Chapter 4
Series 1 Chapter 4
I kept reading.
My mother had written slowly.
Some letters leaned sideways, and several words were pressed deep into the paper.
I could picture her stopping after every few lines, waiting for her hand to steady.
She began with an apology.
After I left for the pharmacy, Ethan told her Lucy had forgotten a bag and Claire was bringing it over.
Claire arrived with a bottle of wine.
Ethan opened it and said he would let her have one glass before sending her home.
My mother woke sometime after midnight.
She heard the guest room door close, but she was too weak to get out of bed.
At dawn, she saw Claire come out of that room.
Claire was barefoot and wearing the red coat. Ethan followed her, carrying two wineglasses.
My mother called him into her bedroom and asked what he had done to me.
Ethan admitted that he and Claire had been drinking. He said they had kissed, but insisted it ended there.
Then he begged her not to tell me yet.
By then, I had spent weeks sleeping outside her door, tracking her medication, helping her bathe, and contacting the people she wanted to see before it was too late.
Ethan told her one more blow might break me.
My mother had written:
He made silence sound like kindness.
She had not believed him.
She had still kept his secret.
It was the decision she regretted most. She feared I would spend her final weeks trying to save a marriage that had already begun lying to me.
The last part of the letter contained only three lines.
I wanted you with me.
I should have trusted you with the truth.
Please do not stay anywhere only because leaving will hurt someone else.
I laid the letter flat on the desk.
Claire’s perfume was gone. So were the wineglasses from the photograph. The guest room had been cleaned, and the bed was covered in fresh white sheets.
Ethan had had plenty of time to erase that night.
My mother’s letter remained.
I sent him one message.
Come to the cottage. Alone.
His reply came almost immediately.
What did you find?
I did not answer.
Forty minutes later, a car stopped outside.
Ethan entered without removing his coat. He saw the letter on the desk, then looked toward the closed guest room door.
“You went through June’s things?”
“She wrote this to me.”
“She was taking a lot of medication. She may not have understood what she saw.”
I pushed the letter toward him.
“She remembered the date, what Claire was wearing, and exactly what you told her.”
Ethan did not touch it.
“June was very ill. She saw Claire in the hallway and assumed she had slept in the guest room. It wasn’t as bad as she believed.”
“Claire’s photograph proves she stayed until dawn.”
“I never denied that she stayed.”
“You only denied that I had a right to know.”
Ethan rubbed his forehead.
“Nora, I know how that night looks. Claire had just ended a relationship. Lucy was pulling away from her. She drank too much and couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t let her drive home.”
“So you let her sleep here.”
“Yes.”
“My mother wrote that you admitted kissing her.”
His hand dropped.
“That happened.”
His answer was clipped. He did that whenever he wanted to make something sound too small to discuss.
“Who kissed whom?”
“Does it matter?”
“It matters to me.”
“Claire kissed me.”
“Did you push her away?”
Ethan looked toward the window.
“Not immediately.”
“How long did you wait?”
“Nora.”
“When did you stop?”
He approached the desk and picked up my mother’s letter, but he did not read it.
“I know I crossed a line. The next morning, I told Claire it could never happen again.”
“Answer the question.”
“I already did.”
“No. You admitted to a kiss because my mother saw Claire leaving the guest room. You gave her the smallest piece of the truth you thought would stop her from asking more.”
Ethan set the letter down.
“You’re upset. We can discuss this after the memorial.”
“The memorial is already ruined.”
“I didn’t ruin it.”
“My mother spent her final days carrying your secret. Today, you put her coat around Claire in front of everyone. You still don’t understand why those two things belong together.”
The color left his face.
I walked to the guest room and rested my hand on the doorknob without opening it.
“Did you betray me in this room?”
Ethan said nothing.
“Look at me.”
He raised his head.
“Was it only a kiss?”
His gaze moved past me to the closed door.
“It wasn’t only a kiss.”
I released the doorknob.
“Then tell me exactly what happened.”
Ethan drew a breath.