My Mother Had Known for Six Months
Chapter 11 - My Mother Had Known for Six Months
I found my mother sitting on the edge of her bed.
She did not deny it.
That almost made it easier.
Almost.
“How long?”
“Six months.”
The answer emptied the room.
I leaned against the dresser.
“You knew Lauren was taking money from the bakery?”
“I knew about the first transfer.”
“And you said nothing.”
“She came to me crying.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course she did.
Lauren had gone to the person most likely to confuse rescue with love.
My mother said Lauren promised to replace the money when Nate sold his restaurant property.
“She was terrified you would cut her out of the business.”
“So you protected her.”
“I was trying to protect both of you.”
There it was again.
The family word for silence.
Protection.
Daniel had used it.
My mother used it.
Lauren had probably used it on herself.
Everyone had protected me until I was the only person who did not know my own life.
“Did you know about the knife?”
“No.”
“Did you know she wanted to stop the wedding?”
“No.”
I believed her.
But belief did not erase the damage.
My mother reached for me.
I stepped back.
Her hand dropped.
“I’m sorry.”
“You let me build a business beside someone you knew had already stolen from it.”
“I thought she would fix it.”
“You gambled with my future because you were afraid to upset her.”
Tears rolled down her face.
“Yes.”
The honesty hurt.
But it also gave me something solid to stand on.
I went home.
Not to my mother’s.
Not to Daniel’s.
To the tiny apartment above Carter & Daughters that had been empty since we converted it from storage.
The walls smelled faintly of flour.
The radiator knocked all night.
At three in the morning, I sat on the floor with my wedding ring in my palm.
I thought about every person who had decided what truth I could handle.
Then someone knocked.
I knew it was Daniel before I opened the door.
Duke sat beside him.
Daniel held a paper bag from the twenty-four-hour diner down the street.
“Fries,” he said.
I looked at him.
“No speeches?”
“No.”
“No explanation?”
“Not unless you ask.”
Duke leaned against my leg.
I let them in.
We ate fries on the floor.
For twenty minutes, neither of us talked about the wedding.
Then Daniel said, “I was wrong.”
I looked at him.
He continued.
“I thought love meant keeping pain away from you.”
His voice shook slightly.
“But I think maybe love means standing next to you when it arrives.”
I stared at the ring in my hand.
For the first time since the knife hit the church floor, I wanted to believe in something again.
Then Daniel’s phone rang.
It was the detective.
The police had recovered a partial image from a backup camera inside the church hallway.
May you like
A woman was entering the bridal suite during those missing fourteen minutes.
But the woman in the image was not Lauren.
