Chapter 13: The Same Woman Until Four

I woke at five on Saturday with one rule.

Until four o'clock, I would be the woman Trenton thought he had.

Nan sat on the end of my bed in her robe, with the screenshots open on her reading glasses and her cane across her knees.

She had read them twice in the night.

"Eight years," she said.

"Yes."

"I held my tongue for eight years because you asked me to."

"I know, Nan."

"I would like it noted that I was magnificent about it."

"It's noted."

She took off her glasses and looked at me hard.

"Can you do it? Smile at that boy for six more hours?"

"I smiled at him for eight years," I said. "I'm very good."

"You are," she said, and her mouth went tight. "That's what frightens me."

The bridal suite on the nineteenth floor had a view of the lake and a bowl of green apples nobody was eating.

Two women from the hospice office were there by nine, in their good dresses, and both of them hugged me too long.

Neither of them knew about the screenshots.

They knew only that I was doing this on purpose, and that they were allowed to be angry for me.

"If he walks in late again," one of them said, "I'll trip him."

"Get in line," Nan said from the sofa.

Krista arrived at ten with a camera operator, a lighting boy and a coffee carrier with six cups.

She wore a silk robe that said MAID OF HONOR in rhinestones, and she squealed when she saw me.

"Corrie! You look unreal! Chat, look at her!"

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