***
Later, on the porch, Chloe sat on the top step with her knees pulled up. I sat down beside her.
“Grandma knows something’s up. She’s just scared.”
“Let me have this.”
“Chloe. Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.”
“I’m not thinking anything.”
“You’re always thinking something. Your face has a thinking setting, and it’s currently on.”
My daughter smiled a little.
“Richard has another woman. Doesn’t he?”
“We don’t know that.”
“Or another family. A whole secret family in a house with a plumber that only works at night.”
“Chloe.”
“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.”
“What? I’m just saying what everyone is thinking. Grandma is thinking so, too. She just won’t say it because if she does, it might be true.”
I wrapped my arm around her shoulders.
“Her birthday is next Sunday,” I said. “I’m asking you, as your mother and as a coward, to please just let us get through dessert. We’ll deal with Richard afterwards.”
Chloe was quiet for a long time. So long that I thought maybe I’d won.
“We’ll deal with Richard afterwards.”
Then she said, very evenly, “I’m tired of watching Grandma be lied to.”
“Chloe.”
“I love her too, Mom. That’s all I’m saying.”
She stood up, kissed the top of my head as if I were the teenager, and went inside.
I sat on the porch a while longer, staring at the street where Richard’s taillights always disappeared.
“I’m tired of watching Grandma be lied to.”
***
Mom fussed with her hair in the hallway mirror for the third time. I could tell she was nervous. It was her 72nd birthday, and she wanted the night to be perfect.
“You look gorgeous,” I told her.
“I look like a woman who’s trying too hard.”
“Grandma, you look like a woman who’s trying just enough,” Chloe called from the couch. “There’s a difference.”
I could tell she was nervous.
***
The doorbell rang at 6 p.m.
Richard stood there with a dozen roses in one hand, a wrapped gift in the other, and that leather tote of his tucked under his arm as if it were surgically attached.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart!”
Mom lit up. Honestly, it was hard to stay suspicious when she looked at him like that.
Richard stood there with a dozen roses.
***
Dinner went beautifully.
Richard told a story about mistaking a zucchini for a cucumber at the gardening club and slicing it into a salad that nearly killed a man’s taste buds. Mom laughed so hard she snorted, which she hadn’t done since Dad was alive.
