LITMIR.BIZ

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was sitting in front of her.

      “I’m fine.” She still didn’t really know why he was here and then she saw him draw breath and knew she was about to find out.

      He studied something on the kitchen counter. “Have you canceled the trip to Paris?”

      “No.” Canceling would be the final acknowledgment that her marriage was over. Also, the moment she did it she knew Sophie would also cancel her own trip. She was still figuring out how to handle that.

      “Right. Good.”

      Good? Her heart skipped in her chest.

      Had he changed his mind? That was why he’d come here tonight, to find a way to ask her forgiveness.

      This was the first step toward reconciliation.

      Would she be able to forgive him?

      Yes, she probably would. They’d need to move away, of course. Leave this town and move to a place where no one knew them. They’d see a counselor. Find their way through this knotty mess. Rebuild their lives.

      “You don’t want me to cancel?”

      “I’ll pay you for my flight ticket. I don’t want you to lose the money. And I’ll take over the hotel reservation.”

      Grace felt as if her brain was working in slow motion. He didn’t want to take her to Paris. He was offering her guilt money.

      And suddenly she knew. God, she was so slow.

      “You’re taking Lissa.”

      He ran his hand over the back of his neck. “Grace—”

      “You want the tickets so you can take the girl—” she emphasized girl “—you’re having an affair with, on our anniversary trip.”

      He looked almost as sick as she felt.

      “I know it’s not the most tactful thing to ask you.” He looked desperately uncomfortable. “But it does make financial sense. You already booked the whole trip, and I know you’ll lose money when you cancel.”

      She could imagine how the discussion might have gone with Lissa.

      He would have fought it, she was sure of that.

       I can’t expect my wife to give me the tickets she booked to celebrate our anniversary so that I can take my lover.

      Maybe Lissa had been testing him, checking how far he’d go for her.

      A part of Grace wanted to know the answer to that, too.

      He was a man at war on the inside. Good versus bad. David, the good guy, trying to slide into the skin of bad guy and finding it didn’t fit comfortably.

      “What have you turned into, David? What’s happened to the man I married?” She stood up quickly, frightened that her emotions would tumble onto the table between them. “Go. I said five minutes, and you’ve had your five minutes.”

      His fingers curled and uncurled. “I know it’s been stressful for you, but it’s also been stressful for Lissa.” He slid her a look. Wild. A little desperate. “Some of the people in town don’t even speak to her anymore. She’s finding it upsetting. She’s young, Grace. She’s struggling to handle all this.”

      Grace almost choked. “She’s struggling?”

      “I’ve lost a lot, too. I’ve lost my house, my standing in the community and also my close relationship with my daughter.”

      “She isn’t a pair of socks you’ve abandoned under the bed. You haven’t lost her. You chose something different.” Even as she said the words she was wondering what about me. Why wasn’t she on that list? Hadn’t she ever been important to him?

      She looked more closely at him and saw that he looked haggard. Why hadn’t she noticed that right away? If anything he looked worse than she did. Maybe having a girlfriend half his age was proving harder work than he’d imagined.

      “You need to leave now.” Before she picked up a skillet and clocked him over the head with it. That would give him the best headline he’d ever had in his time as editor. Shame he wouldn’t be alive to read it.

      He stood up. “Let me pay you, Grace. I don’t want you to lose money.”

      “I won’t lose money, because I’m not canceling.”

      It was difficult to know which of them was most surprised.

      David couldn’t have looked more dazed if she had clocked him over the head. “You’re surely not planning on going?”

      “Yes, I’m going. I’ve been looking forward to it for ages. Why would I cancel?”

      “Because—” He seemed lost for words, even though words were his job. “You don’t— You never— You travel with me. I’m the one who takes care of the passports and—”

      “I can carry my own passport, David. And yes, in the past we’ve traveled together but you now have a new traveling companion, so I’ll travel alone. If Lissa needs a trip to Europe, you can arrange your own.”

      “I— This isn’t like you.”

      “Maybe we don’t know each other as well as we thought.”

      “Maybe we don’t.” He took a deep breath. “Can I see Sophie?”

      “No.” She’d discovered a layer of steel inside her that she didn’t know she had. “You’ll upset her and she has a test tomorrow.”

      “I was the one who always reassured her before tests.”

      “Maybe, but right now she doesn’t find your presence reassuring. Call her tomorrow, and if she feels like seeing you then she can. It’s her decision.”

      She stalked to the front door and was relieved when he followed.

      She’d half expected him to make a dive for the stairs.

      He paused in the doorway, and his eyes were sad. “I know you’re never going to forgive me, but I didn’t want it to be this way, Grace.”

      She gave him a little shove and closed the door between them, not because she wanted to be rude, but because she didn’t trust herself not to break down and cry.

      She’d always believed she could control the things that happened in her life and keep her world in the shape she wanted it to be. Discovering that wasn’t the case was as frightening and heartbreaking as losing David.

      Tears poured down her cheeks. She couldn’t let Sophie see her this upset.

      She waited until David’s car disappeared into the distance, called up to Sophie to tell her where she was going and then drove to the one person who always made her feel safe.

Mimi

      Through her kitchen window, Mimi saw Grace flying down the path toward her cottage.

      The edges of her coat flapped open and the rain had dampened her hair into curls so that each strand appeared to be fighting with the next, but what really caught Mimi’s attention was her expression. Everything she felt showed on her face.

      Instinctively Mimi reached for her camera but then put it down again. She’d recorded many things over her lifetime, but she wasn’t going to record her granddaughter’s pain.

      As a child Grace had learned to hide it with most people, but never with Mimi. It was as if she’d given her grandmother the key that opened the door to her soul. In that moment she looked so like her mother that Mimi was immobilized, her memory transported to another time. It was like seeing Judy again, like being given a second chance.

      Some women weren’t meant to be mothers.

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