Finally, Diane whispered:
“I don’t want to be here when he wakes up.”
And then, before I could ask another question, she added:
“Please don’t tell Ethan yet.”
That sentence told me almost as much as everything she hadn’t said.
Because six nights earlier, Ethan had warned her not to stay.
And Diane had stayed anyway.
I had been married to Ethan for nine years.
His mother and I weren’t best friends, but we had something better than the stereotypical daughter-in-law relationship.
We respected each other.
Diane didn’t show up unannounced.
She didn’t criticize how I cooked.
She didn’t ask when we were giving her grandchildren every Thanksgiving.
And I didn’t interfere in the intensely close relationship she had with her only son.
But that relationship changed after Ethan’s father, Robert, died.
Robert suffered a massive stroke three years earlier while trimming hedges behind their house.
