“They tried to exclude her. My mother stopped them.”
“That’s not what happened.”
I handed him Mara’s card.
“Your wife wrote this.”
He recognized the handwriting immediately.
His expression shifted as he read.
Then he turned the card over, as though there might be another explanation on the back.
“There must be some mistake.”
“My mother was helping Anna, not excluding her.”
He lowered himself into a chair.
“I heard her talking about Anna not being able to participate.”
“She was repeating what someone else had said.”
His eyes moved toward the photograph.
“Mara tried to tell me something like that.”
I waited.
“I thought she was defending your mother to avoid another argument.”
“So you didn’t believe your own wife?”
He didn’t respond.
“She asked me to let it go,” he finally whispered. “Said Anna had enjoyed herself by the end of the evening. But I couldn’t forget how upset she’d been.”
