Chapter 19: The Breakfast

Lachlan's mother had breakfast at eight o'clock every morning of her life, and nobody had ever missed it.

We did not miss it.

Lachlan walked in with me on one side and Daphne on the other.

We stood at the long table in the house where I had once been told I was not enough.

His mother sat at the head, in gray silk, with her white hair pinned tight.

She looked at me the way she always had.

"I see you have brought the guest room," she said.

Cordelia was already there, pouring coffee.

She wore her cream suit, and she smiled at us as though we had come for brunch.

"Good morning," she said. "I'm so glad you came. Sit. Everyone sit."

"We'll stand," Lachlan said.

He laid two photographs face down on the white cloth.

Then he put down eleven bank statements, one at a time.

"Say what's written on the back of these," he said.

"I can't read through paper, darling."

"Turn them over."

She turned them over with one finger.

She looked at the square blue capitals.

"I've never seen them in my life," she said.

"Five years to the day," Lachlan said. "Don't let her see it coming."

He did not raise his voice.

"I said those words to my wife on our anniversary, and I thought they were mine. They were on this paper first."

"Lachlan, you're upset."

"Daphne," he said.

Daphne spoke without lifting her eyes.

"She paid my rent for eleven months," she said. "She told me what to say on the anniversary."

"Go on," Lachlan said.

"She hired a man to follow Imogen. I saw the photographs."

"Poor girl," Cordelia said softly. "She's confused. She has been alone, and she's sorry, and she wants someone to blame."

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