She lifted her shoulders. “Not entirely—at least, not by the news about my mother’s paternity. I could see it coming as the story unfolded.” The swing settled into a slower rhythm. “When I saw that photo of Joe, I knew for sure. But it’s made me think about thingsdifferently. It’s made me realize how little you really know someone you think you know.”
We rocked in silence for a moment.
“That was the situation with my ex,” she said at length. “He stepped into my life right after my mother died. At the time, I felt... well, you know what grief’s like.”
I could only nod.
“It was at a time when my friends were all getting married and drifting away, and I felt so lost and alone—like I had nothing to live for.”
Thank God I’d had the girls to anchor me when I lost Christine. I nodded, encouraging her to go on.
“Kurt seemed so strong and loving and supportive—that’s what I wanted to believe, anyway—and so sure that we belonged together. And the whole time... well, he was after my inheritance. We’d only known each other five months when we married. I think I knew pretty soon afterward that things were kind of lopsided—that I cared more about him than he cared about me. But I thought it was my fault. I thought I just wasn’t good enough in some way. I thought something was lacking in me.”
My chest felt tight. “You’re better off without him.”
“Oh, yeah. I see that now. But at the time, I couldn’t—or wouldn’t. But with Gran—well, she’s been there my whole life, and I guess that makes you think you know everything about someone. I guess the bottom line is, people are just not completely knowable.”
“Maybe not.” The tree frogs hummed to the creak of the swing.
“Were there things about Christine that you only found out after she died?”
I nodded. “I found an old diary from high school. It was mainly teenage-angsty stuff. She worried that her calves were too skinny, and I didn’t know that she wanted to visit every continent.” Or that she’d thought the sun rose and set on somebody named Ron Kidman, and that she’d let him feel up her breasts. “Reading that diary made me wish we’d traveled more.”
“I’m sure she loved the journey she was on with you. She was probably so glad to be a mom that she didn’t care.”
“Yeah.” I didn’t say that I’d found part of a more recent journal on her computer, and that I’d read there had been times she’d felt trapped and frustrated. She’d written that I wasn’t always around enough and she felt overwhelmed by two kids in diapers and she missed her job. That had hurt a lot more than knowing some jerk-off jock had groped her teenage breasts.
We rocked in companionable silence for a while. “I found her college diaries, too,” I found myself saying. “Before we met, it turned out she’d had a crush on a guy I thought she hated. How did I not know she liked him?”
“What matters is that she lovedyou.”
“Yeah. But I didn’t want to really know about her loving—crushing on—someone else. There’s a part of me that wants to be the only one she ever loved.”
“That must be how my grandfather felt. I really feel sorry for him, you know? But it doesn’t matter who’s first. It only matters who’s last.”
“That’s very profound.”
“That’s me. Deep and profound. And probably quoting Dear Abby.” She grinned, but her eyes stayed pensive. “I feel sorry for everyone in my grandmother’s situation.” She glanced at me. “It’s kind of like that with you and Jillian.”
“Huh?”
“She’s in love with you. Surely you know that.”
“I...” I looked at the live oak on the far side of the lawn, a little startled. “I wouldn’t call it love.”
“I would. I see how she looks at you.”
Egads. Was she right? “What do you suggest I do about it?”
“Start dating someone else.”
I stretched my arm across the back of the swing. “Is this a sly way of getting me to ask you out?”
She grinned and rolled her eyes. “Do I look that desperate? Besides, you already asked and I told you no.”
“Ouch.” I put my hand on my chest as if I’d been stabbed. “You really know how to twist the knife.”
“I’m sure you’ll recover.” She gave me a soft grin, then looked away. As she turned her head, her hair brushed my arm on the back of the swing.
