I sipped my coffee and forced a smile.
“Richard, I was telling Chloe how you and I met at that gala.”
“Mhm,” he murmured, eyes still on her. Then, almost as an aside, he reached over and squeezed my wrist. “You’ve seemed tired this week, haven’t you, darling? I keep telling her work is getting to be too much.” He turned back to Chloe without waiting for an answer. “Chloe, tell me, do you live nearby? Do you see your mother often?”
“Pretty often,” she said carefully.
He nodded slowly, as if she had just handed him something useful.
I needed a moment to breathe — and to see what he would do with the space.
“I’ll be right back,” I said, pushing back my chair. “Restroom.”
Neither of them really looked up. But as I stood, I caught Chloe’s hand sliding off the table and into her lap, her phone already cupped against her thigh.
In the restroom, I ran the tap until it went cold, then splashed water on my face. I gripped the edge of the sink and stared at myself in the mirror for what felt like forever, wondering when exactly I had started looking tired to other people. I dried my hands slowly. I checked my lipstick.
I gave him every minute he needed.
I had barely stepped back into the hallway when my phone buzzed in my palm. Chloe’s name lit up the screen. Her message was three words, typed clumsily under the table.
“Come back now.”
My stomach dropped so hard I felt it in my knees. I turned the corner and walked back toward our table, certain I could end this with one sentence.
That was not what I saw.
Richard was hunched forward, both elbows on the table, his face arranged into an expression of careful, fatherly concern. He was speaking low. Chloe was leaning back, very still, her jaw set in a way I knew too well.
I stopped a few feet away, behind a wooden divider, and listened.
“I worry about her, you know,” he murmured. “She’s been so stressed lately. Forgetting little things. I’m sure you’ve noticed it too, haven’t you, sweetheart?”
