“There you are,” she said. “Your mother has been calling me all evening. We were worried.”
The word we landed heavily.
“I needed air,” I said.
Her gaze dropped to the shopping bags in my hands.
For a fraction of a second, something sharp crossed her face.
Then it disappeared.
“What is all that?”
“Donations,” I said, setting the bags down. “For a church pantry.”
“How noble.”
I looked at her then. Really looked.
Claire Whitmore had always been beautiful in a way that made rooms rearrange themselves around her. Golden-brown hair, effortless clothes, a voice that could turn from velvet to steel without warning. After my divorce, she had known exactly when to comfort me and when to let silence do the work. She had been patient with my bitterness. She had called Megan manipulative when I needed someone else to say it first. She had made herself necessary.
