FALLING FOR MY BEST FRIEND'S FATHER
Which fooled no one, but Danny had the self-preservation to stay in the dining room, and Marcus had the grace to let it happen.
They stood at the sink together. Emma rinsed her mother's dishes, and Catherine said nothing for a long time. Just the water running, the small sounds of crockery, the distant murmur of Danny showing Marcus something on his phone that apparently required extensive explanation.
Then her mother said, quietly, without looking up from the plates:
"He looks at you the way your father used to look at me."
Emma went still.
"Before everything."
She didn't explain what everything meant. The word carried fifteen years of compressed history, and she left it to carry itself, an