He said he didn't want to come up to the door without asking. I went out to the driveway in my coat. His truck was parked at the curb. He looked thinner. I didn't ask how he was doing.
"Mom won't talk to me," he said. "She won't even let me explain. You've had months to explain things to people." "I know. I'm not asking you to forgive me." He rubbed his hands together. "Could you just tell her I came here, that I'm trying?" I almost laughed.
He had come to the man whose marriage he'd helped destroy, hoping I could make his mother feel better about him. "Why would my word help you?" I asked because she still listens to you. That isn't something you get to borrow. He stared at the pavement. Then he said he hadn't thought Belle would tell me about the night at my house.
I asked if that meant he had expected me to forgive him as long as I never learned where it happened. He shook his head, but he couldn't give me an answer. I told him not to come to the house again. He nodded and got into his truck. I stood there until he drove away, not because I wanted him to see me watching, but because I needed a minute before going back inside.
Lenora called a week later. She asked whether I had time to talk. I said yes. She told me she and Gideon were living separately while they went to counseling. She wasn't ready to decide whether their marriage could survive.
She had changed the emergency contact at the art center from Gideon to her sister. Gideon had asked her whether he could come back to pick up the rest of his things, and she had arranged for her sister to be there instead. I could hear how much that hurt her, even though she was the one who had insisted on it. She had also told Saurin she needed distance from him. He tried bringing flowers.
She left them on the porch. He kept asking about Sunday dinner. She finally told him, "You sat across from Alden at my table and acted like his friend. I can love you and still not want you here right now. He keeps saying he never meant to hurt me." She said, "He asked you to speak for him, didn't he?" I told her about the driveway.
She let out a tired breath. "He's my son," she said. "I love him. That doesn't mean I can have him in my kitchen pretending nothing happened. Gideon had asked whether they could put it behind them now that Belle and Saurin were apart.
Lenora told him that the affair was not the only problem. He had looked Alden in the eye and lied for weeks. When she asked him why he had protected Belle instead of telling her the truth, he kept saying he was afraid she would leave. "I asked him if he understood he'd given me a reason to," she said. he didn't have an answer. She had taken the family photograph down from the hallway and put it in a drawer.
She asked how I was doing. I told her some days were better than others. She said she was glad I told her even though it had hurt. I thanked her for not asking me to keep the peace at Thanksgiving. I wasn't interested in that kind of peace.
Belle and Saurin didn't stay together. I learned that during a meeting about the house in February. She brought mortgage statements but left the folder closed between us. She said Saurin had stopped answering her calls. When she finally reached him, he'd said he couldn't keep losing his mother over something that was already over.
He told her not to call again. "I gave up our marriage for somebody who won't even answer the phone," she said. "I didn't correct her. I also didn't reach across the table. She asked whether I thought Saurin had ever cared about her.
"I don't know," I said. "But I know what you were willing to do to me for him." She started crying. For a second, I wanted to comfort her. Out of 8 years of habit, I kept my hands on my side of the table. She wiped her face, opened the mortgage folder, and asked which statement I needed.
We finished what we'd come there to do. Belle asked whether I thought she deserved to be alone forever. No, I said, I don't think that. Then why can't you give us another chance? Because I can't build a marriage around checking whether you're telling me the truth, I said.
And I won't spend the next 8 years doing that. She looked at the papers. After a while, she asked me to pass her a pen. We didn't argue about it again. In the spring, we agreed to sell the house.
I couldn't afford the mortgage and buy out Belle's share without taking on debt I didn't want. We argued over the asking price, then agreed. Before the listing photographs, I replaced the pantry hinge Saurin had installed. The door had been catching for months. The house sold that summer.
After the mortgage and expenses, we divided the proceeds under our settlement. When the divorce was final, I went back to work and finished reviewing a delivery schedule. I didn't feel triumphant. I felt tired, then hungry. I bought a sandwich on the way home.
Gideon emailed me in August. He and Lenora were still apart and she had not decided whether she wanted a divorce. He said he missed the Sunday dinners. He also said Lenora now arranged through her sister whenever he needed to collect something from the house. She would not let him make calls on her behalf anymore.
They were speaking through a counselor about whether there was a marriage left to repair. He admitted he had expected Belle to confess eventually me to forgive her and Lenora never to find out he had lied. He wrote that he had told himself he was protecting the family. I was scared she'd leave me, he said. So I lied.
She asked me why I let her sit at that table with all of us. He wrote I had no answer. I believed he regretted it. But I remembered the garage and how he had asked me to carry the lie one more week. I closed the email without replying.
By October, I had moved into a smaller townhouse across Lancaster. It had a spare room and a patio just big enough for two chairs. I was still learning to buy groceries for one. The following Thanksgiving, Tamson invited me over again. This time, I brought the mashed potatoes and a pie from a bakery because I still wasn't much of a baker.
I arrived early to help set the table. When Tamson asked where I wanted to sit, I said, "Anywhere." She laughed and handed me a stack of napkins. Later, while we were clearing plates, I saw a message from Gideon. He hoped I was doing well. I put the phone away and helped Tamson carry the dishes to the sink.
At home, I ate a slice of the leftover pie standing in my own kitchen. I had work on Monday and groceries to buy. The patio door let in a little cold air. I made a note to fix it on