My chest tightened.
“Did she say who?”
“No.”
Then the woman added,
“She talked about you all the time.”
I wasn’t ready for that.
“What did she say?”
“Mostly that you were spending too much time taking care of her and not enough time being a college student.”
Despite everything, I laughed.
“That sounds like Mom.”
“There was one conversation I remember very clearly. I asked if you knew about her plans for the house.”
I waited.
“She told me, ‘My daughter is nineteen. Let her just be my daughter a little longer.’”
I covered my mouth.
For weeks, I had convinced myself I had been protecting Mom by keeping Dad’s affair secret.
Maybe she had been protecting me too.
Maybe each of us knew more than the other realized.
My eyes drifted toward the old brass numbers beside the door.
17.
And suddenly I knew exactly what I would give Dad and Lisa on their wedding day.
