Chapter 2

The plastic bags cut into my knuckles, the groceries dragging my wrists sore. Wind swept through the stairwell and hit my face, cold.

It took me a long moment before I made myself move.

When I got home, my mother was standing at the sink washing dishes, the faucet running. The apron tied around her waist had come out in a lopsided knot, and her spine stuck out sharper than it used to. She'd lost weight.

I thought back to a while ago, when Lyndis had just moved in. My mother had made a pot of beef stew and ladled some into a container for me to bring over, saying, "She's got it rough too."

I'd asked when she and Lyndis had gotten so close.

She'd wiped her hands. "Alan has her over sometimes for meals. She told me she lost her mother young, and now she doesn't have a husband either. It just breaks my heart to see it."

I was still turning that over when she turned around, her eyes red-rimmed. She saw me and swiped a wet hand across her face.

She came over and took the grocery bags from me without a word, her head down.

"Why didn't you say something when you got home? And you went and bought more groceries. I've already got most of it done."

She set the food out on the table. Five dishes and a soup, two sets of cutlery laid out. She'd just sat down when she stood back up again and grabbed a third set.

"Is Alan off work yet?"

I pulled out my phone and called him. It rang three times.

"When are you coming home? Mom's finished cooking."

There was a pause on the other end. Then I heard the rustle of a menu being flipped, and another voice, soft, its tail lifting at the end.

"Alan, I've never been to this place before. Anything you'd recommend?"

It was Lyndis.

Alan covered the receiver, his voice muffled. A few seconds later he came back. "Tell Mom I'm sorry, something came up with the case. I might be late."

I hung up.

The screen showed the call had lasted thirty-one seconds. The steam off the food thinned out, and a film of grease settled over the surface of the soup.

My mother sat across from me, staring at the third set of cutlery. After a moment, she reached over, picked it up, and carried it into the kitchen, setting it down on the counter with a clink against the quartz.

She walked back and sat down, dropping a piece of beef stew into my bowl.

The meat settled against the rice, oil seeping in and leaving a small dark ring.

"Eat up. Don't wait for him. I won't let my daughter go hungry."

I lowered my head and picked up my bowl.

That evening, I walked my mother home.

She moved slowly, and at the entrance to her building, she turned back to look at me. She opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, then swallowed it back down. She patted the back of my hand and turned to go inside.

I walked back slowly, the wind cold at the mouth of the alley.

Just as I turned the corner near our complex, under a streetlamp, I saw Alan shoving a man back and forth, with Lyndis trying to pull them apart.

The man was Lyndis's ex-husband. I'd met him before. He used to be thinner than this. Now he reeked of alcohol and could barely stand upright, his finger jabbing so close to Alan's face it nearly touched his nose.

"You've been sleeping with my wife this whole time, and you're still putting on this whole show of playing the noble lawyer? Trying to make her look like the victim so you can help her walk off with everything in the divorce? Give me a break!"

Alan turned his face away. "You're drunk."

"I'm drunk?" Her ex-husband dug a photo out of his pocket and shoved it up against Alan's cheek, his voice booming. "Take a good look! This was the night of your wedding, wasn't it?"

He flung the photo at Alan's face as he said it. It fluttered to the ground and, caught by the wind, slid across the pavement to land at my feet.

Lyndis followed the direction the photo had flown in and went pale.

"Becky..."

Alan saw me too. He took a half step forward, then stopped, his eyes flooding with panic.

"Becky, it's not what you're thinking."

He tried to come toward me, but Lyndis's hand was locked around his arm, her fingers digging into the fabric of his sleeve. He glanced at the man in front of him, then back at me, and didn't move.

I bent down and picked up the photo.

A hotel corridor, lit dim and yellow by a wall lamp. Alan had Lyndis pressed against the wall.

She was wearing the bridesmaid dress I'd picked out for her, champagne-colored, the skirt rumpled. His tie hung loose over his shirt, undone.

That morning, he'd asked me if his tie was crooked while he tied it. I'd stood on my toes in my wedding gown to straighten it for him, telling him he was too old to still need help with something like that.

In the photo, his forehead was tipped down, resting against hers, the same way it had rested against mine that day.

A timestamp ran across the bottom right corner.

Last year. My wedding night. One-oh-three in the morning.