Chapter 2

“What did you just say?”

Claire pulled the blanket tighter around herself. She did not look like someone who had revealed too much.

“Ask Ethan,” she said. “He’s the one who gave me the coat that night.”

I turned to my husband.

Ethan glanced at the seated guests. “The eulogy is supposed to start.”

“When did that coat leave my mother’s room?”

“Nora, don’t interrogate me here.”

“Answer me.”

Lucy was still holding the wooden box for the memorial cards. Her fingers pressed hard against its edges.

I did not want her hearing any more.

“Lucy, could you put that on the reception table for me?”

She looked at her father, then at me.

“Sure.”

Once she was out of earshot, Ethan lowered his voice.

“Last January, Claire had a winter charity gala. Her coat had been ruined, so I let her wear June’s for a few hours.”

“You told me it was at the cleaners.”

“You were taking care of June around the clock. I didn’t want you getting upset over something so small.”

Claire gave a short laugh.

Ethan shot her a warning look. “Enough.”

I remembered that week.

My mother’s condition had declined quickly. She could no longer sleep through the night, so I moved a folding bed outside her room in case she called for me.

When the red coat disappeared, I searched the entire cottage.

Ethan told me my mother had spilled soup on the sleeve and that he had taken it to be cleaned.

By then, she rarely spoke. When I asked whether she had stained the coat, she shook her head.

I assumed she had forgotten.

“You gave my mother’s coat to Claire, then let me believe my mother couldn’t remember what she’d done?”

Ethan’s expression shifted.

“I never said that. You decided June was confused.”

“Because you gave me a lie and let me fill in the rest.”

The memorial coordinator approached and quietly reminded me that all the guests had arrived.

I looked toward the center of the pavilion.

My mother’s photograph stood between white flowers.

In it, she wore the red coat on a winter beach, smiling wide enough to show the slightly crooked tooth she had always refused to fix.

She hated keeping people waiting.

I would not let her memorial become another place where Ethan and Claire fought to prove who deserved more room.

“Let’s begin,” I told the coordinator.

Ethan reached for the eulogy card. I slipped it into my purse.

“I already told you. I’m giving the speech.”

“Nora, we can discuss this later.”

“We will. Not now.”

I walked to the podium.

The eulogy was three pages long. I read only the first.

I spoke about the woman who had raised me alone, who went to the ocean every winter, and who still refused to let anyone choose her clothes after her fingers became too swollen to fasten her own buttons.

I did not look at Ethan when I reached the final line.

“The scattering ceremony will be rescheduled,” I said, closing the pages. “Please stay and share your memories of June. I’ll finish saying goodbye when I’m ready.”

Chairs shifted across the floor.

Ethan stood. “You can’t cancel it without warning.”

“Those are my mother’s ashes.”

“We’ve been planning this for weeks.”

“Then you had weeks to tell me the truth.”

I carried the urn into the preparation room behind the pavilion. The conversations outside faded when I closed the door.

My phone vibrated inside my purse.

Claire had sent me a photograph.

She was standing on the back porch of my mother’s seaside cottage, wearing the red coat. Dawn colored the sky behind her. In the glass door, a man’s reflection held up the phone.

Ethan.

The date remained visible in the corner.

It was the night I had driven forty minutes to a twenty-four-hour pharmacy for my mother’s pain medication.

Ethan had told me Claire left after dropping Lucy off.

I enlarged the picture.

Claire was barefoot. Her heels sat beside the door, next to two used wineglasses.

The door opened behind me.

Ethan stepped inside and locked it, keeping the guests from wandering in.

I held the phone in front of him.

“Why was she still at my mother’s cottage at dawn?”

His gaze settled on the photograph.

“Claire sends things like this to provoke you.”

“Who took the picture?”

He did not answer.

“If you expect to attend the rescheduled ceremony, tell me everything that happened that night.”

Ethan finally looked at me.

“Are you sure you want to know today?”

“I’m only asking once.”

His eyes dropped to the urn in my arms.

“Your mother knew Claire never left that night.”