“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.”
