“What happened?”
“Ruth wouldn’t give me your number. She reminded me what would happen to my family if I contacted you.”
“That’s why you disappeared?”
“That—and what she told me next.”
“What?”
“That you’d already moved on.”
“With who?”
“Carol.”
I stared at her.
“You knew about Carol?”
“Only what Ruth told me.”
“That we’d already started something?”
Anna nodded.
“She said you’d chosen Carol before I’d even left town.”
“But that wasn’t true.”
“I know that now.”
Then Anna hesitated.
“There’s more.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“Carol was there that day.”
“At my mother’s house?”
“Yes. She’d stopped by with a casserole. Ruth thought she’d already left, but she was still in the parlor.”
I couldn’t move.
“Carol heard what my mother said to you?”
“Every word.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she told me. About fifteen years ago, she tracked me down through my sister and sent me a letter. I never answered.”
