Chapter 27: Dahlia

The words were spoken simply, without hesitation or sadness, the way children sometimes talk about things they have already accepted in a way adults never quite manage to.

But the sentence landed heavily anyway.

I slowly looked up at Weston.

I hadn’t known.

In the six months I had spent organizing the Thayer-Bennington wedding, coordinating schedules and venues and floral budgets and guest logistics, I had never once heard any mention of a child. There had been no wife in the background