When?”
“About four months after the separation.”
Delaney remembered Thanksgiving that year.
Her father carving turkey.
Her mother laughing when Delaney burned the rolls.
Grant sleeping in his home office because he claimed he had an early client call.
Suddenly ordinary memories had edges.
“Did Mom know about Marissa?”
Grant stared toward the hallway.
“Yes.”
Delaney felt the room tilt.
“And she stayed here?”
“She had reasons.”
“What reasons?”
“I promised her I wouldn’t tell you everything unless she decided you were ready.”
Delaney stood.
“She’s dead.”
“I know.”
“So who exactly are you protecting now?”
Grant had no answer.
Then Delaney noticed something on the dresser.
A photograph she remembered being there throughout her mother’s illness was gone.
Not a family picture.
A picture of Elise with another woman at a charity luncheon.
May you like
Delaney knew exactly who had been standing beside her.
Marissa.
