“You’d be nowhere without this roof, Delia,” he said one night, cutting into his steak. “Remember that.”
“I remember.”
“Good.”
I remember.
The knock came on a Thursday, a little after ten in the morning. Dalton had left for the office at seven, briefcase in hand, whistling. I was working from home and opened the door expecting a delivery.
Piper stood on the porch in a stained gray coat, thinner than the girl I’d raised, a newborn wrapped in a pale hospital blanket in her arms.
I made a sound I didn’t recognize coming out of my own throat.
“Don’t tell Dalton I’m here,” Piper said quickly, low.
“Don’t tell him what? That you came back after a year — with your baby?”
Don’t tell him what?
She flinched like I’d struck her. “You know nothing about your husband.”
I froze. She held my gaze. “You need to learn the whole truth before he comes home.”
I stepped back without quite deciding to, letting her in with the baby. She sat on the couch. “Mom, this is your granddaughter, Iris. I’ve been safe.”
I reached for the baby instinctively. She let me.
“Piper, baby, where — where have you been?”
“I didn’t come back for a reunion, Mom,” she said, almost dismissive. “I came because you don’t know where your husband’s money actually goes.”
“What money? He pays the bills, the mortgage—”
“Grandpa’s money. The account he left me for college.”
