My Husband's April Fool's Joke Came True novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: Joan

At midnight, headlights swept across the kitchen wall.

The dog lifted his head and gave one lazy bark.

Terrence was at the window before I was.

"It's Mom's car," he said.

"She never drives after dark."

Joan came up the porch steps in her good coat, with a pie in both hands.

It was still warm.

I could smell cinnamon through the door.

Terrence opened it, and for a moment they only looked at each other.

She hadn't touched him at the hospital, because Ernest had been there.

Now she put the pie down on the porch rail and held on to his arms.

"You're thin," she said.

"I'm not thin, Mom."

"You're thin," said Joan, and she began to cry.

Terrence put his arms around her, stiffly, and then not stiffly.

I stood back and let them have it.

When she let go, she wiped her face with the back of her wrist.

"Ernest thinks I'm at bridge," she said.

"I told him bridge goes late."

She came into the kitchen and set the pie on the table.

She would not sit until I did.

"Kristen," she said.

"I came to say something I should have said at the first dinner you ever ate in my house."

"Go on," I said.

She folded her hands on the table.

"I knew about Taryn for more than a year before you did," she said.

"I knew about the baby the week she was born."

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