The following Sunday, I promised myself I would not watch Richard’s watch. This resolution lasted until 6:48 p.m. He was carving roast beef at Mom’s table, sleeves rolled neatly to his elbows, telling Chloe about the year he tried growing pumpkins and produced one miserable fruit the size of an orange. Mom laughed. Chloe smiled despite herself. I looked at the silver watch beneath the cuff of his shirt and felt absurdly irritated by an object that had done nothing except tell the truth.
Richard noticed me looking.
“Everything okay, Avery?”
“Fine.”
Chloe coughed into her napkin.
I kicked her lightly beneath the table.
She kicked back.
Mom, perhaps determined to prove that our previous conversation had never happened, was unusually cheerful. She had placed fresh flowers near the window and opened a bottle of wine she normally saved for holidays. There was also an apple crumble cooling on the counter. I wondered whether she had chosen dessert because it was Richard’s favorite or because some stubborn part of her wanted to see if anything could persuade him to stay.
At 7:02, Richard checked his watch.
At 7:11, he did it again.
Chloe’s gaze flicked toward me.
I concentrated on my vegetables.
At 7:18, I failed.
“Big plans tonight, Richard?”
Mom’s fork paused.
Richard’s did too.
Then his easy smile returned.
“Work, unfortunately.”
“Sunday night?”
“International client.”
“Really?”
“Singapore.”
Chloe stopped chewing.
Richard reached for his water. “Time difference.”
“Singapore,” Chloe repeated.
“Yes.”
“On Sunday.”
Richard grinned. “Business doesn’t care what day it is.”
“True.”
I recognized the dangerous brightness entering my daughter’s eyes.
“Chloe.”
She ignored me.
“Neither do plumbers, apparently.”
Silence.
Richard frowned.
Mom looked at Chloe.
I stared at my plate, already knowing exactly what she meant.
Two Sundays earlier, Richard had left before dessert because he claimed a plumber was meeting him at his house at nine in the evening.
At the time Mom had asked, “A plumber works that late?”
Richard had laughed and said the man was doing him a favor.
I had forgotten.
Chloe had not.
She smiled pleasantly. “You had that emergency plumber a couple weeks ago. Remember?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“So your schedule is just really unlucky on Sundays.”
“Apparently.”
His tone remained light, but the muscles along his jaw had tightened.
Mom set down her fork.
“Chloe, would you help me in the kitchen?”
“That sounded like an order disguised as a request.”
“It was.”
Chloe stood.
As she passed behind me, she whispered, “Singapore,” as though delivering evidence to a jury.
In the kitchen Mom spoke to her in a low voice I could not hear. Richard kept eating.
After a moment he said, “She’s protective.”
“She loves her grandmother.”
“I know.”
“She also notices things.”
He looked at me.
I had not intended the sentence to sound accusatory.
It did.
Richard dabbed his mouth with his napkin.
“I suppose I’ve given you all reason to think I’m a little strange.”
I almost laughed.
Instead I said, “You leave at the same time every Sunday.”
“I have obligations.”
“That word again.”
His gaze sharpened.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
“It doesn’t sound like nothing.”
Before I could answer, Mom and Chloe returned. Mom resumed her seat with the rigid dignity of someone who had just lost an argument with a teenager. Chloe looked completely unrepentant.
The evening continued.
At 7:26, Richard’s hand moved toward his watch and stopped halfway, as if he had remembered he was being observed.
That tiny correction bothered me more than the checking itself.
At 7:28 he stood.
“I should get going.”
Mom looked toward the untouched apple crumble.
“So soon?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Your call isn’t until eight.”
“It takes me a little while to get set up.”
His leather tote was already in his hand.
Chloe looked at it.
So did I.
Richard noticed.
For half a second, he pulled it closer against his side.
Then he kissed Mom.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.”
He left.
The front door shut.
Nobody moved.
Finally Chloe said, “Does Singapore require a special bag?”
“Enough,” Mom snapped.
Her voice was sharp enough that Chloe flinched.
Mom saw it and immediately regretted it.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“No. It isn’t.”
Chloe began clearing plates. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
My mother watched her for a moment.
Then she touched Chloe’s arm.
“You’re trying to protect me.”
Chloe nodded.
“I know.”
“Then why are you mad?”
Mom looked toward the front hallway.
“I’m not sure who I’m mad at.”
That answer silenced all three of us.
During the next week, I tried not to think about Richard. Unfortunately, once suspicion settles into ordinary life, everything begins arranging itself around it. I noticed Mom checking her phone more often. I noticed she never mentioned visiting Richard’s place. I noticed that when he called, she sometimes walked into another room—not because she was hiding the conversation but because she seemed to listen more carefully than she used to.
On Wednesday, I arrived at her house while she was sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea gone cold.
“You okay?”
“Of course.”
“Convincing.”
She looked up.
“Richard canceled lunch.”
“Why?”
“Something came up.”
“What?”
“A family matter.”
I pulled out a chair.
“What family?”
“Avery.”
“I’m asking because he told us he doesn’t have children.”
“He doesn’t.”
“Siblings?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Parents?”
At that, she hesitated.
I noticed.
“Mom?”
“He’s mentioned his mother.”
“Mentioned how?”
“Just that she’s older.”
“Where does she live?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is she nearby?”
“I don’t know.”
I stared at her.
“You’ve been seeing him half a year.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t know where his mother lives.”
“No.”
“Do you know her name?”
Another pause.
“Evelyn, I think.”
That was the first concrete piece of Richard’s family history I had ever heard.
Evelyn.
A mother somewhere.
Older.
Possibly the reason for a canceled lunch.
It should have reassured me. Instead, the secrecy around such an ordinary fact made me more uneasy.
“Have you met her?”
“No.”
“Has he offered?”
“No.”
Mom wrapped both hands around her cup.
“He doesn’t talk about her much.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
There it was again.
The phrase Richard had quietly threaded through my mother’s relationship.
I don’t know.
Mom seemed to hear it too.
She looked down.
“I hate this.”
“What?”
“Feeling foolish.”
“You aren’t foolish.”
“I’m seventy-two years old, Avery. I know what evasiveness looks like.”
“Then ask him.”
“And if I don’t like the answer?”
The question landed harder than I expected.
I moved my chair closer.
“You still deserve the answer.”
She gave me a tired smile.
“Being right is easy when it’s somebody else’s heart.”
I let that pass.
Friday evening Richard came by unexpectedly.
I was leaving Mom’s house when he pulled into the driveway carrying groceries. He smiled when he saw me.
“Good timing. I bought enough bread to supply a small school.”
“Planning something?”
“Soup. Grace mentioned she wanted to try a new recipe.”
He opened his trunk.
There was the leather tote.
Standing upright beside a folded jacket.
The zipper was closed.
Richard saw my eyes move toward it.
His body shifted almost imperceptibly between me and the trunk.
It was such a small thing I might have imagined it.
“Need help?” I asked.
“No, I’ve got it.”
He lifted two grocery bags at once.
I reached for a third.
“I can carry that.”
“I said I’ve got it.”
Too quickly.
We both froze.
Then Richard smiled.
“Sorry. Long week.”
“No problem.”
He closed the trunk.
The leather tote remained inside.
That bothered me.
If it contained ordinary work papers, why hide it?
Inside, Mom kissed his cheek and immediately became lighter. I watched her take the bread from him, scolding him for buying too much. Richard answered with some nonsense about carbohydrates being proof civilization had succeeded. She laughed.
I stood by the door and felt something close to resentment.
Not because he made her happy.
Because he made happiness part of the cost of asking reasonable questions.
Before I left, Richard followed me onto the porch.
“Avery.”
I turned.
He closed the door behind us.
For once, he looked older than fifty-two. The humor had drained from his face.
“I know you don’t trust me.”
I folded my arms.
“Should I?”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t evidence.”
“I care about your mother.”
“I believe that.”
He seemed surprised.
“You do?”
“I’m suspicious, Richard. I’m not blind. You look at her like she matters to you.”
“She does.”
“Then stop making her wonder where you disappear every Sunday.”
His expression closed.
“It’s complicated.”
“That answer is becoming a problem.”
“I know.”
“Then simplify it.”
He looked toward his car.
For a moment, I thought he might tell me.
Instead he said, “Some things aren’t mine alone to explain.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
He shook his head.
“I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Richard—”
“Just know I’m not trying to hurt Grace.”
“People hurt each other all the time while trying not to.”
He looked at me then, and something in his face changed.
Not anger.
Pain.
Real enough that I almost apologized.
Instead he said quietly, “I know.”
He went back inside.
I stood on the porch, replaying his words.
Some things aren’t mine alone to explain.
That did not sound like another woman.
It did not sound like business either.
For the first time, my suspicion changed shape.
Sunday arrived.
This time Richard’s excuse was his elderly neighbor, Mr. Mendez.
“He can’t open his blood-pressure medication when his arthritis acts up,” Richard explained while putting on his coat.
Mom smiled. “You’re good to him.”
“I try.”
I glanced at Chloe.
She glanced at me.
Neither of us said Singapore.
At 7:30, Richard left.
Five minutes later, Chloe walked to the front window.
“He went south again.”
Mom was behind her.
We both turned.
Mom stared through the glass.
Richard’s car was already gone.
She whispered, almost to herself, “Why does he keep doing that?”
It was the first time she had asked the question instead of defending the answer.
I went to stand beside her.
“We can find out.”
Her eyes stayed on the road.
“No.”
“Mom.”
“No following him. No snooping. No humiliating me.”
“I wasn’t suggesting—”
“Yes, you were.”
She turned away from the window.
“My birthday is next Sunday.”
“I know.”
“I want one nice night. One.”
Her voice cracked faintly on the last word.
“I want dinner with the people I love. I want candles. I want chocolate pie. And I want to spend an evening without wondering whether everyone around this table is silently investigating my boyfriend.”
I felt ashamed.
“All right.”
She looked at Chloe.
Chloe hesitated.
“Okay.”
Mom nodded.
“Thank you.”
Then she walked upstairs.
Chloe waited until we heard the bedroom door close.
“She doesn’t believe him anymore.”
“No.”
“She just doesn’t want us to prove it.”
“No.”
Chloe stared at the empty driveway.
“Those aren’t the same thing.”
I knew that.
I also knew what she was thinking.
“Promise me.”
She looked at me.
“Promise what?”
“You will not follow Richard next week.”
“Mom—”
“Promise.”
Her expression tightened.
After several seconds, she said, “I promise I won’t ruin Grandma’s birthday.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“It’s the promise I can make.”
Then she walked away.
I should have stopped her there.
I should have understood that with Chloe, wording mattered.
Instead I let her go.
Click Here to continue read next: PART3: On Her Seventy-Second Birthday, Mom Asked Richard for Ten More Minutes and His Answer Finally Broke Something Between Them
Every Sunday Richard Vanished at Exactly Seven-Thirty, and My Mother Was the Only Person Willing to Pretend It Meant Nothing
Part 2 of 12
